8 ms·
Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this co
by 51Cards 15y ago
Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command.
I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely heavily on their option key to extend functionality but at its root the UI was designed so that the average user could do things in a simple, straightforward way. MS sees visually exposing commands to the user as their way to do it and while I may not entirely agree, I don't think it's without merit. My kudos to them for also letting me as a "power user" collapse the "newbie visual noise" off my screen and drop what I want on a custom quick access bar.
Remember: don't let your status as a power user cloud your view of how your grandmother might want to use her computer. There are FAR more 'grandmother' grade users than there are us.
- dhimes 15y agoThen why are the ipad and iphone taking off? It's really hard to learn to do things on those devices. It's cumbersome to turn off wifi and bluetooth to save battery. The control location makes no sense in the settings menu (to my mind, anyway). I was a HUGE Apple fan for the early Macs. I totally get what you are saying. But we LOST in the workplace. It was just too slow for the other folks in the office to use (of course, the real death blow was having only a graphics mode to the display so the typing was dreadfully slow-- and the secretaries wouldn't use them- but that's another story). But I get your point. That's why I phrased my response as I did. I have never done UI/UX testing- maybe the parent has and was sharing his insight. But if we are all just speculating, I've got to throw out a shout for the other point of view. Yes, too many (how many is too many? I don't know) and it gets to be like using VIM. But two buttons? Seems like it should be ok.
- serge2k 15y agoProbably because people think it looks fun and are wiling to put in the few minutes it takes to not a be completely useless with the device.
- 51Cards 15y agoI understand what you're saying, and despite the content of my above post I've never been an Apple guy, always a Windows one. Every time I went over to the Apple OS I felt I had one hand tied behind my back by lack of options. I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. I started on "PCs" in 1981 and have grown with them, this all comes naturally. So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68. I have also had the good fortune to work with a lot of 'artistic types' over the years as well, and in turn I watched how they use a UI. In my experience they just don't use much more than what is presented before them option wise. Trust me, I agree that this new ribbon is very cluttered and contains too much visual noise, but in turn I don't mind exposing things visually to the end user. I hate MS Office with the ribbon, but I deal with people all the time who love it. Just let me turn it off :)
- DougBTX 15y agoI felt I had one hand tied behind my back That reminds me of the first few times I tried to learn vim.
- nkassis 15y ago". I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. ... So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68" Well she no more typical a computer user than you are I would think. I like to see a curve of typical computer users age distribution (but I understand it would be a little skewed if it's hard for the older generations to use computers). I feel that ribbon is designed for a select group of new users who need that kind of help. And I hope it's easy to disable it. It's fine for Microsoft to use something like this as a default mode as long as power users are able to turn that stuff off. This is what turns me off on OS X, there is often no way to do certain more advanced things. Or it's hidden so well it requires hours of searching on the web for what plist to modify.
- varunsrin 15y agoIt's cumbersome because you have to navigate through a bunch of menus - however, its easy because you have a finite, visible set of actions to look through those menus (tap, swipe, repeat) and a finite set of menus themselves. In a desktop OS, you have a seemingly infinite set of modifiers (Ctrl, Alt, Double click, click, right click, Ctrl + Shift), which are not 'logical' operations like tapping and swiping - they must be learned and remembered.
- bane 15y agowhich are not 'logical' operations like tapping and swiping - they must be learned and remembered. And now even those are getting out of control: http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/gestures.html Pretty soon I'm going to run out of fingers, and these certainly aren't easily discoverable.
- ugh 15y agoYeah, because those gestures are more akin to keyboard shortcuts, i.e. something for power users. OS X is perfectly usable without complicated gestures. Two-finger scrolling is the most complicated thing an average user has to learn. This same pattern continues on iOS devices. They don't ever use complicated gestures, certainly not as the only way to accomplish something. The most complicated gesture you need is pinching. The new iOS 5 has gestures to switch apps and get home, but those are really like keyboard shortcuts since the home button is still there and offers a simpler alternative.
- gurkendoktor 15y agoThere is still a problem when you accidentally trigger gestures. All my friends are scared to touch my Mac because they'd trigger hot corners all the time. With 10.7, you can easily trigger gestures even on default settings. I am worried the iOS5 gestures will have the same problem.
- shabble 15y agoI'm not sure if it's just me, but the 'pinch with 3 fingers and thumb' gesture seems to be practically impossible on the older macbooks with a separate pad & button - there just isn't the space.
- ThomPete 15y agoThey are taking off because they are touch devices and not mouse devices.
- technoslut 15y agoI believe that it's only part of it. Another part is the lack of a filesystem. Many, if not most users, just don't like it or understand it. Though there are functions that are seriously lacking in iOS, I can't help but think that they're much closer to what is needed than MS.
- ThomPete 15y agoIt's only part of it but the primary reason. The actual removal of abstraction (mouse) have made it much easier to use it. This is why my son at 2 can use the ipad and he can't use the mouse and keyboard for the desktop and laptops.
- technoslut 15y agoI agree but what would happen if your son had to navigate Windows Explorer on a touchscreen? He may never have to but if older users are experiencing similar difficulties with the filesystem, little can be done with the command bar to completely fix this issue. I have no doubt that this UI, though cluttered, will help users out but I question whether this is ultimately the best solution.
- bmelton 15y agoI don't know why you got downvoted, and I upvoted to try and offset, but ignoring that... I think that you overstate the importance of turning off wifi and bluetooth. Those are power user options, for sure. When you're trying to conserve battery power, you're trying to streamline how you use the device, which to me, smacks of 'power user'. The flipside to that argument is that it is ridiculously easy to browse a web site, check your email and play Words with Friends and Angry Birds. These are the things that the majority of people care about... not whether or not a given physical interface is active or not.
- kyleslattery 15y agoYes, absolutely. There is almost no reason to touch wifi and bluetooth settings on iOS devices. I have wifi enabled all the time, and battery life is still excellent. Android devices on the other hand, need constant fiddling. My Droid would barely last a day with everything turned off, and with wifi, etc. turned on, it would die after only about 6 hours.
- aquark 15y agoGetting on a plane would be a fairly common use case, and independent of the 'power' level of the user. Disclaimer: I don't own an iOS device, so don't know how intuitive it might or might not be.
- rolleiflex 15y agoWell, for plane use, it has "Airplane Mode" as the first option of the Settings app, so at least for that it's covered.
- jrockway 15y agoBut airplanes have wifi now, so you can still want the cell radio off and have the wifi on. Yup, it's complicated. The world is a complicated place.
- sunchild 15y agoThis doesn't explain the "invert selection" button. I'm pretty sure that one is indefensible.
- varunsrin 15y agoYeah, while I think that select all & select none are pretty important ribbon items (most people never learn CTRL+A or Shift+Clicking), select inversion feels like a power user option to me.
- StavrosK 15y ago"Delete all files except this one."
- angusgr 15y agoI think the argument is less "noone but power users would need this" and more "only power users will know how to apply 'Invert Selection' to get the behaviour they want". ie there's an inductive leap between "I want to delete all files except this one" and "I can select that one file and then invert selection before deleting". At minimum it requires you to know what "invert selection" means. Ordinary users may take a different, more fiddly, path. I don't know if that's the case here. My intuition says it is. However, in my optimistic heart I hope Microsoft did a bunch of usability testing and determined that ordinary users do grasp an "invert selection" concept more often than not. That's how design for mass-use user interfaces works, right? By evidence-driven testing, not by what the programmer/designer thinks makes sense? Clings to idealistic belief.
- richardw 15y agoPeople who don't know about menus shouldn't really be mass-deleting things yet. Alternatively, add a button for "Help! -The Computer lost all my stuff".
- waitwhat 15y agoThat button is called the "Recycle Bin". I believe it has been on the default desktop since at least Windows 95.
- yason 15y agoI've often wondered why not pop up the context menu with the left mouse button, then. It's what most people seem to use most. How many times you actually have to select a file, except to context-click on it? Selection only comes handy when you will be doing something to several items at once. Thus, the selection function could be turned on via a menu item or a button: it's a totally different operating mode where you click on or drag around the items to select them.
- Jamiecon 15y agoAgreed. And not only does the ribbon increase accessibility for novice users, it also encourages advanced use by displaying keyboard shortcuts to a wide variety of functions in an intuitive way.