GUI Championships 2008: WindowBlinds
Tuesday, December 9, 2008 by Frogboy | Discussion: Personal Computing
This is the 4th GUI Championships and in that time we've seen some great skins made. WindowBlinds is a program that allows users to change the look and feel of the Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 graphical user interface (title bars, Start menu, push buttons, borders, checkboxes, etc.).
I am one of the 3 judges for the contest. Our votes help determine the 10 finalists who will be voted on by users. My criteria are the following:
1. Originality. How creative a concept is it? The benchmark is Luna, the default skin of Windows XP.
2. Usability. Does it allow me to use my computer effectively? That's a big part of it but it also has to be something I would want to use too.
3. Overall. This is largely a combination of the two but often times a skin is more than the sum of its parts. Using Windows XP's Luna as the middle benchmark, if a skin gets higher than a 5, it's better than Luna in my opinion. If it gets less than a 5, it's not as good as Luna.
Supporting Vista isn't required in the contest but obviously, if the skin doesn't work on Vista at all it's going to take a hit given that a quarter of the users out there are using it and that's only going to grow.
Now before people get upset with all the "low" scores let's remember that we're using Windows XP's default look, Luna, as the baseline for 5. It took countless meetings and effort for Microsoft to create Luna so anything that gets over a 5 is pretty impressive. Most scores are going to be less than 5.
Example of Luna (XP's default visual style running on Vista)
Luna from Microsoft is what you get when a committee designs a skin. It's quite usable thanks to good use of contrast and the title bar buttons are very large. It's not particularly pretty but it gets the job done. The borders aren't alpha blended so there are jaggies around the edges, no shadows, and the overall look is a bit of a drab blue. It's not ugly by any means in my opinion so I'm okay running it but it's also not particularly compelling.
Originality: 5
Usability: 5
Overall: 5
An example of a skinned OS:
Dragon from Stardock Design is a very original and well executed concept. The actual Windows title bars, borders, etc. have dragon scales on it. The dragon on the start menu is actually animated and extremely fluid. No included wallpaper in the skin, no dialog background texture but a very good explorer texture is provided. Very good use of colors keeps it highly usable and makes me, as a user, want to use it.
Originality: 10
Usability: 8
Overall: 9
...And it begins...
Agua is very original as a concept with an animated title bar and start menu. Unfortunately, it's not as usable as it could be because of the text color choices in various places makes it hard to read.
Originality: 7
Usability: 3
Overall: 3
Aqua XP is an interesting idea but the technical execution keeps it from being competitive. It's very hard to read the text and the art level and design quality aren't competitive as some of the elements don't remotely match.
Originality: 5
Usability: 1
Overall: 2
Aqueus makes good use of the Aero style but strikes me as being a bit too derivative of Aero to be considered original. Moreover, the lack of contrasting in the skin (it's all a blue-ish green) make it hard to use overall.
Originality: 4
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
BBK is a pretty creative idea that makes use of animation in the please wait dialog, the start menu and in the title bar. The constant flashing of the active window, however, makes it less uasable and the currently selected window in the taskbar is hard to find. Some of the text color choices keep it from being as usable as it could be too. The explorer background it includes is quite nice and it provides a consistent look and feel. Has a Vista version but it defaults on Vista to the XP version. A very good skin overall.
Originality: 8
Usability: 4
Overall:5
Black Cat is a cat inspired theme though other than a few claw parts it's not clear what's cat like about it. It's more complete than some of the other skins in that it has support for IE 7 buttons. It is also quite distinctive. Color choices make it less usable than it could be though.
Originality: 6
Usability: 3
Overall: 4
Cappuccino is a reasonably good effort. Both XP and Vista substyles included.
Originality: 4
Usability: 3
Overall: 3
Ce has some cool animation parts and is a good effort. Multiple substyles are included for XP and Vista. The usability is very limited due to some color choices but the skin is very complete.
Originality: 5
Usability: 3
Overall: 3
Cherry Chocolate is a fine effort that is a lot like Cherry Coke, it is probably an acquired taste. The IE 7 controls are pretty awful but the explorer background and some of the header images are really good.
Originality: 6
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
Denim is a very clever concept that is quite well executed for the most part. The Start menu text isn't as readable as it could be but that taskbar is really well done.
Originality: 8
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
Dream Loricae has one of the coolest start menus I've seen. It has some other pretty clever controls and makes very good of UIS2 on Vista. It's not really my type of skin but I can admire what it was going for.
Originality: 7
Usability: 5
Overall: 5
eXoroid is a very original idea marred by poor technical execution. The title bar text falls off the title bar area. In many respects, one coudl imagine this as an msstyles file that was ported over to WindowBlinds. It's a good effort overall though.
Originality: 5
Usability: 1
Overall: 2
Flash has a full-screen please wait screen which is something I wish more skinners would do as it helps create a more complete experience in my opinion. The skin itself is very creative with good support for XP and Vista.
Originality: 8
Usability: 3
Overall: 5
Flouxytine is a relatively clean skin but has aesthetics that could use some work particularly with the push buttons which could have benefited from being mono-color. It's a clash of styles with some parts being flat and other parts being seemingly rounded.
Originality: 6
Usability: 3
Overall: 4
Free Area is one of the best skins of the contest. It has a simple, clean style to it that makes it very usable but also very attractive. This is a skin I would use.
Originality: 6
Usability: 9
Overall: 8
IceBlue is one of those skins that falls into the trap a lot of skins use of picking a color and having everything be a hue of that color without concern with the effect on usability. The art style is also not competitive with th eother antries but there are some clever design concepts in it.
Originality: 3
Usability: 2
Overall: 1
iDive is a nice effort but suffers from some technical failings such as not controlling the title bar text and some inconsistent color choices.
Originality: 6
Usability: 3
Overall: 3
iSpire is a skin done by someone who knows how to skin WindowBlinds quite well. Good use of colors and active an inactive window colors demonstrates a great deal of technical expertise. The art quality and in particular the art direction are not strong. The Explorer buttons, for instance, are a completely different style from other areas of the skin -- crisp versus non-crisp. The use of colors in the skin also takes away from any consistent theme. There are some elements of the skin that are really tight that I like like the URL window controls. But then you'll have something like the tab controls which completely clash. Thus far, this is the best technically implemented skin. One could imagine the author teamed up with a professional graphics designer to create a skin that dominates. Still, I'd use this over Luna. Also loved the please wait animation.
Originality: 7
Usability: 5
Overall: 6
Kiwi has one of the cutest please wait dialogs in the contest. But holy cow is this skin hit or miss in its design. Definitely one of the most original skins I've seen in awhile, it's technical implementation could use some work. The inactive menus, for instance, completely clash (see the notepad menu). It's a combination of genius concept with sloppy implementation that keeps it from being the game winner it could be.
Originality: 9
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
Linea Roja is an extremely original skin. It's definitely one of the most original in the contest. It's a pity it doesn't have Vista support as a good explorer background would have bee nice and a dialog texture could have made the effect more complete. The use of animation in the Start menu is creepy and good. The usability of the skin isn't very good but it definitely is something a lot of people would likely want to use, especially with some customization.
Originality: 10
Usability: 3
Overall: 6
Lotus is a very fine concept marred by a few usability bugs (title bar text not being controlled) and some cosmetic issues on Vista. But the usability of this skin, assuming a fix to the title bar text, is very good.
Originality: 3
Usability: 8
Overall: 7
Mammas Boy is one of the better skins in the contest easily. Good use of color and art direction good Vista support, a roll-up button and a slick design make this a definite finalist.
Originality: 7
Usability: 8
Overall: 7
Mera has some parts that are really well done and other parts that make my eyes bleed. The choice of fonts, font sizes, and font colors in some places make me cry. The title bar buttons are terrible as well as the scrollbar controls. And yet it has terrific push buttons, a nice start menu and many other elements that make it quite nice.
Originality: 4
Usability: 2
Overall: 3
Metal Stone is an interesting XP-centric theme that is a good idea with some minor execution issues. I like the Start menu in particular but it also makes me think of how good the title bar and frames could have been with the same kind of creativity. This skin is basically an msstyles that looks like it was ported to WindowBlinds or more to the point, it looks like an msstyles to me which is a shame because the concept is so clever it could have been a really ground breaking skin.
Originality: 5
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
O Stage has one of the more clever please wait screens. Very technically well executed, it does suffer from some art direction issues (tabs and buttons should be as functional as possible). It's still a very good effort and demonstrates what is technically possible. I like the explorer background it comes with too.
Originality: 6
Usability: 4
Overall: 5
Pad is a very clever concept that takes the LCAR design and envisions it as a windows GUI. Unfortunately, its usability is severely limited because of some of the choices made. If I were doing LCARS, I probably would have forgone the metalic border entirely and had the border be simply a 1 pixel colored edge. That would free me to work with more of a black background. Here, the author has to battle way gray and black backgrounds which don't work so well.
Originality: 6
Usability: 3
Overall: 4
Panels is a good effort in many respects but in other areas it causes me pain to look at because of some of the mixes and matches in color It defaults to XP on Vista but once you get around that, you can see some great ideas and some painful art design choices. When people say "WindowBlinds skins are ugly" what they really mean is that WindowBlinds gives authors a lot more rope to hang themselves with because it is so much more powerful than uxtheme. This is a case where the author would probably have benefited from less rope. The Please wait screen is very clever though.
Originality: 4
Usability: 2
Overall: 1
Plastic Fantastic has one of the best please wait dialogs in the contest. Like the icon package of the same name, it may be the best entry in this year's contest. A few technical bugs. Near-perfect technical implementation, good art direction make this a must-have.
Originality: 10
Usability: 8
Overall: 8
Psycho II is a pretty neat skin. Good technical execution and a plainly awesome Start button and Start menu. Like many skins, it does suffer from GUI controls (buttons, scrollbars, etc.) that are not as committed to the design as they could be. Overall a fine effort.
Originality: 9
Usability: 5
Overall: 5
Rainbow is one of the few skins that actually attempts to do something different with the title bar buttons. In this case, the result, while original and creative, is not quite as usable as it could be. Like many skins, in some parts, it's extremely creative. In other parts, it's blurry and inconsistent. A very good effort overall though.
Originality: 9
Usability: 2
Overall: 4
Razor X doesn't mess around with its design. The Start menu is very up front and personal. With the right wallpaper combination this could be an extremely compelling experience. Definitely one of the better skins of the contest.
Originality: 7
Usability: 5
Overall: 6
Santa Toy box is a cute theme for the holidays that implements it better than most. Again, like many skins, it falters on the actual GUI controls like push buttons and scrollbars. But overall, it's a very nice design.
Originality: 8
Usability: 5
Overall: 6
Shimmer is a fine effort that suffers from the belief that "more is more" in all cases. Sometimes, less is more. It has some really nice parts including the title bar buttons but the title bar itself is somewhat distracting. The start bar is pretty well done but again, the taskbar buttons tend to be harder to read due to all the glassy effects.
Originality: 4
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
SkyUI is a fine effort though not really my taste but worth checking out.
Originality: 3
Usability: 4
Overall: 3
Synthetic is a clever idea that could use a little more more in the art direction area. A fine effort though.
Originality: 6
Usabiltiy: 3
Overall: 3
Tattoo is a really original concept that I really like in some ways. The Start bar and Start menu are really neat. I twould benefit from a Vista version but it is still really quite cool. It still suffers from what many skinners suffer from -- poor GUI controls in the push button and other GUI controls.
Originality 9
Usability: 4
Overall: 6
Under the Gun demonstrates good technical execution but middle level art direction. Unlike most WindowBlinds skins in the contest, it has pretty good GUI controls, the push buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes are quite usable. The title bar buttons aren't really usable because they require the user to know what the buttons do based purely on their position but at least it has a roll-up button. One of the better entries this year.
Originality: 6
Usability: 6
Overall: 6
I like WVS quite a bit. Definitely one of the best entries this year and one of the very few to have push buttons that are both cool looking and still usable.
Originality: 8
Usability: 8
Overall: 8
Comparison: Winter Wonderland from Stardock Design Winter Wonderland is a skin made by Stardock Design that is available as a MyColors suite. It's done by pros so one expects it to be of higher quality. The start menu is animated, the snowman falls down from the top nicely, the color and art direction is top notch and it combines originality and subtlety in just the right amounts. Originality: 10 Usability: 8 Overall: 9 |
White is a pretty traditioanl design that has a lot of promise but actually is broken on Vista because the per pixel frames are actually not complete (there are no title bar buttons). I had to run it with no per pixel support to get it work. That said, it's a reasonably good skin. My only complaint is how the title bar buttons actually work in practice, they're so squished together that it's easy to click on the wrong one mistakenly.
Originality: 4
Usability: 5
Overall: 5
Windows Mini Pro continues the trend of dark skins with a blue hue. Title bar text isn't constrained so in many ways it reminds me of an msstyels. But it's still a fine effort.
Originality: 5
Usability: 3
Overall: 3
X-Rumax is a interesting concept that has some really nice title bars and borders but the area with the actual title bar buttons feels a bit out of place. Some of the controsl don't really match with the rest of it but overall it's a nice effort.
Originality: 6
Usability: 4
Overall: 4
Yellow is an example where glass is not always your friend. Sometimes, it really is okay for a skin to be fully opaque. Yellow is a case where that is definitely the case. A very nice design overall that could be fixed up to be even better with some customization, it's a fine entry overall.
Originality: 7
Usability: 6
Overall: 6
Green Arista. Very creative but not very easy to use but a pretty well made skin.
Originality: 7
Usability: 2
Overall: 3
Called "Leonbox" in WindowBlinds but uploaded as "Serenity" this is a very usable skin other than a few minor bugs. Fairly traditional XP style.
Originality: 3
Usability: 7
Overall: 6
More to come...
Reply #43 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 12:15 PM
I have to agree with showing XP screenshots for the XP versions..my skin is for XP not Vista, so naturally is doesn't skin all the Vista elements.
Reply #44 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 12:39 PM
I run Vista so my screenshots are on Vista. I don't have time to take screenshots on both. Sorry.
Updated again.
Reply #46 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 1:21 PM
Brad, posting a screenshot of a bug when all the skins have bugs and no others were pointed out and posted (screenshot) and deducting 2 points from the overall score seems a little harsh to me, however, Your a judge and I'm not going to argue the point.
I am fixing the issue, I will update on DA and WC when fixed. Thanks, it was a bug, just wish I hadnt been singled out is all.
Reply #47 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 1:51 PM
good lord v.. you scored an 8 from him. Do you really think your theme is worth 10 all across the board or that your theme is above public constructive criticism??
All of the teams put forth great effort. Opinions are going to vary.
Reply #48 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 1:55 PM
well phoon considering a WB is made up of about 300 or so images, deducting 20% of an overall score for one being messed up does seem a little harsh yes. The score i can live with, the bug is being fixed, I just don't feel like singling one bug out of 40 odd skins was very fair.
Already over it, fixing. Life is good.
Reply #49 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 2:34 PM
Lessons I've learned from skinning the past two months:
1. There is no accounting for taste.
2. Skin for yourself.
I have read through this entire thread, and I just don't get it. I work on my computer every day, at least 9 hours a day. Right now I have the Birthday Suite applied, and even as guady as that is, it doesn't distract me from my work, or maybe the distraction is a relief--I do medical transcription, typing hospital reports from dictation--and I guess sometimes I'm struggling over what I'm hearing because emergency rooms aren't quiet, and doctors on the run sometimes forget there is an actual person who will have to listen to they're saying at break-neck speed while eating, and coughing, and chatting with coworkers, and my eyes need a break from text and the "flashy things" on the skin are a subliminal reminder that there's still a kid in me that enjoys eye candy, and life is still good.
If I were judging these skins, my criteria would be totally different from what is presented here, because the way I interact with my computer is way different than those who have judged here. What is being described as "functionality" here, to me, is sterility, boredom, and pointless (why skin at all if making the grade is just a narrow black line where the window frame used to be?) Don't get me wrong, I CAN appreciate a minimalist skin, but my idea of minimalist is just narrower bars.
I'm just saying, to those of you who didn't score what you would have liked to...I'm not handing out prizes, and I'm not one of the judges, but I've downloaded most of the skins that got lower marks and consider them a precious addition to my collection of blinds, and I appreciate and am grateful to you for all your hard work.
Reply #50 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 2:46 PM
A 4 is what i thought i might get - im happy with that. Im new to this game so still learning
Reply #51 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:25 PM
Reply #52 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:37 PM
always something aint it 'V' lol
{fake rant warning} I think my usability score of 5 is a little harsh and that the overall is a 5 I'm guessing because of that? Imz-a-gonna complain! Where is the oversight and regulations committee on this 'so called judging'? I got a 9 and a 5, isn't that a 7.5 overall? I see a fix coming on and demand a recount already!! {roflmao}
I'm just kidding.. all things considered I'm just happy I was able to get it finished and in the GUIC. Yes, maybe some of the skin could have been polished off a bit better and given more time and without the stressing distraction(s) it would have been. With the way things have been for me and my family it was not easy as is.
Thanks for putting on the compitition and putting in the time to make this post Brad. Also, to everyone else for their time, comments, skinning efforts and enjoyment of skinning/customization overall... with things like this we all win in the long run.
Reply #53 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:43 PM
I think the overall is a 3rd score SK.. not an aggregate per se.
Reply #54 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:46 PM
I can see from Brad's screeny that I need to fix the streatching margins on the right side of the start panel (the numbers in the LCARS thingy look bad)
I'm curious to know why the animation on the top of the start panel aren't showing in the screenshot
Oh well, not to defend my skin too much, but the concept is a PADD like this:
I'm not sure how I could do the start panel and window frames differently and be true to the subject
You are correct about the text/background colors...... it was a constant battle to make it work
Reply #55 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 3:59 PM
Reply #56 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 4:45 PM
Agauin, I think Brad has been dead on however Mac users don't need glyphs on buttons.
Reply #57 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 4:49 PM
Im very happy with the comments on my my skin, thanks Brad.
Reply #59 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 4:53 PM
There is no bug that I would deduct 2 points for unless it was like black on black on all windows or something. At most, something like that might result in a tiny fragment of a point.
The overall score I gave it was based on just my overall impression of the skin versus Vista. It's one of the best skins in the contest if not the best one.
Reply #60 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 5:03 PM
I don't love minimalistic skins in particular. WindowBlinds, for instance, supports all kinds of different concepts. I saw virtually no skins that even made use of the fact that WindowBlinds supports thick borders - very thick borders potentially.
But I have to be able to read the text. I need to be able to click on the buttons easily. Those things do matter.
Here's a non-minimalistic creative skin:
https://www.stardock.com/products/themes/unorthodox/pocketpc-ss.jpg
or
https://www.stardock.com/products/themes/unorthodox/anomaly-ss.jpg
or
https://www.stardock.com/products/themes/unorthodox/TabletPC-ss.jpg
Creative doesn't have to mean garish. You can make a really non-minimalistic skin that's great. It's about execution.
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Reply #41 Tuesday, December 9, 2008 11:52 AM
- LOL!!!
Too funny, I just loved reading that, Jafo where do you come up with this stuff, you would probably do very well as a stand up comedian!