I'm jumping on the redesign train, and these are the first attempts I have at fixing some issues. I'm working on/tweaking these, but I have more to share once I get around to finishing up loose ends. In Windows 8, there is a major problem: too many launchers. The Start Screen, the taskbar, searching for apps, and the multitasking bar are all different ways to access your apps. I attempt to unify them with this simple redesign of the Start Screen.

via i.imgur.com











This Start screen uses a one tile color policy (an option for users, multicolor or single color tiles), a replacement of fonts from Segoe UI to Segoe WP (it just looks nicer), a darkened desktop background, and a new collapsed switcher bar that doubles as the taskbar. First the unified color simply looks better, in my opinion, to the mismatched colors of today's start screen. Any apps utilizing Live Tile features would be required to use the accent color of the user/have a "Metro" icon, but static images could be any color/image the developer wants. There is now a clock on the start screen, and certain tiles can perform actions, like the Music tile when expanded to it's largest state. Finally, the collapsed switcher bar is my solution to the too many launchers issue. This bar shows all running desktop (instead of just the desktop as one single "app") and Metro apps as icons on the side of the start screen, and users can pin and access specific apps by swiping across them from the left bezel (much like Ubuntu's new mobile OS). So if a user wanted to open their Photoshop without searching through the full expanded switcher bar, they could swipe from left across the Photoshop icon and the desktop app would slide in. I'm still working out the kinks, but I also believe that this bar could utilize jump lists. I might add status icons at the top or bottom of this bar, but all the rest of the icons that sit in the tray will be relegated to the Notification Center, a work in progress located in the Settings Charm. The arrow on this bar will open the All Apps list, as Windows Blue will do as well.

Imgur link here: http://imgur.com/a/7EMzn#2

Here's a live look at the redesign process, via my Skydrive. http://sdrv.ms/18bFRem

