Spy Shots: Windows 8 With a Ribbon Interface? [GALLERY]

Microsoft is experimenting with a ribbon interface for parts of Windows8, and we have a gallery of leaked screenshots showing examples of an early build.

Microsoft Word users are already familiar with the idea of a ribbon interface, where a tabbed and extra-tall toolbar resides at the top of the page, offering dynamic groups of icons in an attempt to make the user interface more efficient. Microsoft also added the ribbon interface to a couple of applets within Windows 7, including Paint and WordPad.

We’ve already shown you leaked pics of Windows 8′s taskbar, but what we see here are experiments with Windows Explorer (for you Mac users, that’s the Windows version of the Finder), adding various groups of tabbed ribbons at the top of the window. As you’ll see in the gallery, these leaked pics, courtesy of our new pals at WithinWindows, show a UI that’s very much under construction, with most of the future icons substituted by mere placeholders so far.

We also included a bonus screenshot in the gallery, a peek at the Windows 8 login screen that was revealed on Friday and many thought was an April Fools’ Day joke. While it’s been confirmed as the real thing by a fewdifferent sites, we’re thinking its design will probably change before Windows 8 hits the streets, which we’ve heard might happen in early 2012.

None of this is too pretty yet. We’re giving this artwork the benefit of the doubt, because Windows 8 is still in its early developmental stages. But we’ve gotten used to the ribbon interface in Microsoft Office 2007, and can understand its inherent efficiency. It gives interface designers a way to place lots of controls within easy reach, rather than burying them under multiple menus.

On the other hand, with today’s wider screens, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to use up even more vertical space on user interface elements.

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