Windows Mobile might-have-been UI’s

The istartedsomething blog reports on some Windows Mobile UI design concepts from Microsoft’s Advanced Technology Center (ATC), up till now responsible for the Windows Mobile UI, but who have lost that position for Windows Mobile 7.

A large collection of UI concepts have been collected in this blog post by Teng Lei, a user experience designer at the ATC, and they appear particularly attractive. While some a recognizable as user interfaces from Microsoft’s more recent efforts, like the Sliding Panels on the T-Mobile Shadow, a lot look much more like we have come to expect Windows Mobile 7 to look.

Long Zeng rightly asks why more of these concepts were not implemented, but until the Windows Mobile tell all book we can only speculate. I have however slowly come of the opinion that “high concept” UI’s confuse as much as they attract, and that simplicity may be the way to go for achieving mass market traction.

See the  collection here.