Hey guys, had some freetime recently, so I've been doing some tinkering with some interface designs for the NITs, and came up with this new design for the Maemo platform. It combines a bit of the current Maemo design with the iPhone layout. Tell me what you think.



For an understanding of the two bars at the top, the bar on the right is the "system tray" that is currently used on the NITS. The one on the left is the menu and program list. It holds a "home" button that takes you back to a blank desktop (well, a desktop full of widgits if you have them enabled, otherwise it's blank) as well as replaces the home menu in the home screen. To it's right are the web, email and programs menus currently in use on the NITS. Anything further to the right is additional programs that are running. So essentially it takes what's on the left bar currently and puts it on the top instead.

Gone is the titlebar and close buttons normally added by default at the top (see this image as a reference) and instead those will be added vertically to the left side. I may opt for the right side, but I haven't decided yet. Also gone is the pager, as that's added into the "home" button. Overall, the whole design is somewhat of a consolidation and simplification of the existing interface.

Also, the programs menu (denoted with the plus icon above) has been replaced by the icon slider in the center of the screen. I haven't added labeling yet to the icons, as I'm not sure how that'll work, but in the end, this slider would work very similar to the personal menu currently available to the tablets, but will be able to hold far more, allowing for multiple screens of icons. I'm also looking to integrate groups into the design too, but for now I've only got this in the initial mockup.

For those interested, I don't have a beta of this, or even any code as yet, as I only do the actual design and mockups of interfaces, rather than the actual coding and assembly of them. Plus this mockup is only what I would consider an initial demonstration (a 0.1 alpha of sorts) of the overall design, and does not even remotely demonstrate the final design. I'm still working on that. But since you guys would ultimately be deciding if this design will live or die, I figured to show my initial idea, and then get input from you on improvements and extras. After that, if any developer wants to turn my mockups into reality, they're welcome to.

Anyhow, your feedback is welcome. In fact, any feedback is welcome. If you like it, say so. If you think it sucks, I'm fine with that too. I'd rather hear "it sucks! kill it!" right away than put too much work into it and find out nobody likes it. heh. So be as gentle or cruel as you feel necessary.

PS: The desktop is show "with wallpaper" in place. I can show an empty desktop too if someone needs it.