Windows 8 Tablets to Feature Improved Dynamic Orientation Functionality

This is a guest post by Lauren. If you want to guest post on this site, then please read our guidelines here.

While Windows 8 is designed to run on many different devices, the developers at Microsoft seem to be focusing heavily on tablet functionality.

This may be because tablets present hundreds of new challenges and opportunities for the new operating system, but is probably also because tablets are more and more becoming the new laptop, and in some cases, even desktop, computers.

As such, the Windows 8 team has spent considerable time researching the ways people intuitively use tablets to optimize the operating system for the dual-orientation capabilities of the tablet platform.  Tablets are unique in that they offer a very personal user experience, both in the tactile interaction with content, as well as in the ability to allow users to choose their preferred viewing orientation (landscape vs. portrait).

Rotating a tablet from landscape to portrait is not a new concept; this feature has been a stable in even the earliest tablets (eg, the iPad).  Tablets that support Windows 8, however, tend to stress more the widescreen-landscape dimension of the device, and are often longer and narrower.

On the one hand, this might seem like a disadvantage for Windows 8, because it constricts the page width in portrait view.  But considering the page dimensions of a standard book page, it also could be an advantage over other, squarer tablets, because it distinctly differentiates between the two orientations, and allows developers to make the most out of two very different design schemes.

With a tablet, different screen orientations are better suited for certain activities than others, a fact that is corroborated by experience, and by test results from some observational research Microsoft conducted while working on screen orientation design.  Reading the news or email, for example, one would probably prefer a longer, narrower screen, to closer approximate a print page, whereas while watching video or playing games, one might prefer a widescreen, landscape orientation.

Because users can do all these things and more on a tablet, Microsoft focused much of their development on the rotation process between landscape and portrait orientations.

Two impressive process elements that the team has released are the rotation transition duration, and the orientation lock.

When a user turns the tablet from landscape to portrait, the accelerometer in the device registers the motion and sends a signal to the processor, triggering the rotation process.  Windows 8 features an incredibly smooth rotation animation, to gently transition users from one orientation to another — and all under 500ms.

The other feature, the orientation lock, is a response to a common problem in almost all hand-held computers: overly sensitive rotation trigger.  We’ve all experienced the frustration of a tablet that unpredictably changed from one orientation to another.  Windows 8 tablets will have an orientation lock button that prevents this kind of annoying setback.

It might not be the most exciting news we’ve heard yet, but that Microsoft is paying attention to even the smallest details such as this, definitely bodes well for the success of Windows 8.

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for best online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

View the original article here