15 ms·

A "real" user proves Windows 8 fails on the desktop

225 points by ukdm 15y ago

mdkess 15y ago
There seems to be a serious fear of change. Should we converge on some adequate solution and stop moving? Regardless of whether Windows 8 has a good user interface or not, it should be judged against the effectiveness of the change, not just because it is different.
rplnt 15y ago
I never understood why they removed the "start" button in the later releases. I was used to using the "win" key so I didn't really care. Only after few weeks I found out that it is possible to open metro using the mouse.
ayiteddybear 15y ago
The same thing will happen when a user upgrades from gnome2 to unity, kde3 to 4, gnome2 to gnome shell. i just dont understand the point. should we stop innovation or what?
doodyhead 15y ago
I wonder how the experience would have went if he hadn't set the desktop up for him initially. For many new users, I imagine they would be starting with Windows 8 from scratch on a new PC or a fresh install, which surely provides a guided tour and lots of hints and tips. I still agree that excluding the Start button seems like a bad idea. Many novice users don't ever think of using the keyboard for navigation and it's clear from the video that switching back to Metro with the mouse is non-obvious.
- digitallimit 15y ago
  How do you switch back with the mouse?
  - bradford 15y ago
    click the lower left corner. It's functionally similar to pressing the old start button. though there's clearly some guesswork involved, since no start button is present.
    - el_devo 15y ago
      You can also click the lower right corner, then click the windows flag on the menu that pops out. This has exactly the same problem as the above method.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  For many new users, I imagine they would be starting with Windows 8 from scratch on a new PC or a fresh install, which surely provides a guided tour and lots of hints and tips. No, it doesn't. At least not the Consumer Preview. And that workflow only works for the very first person to use the system. It's defeated in any situation where you've got multiple people sharing a computer, and all using the same account. (i.e., normal computer usage patterns.) It's also defeated in any situation where the user dismisses the tour without even looking at it first. (i.e., normal computer usage patterns.) What they actually need to have Win8 do is automatically detect if it's running on a standard PC, and if so then have it default to the kind of user interface that PC users have been used to for the past 17 years. I suspect that Metro is a great interface for tablets, and I could see even making it very easy to get to from PCs, for users who like it. But making it the default for PCs will be a dangerous and stupid move my Microsoft if they decide to stick with it. It's not just that it'll be confusing to users. It'll be that it's sacrificing the single biggest thing which ensures their continuing dominance in the PC market - familiarity. The interface on Win8 CP manages to be different enough from previous versions of Windows that it will feel more alien to their customers than the OS of their primary competitor, Apple. The last thing Microsoft needs to be doing right now is accelerating the rate at which Apple takes their customers by voluntarily jettisoning the primary reason why many of their users haven't switched yet. it's clear from the video that switching back to Metro with the mouse is non-obvious. And how. "Non-obvious" is like the official slogan of Windows 8. It's amazing how many things are non-obvious on Win8 consumer preview. When I first tried it (having not tried developer preview first), I found myself at a loss the first time I tried to find the control panel, get to the desktop, open IE in a Window (that is, get the non-Metro browser), get back to the Start screen from the desktop, close a Metro app, switch Metro apps, shut the computer down, open an application that isn't on the start screen (e.g., cmd.exe), add an app to the start screen. . . All of this might have been easy enough to figure out, except that I was sitting there looking at an OS named "Windows 8", so I kept (perhaps foolishly) expecting it to behave somewhat like the one named "Windows 7". Long story short, Windows 8 is the first operating system since Unix where I felt the need to keep some sort of instruction manual close at hand while I was getting used to it. Even Unity felt less jarring to me.
peter_l_downs 15y ago
One user's review doesn't "prove" anything. All it shows is that Windows 8 fails for that user, at that time. James Randi's lecture [1] on proving a negative (in this case, "windows 8 doesn't work for users") is highly relevant and poignant. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI EDIT: fixed link formatting
- Jach 15y ago
  My opinion on Randi went down, of course you can prove negative statements. (Edit: In fact, here's a PDF: http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales... But the most obvious instance is that anything you prove true you can also prove is not false.) Anyway, it is important to note that "prove" in this English, not mathematical, context really means "suggests", if you want to be technical and pedantic. It suggests that other users who share similar traits to the person in the video will also experience difficulties.
  - peter_l_downs 15y ago
    From that PDF: > However, it would be a grievous mistake to insist that someone prove all > the premises of any argument they might give. [...] > So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? I think it > is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement that induction is not > bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) a desperate desire to keep > believing whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it. You can prove negative statements within a set of assumptions. But, as even this author acknowledges, it is impossible to absolutely prove anything in all cases, and I think that is what Randi basis his argument on: that nothing can be absolutely proved false in all cases. Disclaimer: I'm not an epistemologist, nor a philosopher, nor an experienced logician. I may have misread this PDF and/or Randi's speech.
    - Jach 15y ago
      I actually believe it's primarily a third reason the author didn't mention: (3) not understanding what a "proof" is and what it means to "prove" something. Of course it ties into the 2nd reason in that many people aren't motivated to learn what a proof actually is. The "impossible to absolutely prove" phrase has a misuse of "prove". A proof is absolute. A proof is either valid or invalid judged solely on whether it follows the rules of the predicate calculus (or the rules of some other proof-framework you're using which is likely using the predicate calculus or an extension behind the scenes anyway). A proof's conclusions are "true" if and only if they are true. ( http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth ) It is true (so far as we know, we might be wrong in the end) that we can't be absolutely certain that something is false, but it's the same case for being absolutely certain that something is true. (Here "absolutely certain" means "no admittance to even the possibility of being incorrect".) This is more generally identified as the problem of induction, but it's more of a law than a problem. One can guess from the name it has to do with inductive arguments that rely on guessing+evidence rather than deductive proofs that rely on accepting premises (which may be true or false) and a proof framework like the predicate calculus. Edit: Have a Feynman video on UFOs. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A When he says "I can't prove it's impossible", the interpretation you should take is "I can't produce a set of premises we can all agree with that leads to a deductive proof that UFOs are impossible."
michaelfeathers 15y ago
I heard a long time ago that the Start button actually came from usability testing that MS did in retirement homes. If this is true, it makes the video even more poignant.
- rhplus 15y ago
  The original Start button had an animated prompt to help users out the first time they loaded Windows 95. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 8 ships with similar hinting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxwAlqCCmk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxwAlqCCmk
TheCapn 15y ago
I'm doing a coding competition on Saturday and my team has decided on a Windows Desktop app using the provided APIs so I naturally had to get my laptop running Windows. Since I already use my valid Win7 key on my desktop I dropped on a VirtualBox installation over my linux and put in the Win8 Consumer preview. Holy hell. The start button was the first thing> I landed my self on the desktop (because fuck Metro) and quickly realized I have no idea how I can actually do anything. Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries as they were being nabbed by my Linux OS so I was S.O.L. there but it should not be this frustrating to actually use an OS to install Visual Studio + Libraries + FF. At this point I'm willing to axe that Virtual OS and just dual boot with a Win7 copy that sits on the "you have 30 days to activate" B.S. before axing it next Monday. The thing is that Microsoft is going the way of thinking "the average user no longer requires a desktop." I tend to agree, the content creators - whether they're programmers or artists - are the ones who require a fully operational OS. Those who simply consume the content are well off with smart devices which Metro was designed for. But these two worlds are DIFFERENT. I need the ability to dig through the internals of my OS. I need the ability to work with my system registry, services, administrative options and everything else mixed in. When a seasoned user suddenly struggles to accomplish tasks that are second nature you've IMMEDIATELY lost a sale.
- grannyg00se 15y ago
  "Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries" What the hell is a Windows key? Why would an OS be built to expect a special OS specific key? To be honest, I know what a windows key is, but I haven't used a windows key keyboard in my lifetime. I can get to my Windows 7 start menu by clicking on it, and failing that, CTRL-ESC will work. If there's nothing to click on, and I'm now forced to CTRL-ESC all the time, I can live with it, but it's definitely not something I would call an improvement. I know there's a familiarization burden with every new major release, but I'm hearing about an awful lot of extremely inconvenient sounding issues with this one. I wonder how hard it would've been to include an OS-wide "tablet mode" / "desktop mode" toggle.
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    To be honest, I know what a windows key is, but I haven't used a windows key keyboard in my lifetime. On an Apple keyboard, the Command key does the job. (Or vice versa, if you use a PC keyboard on a Mac.) To be honest, I haven't seen a keyboard that was manufactured since the late 90s and didn't have a 3rd key down there (whether it's Command or Windows). Even the Happy Hacking keyboard has one.
btb 15y ago
I had similar problems with the windows 8 server beta. Tried installing it in a vm to check it out. And I was unable to figure out how to do anything at all with it. No windows explorer, or command prompt available. I dont even get the metro skin, it just popped up the server configuration manager. I spent 10 mins googling if there was a way to get the start button back to no avail(since most posts were about the consumer preview). I guess I will try again once the final version is out.
- ayiteddybear 15y ago
  just press windows key and type "explorer" there is windows explorer. just press windows key and type "command" there is command prompt.
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  Wow, I had no idea they did this same UI overhaul to their Server product. I'd like to hear the business case for that drastic product change.
emehrkay 15y ago
This is actually painful. I'll make the OS X comparison -- OS X provides an icon to lunch the ipad-like icon view that I am certain he would have attempted to click on edit: ...the start button as seen in earlier builds, is that icon on windows 8
ugh 15y ago
Windows 8 is leaky. Tablet paradigms leak into mouse and keyboard interfaces. It extremely confusing. There is no clean cut, no mode switch. I understand the abstract principle behind it, but that does not help. Two examples I noticed when fooling around with it. Nothing major, but they illustrate the problem very well. This is using a default and clean install of the consumer preview: So you boot it up and are presented with a big image that displays the time and nothing else. Clicking just makes the image hop, you actually have to swipe upwards (with the mouse!) to be allowed to log in. You see this PDF in the Explorer and double click it. A Metro app launches and removes all UI elements you just saw and are used to. There is no way to close it on screen, nowhere to click to get out of it. You have to know about the hot corners or keyboard shortcuts to get out of it. Even then: It’s a jarring transition between two completely different UI paradigms. That is no fun even if you know how to get out of it, even if you know that it’s supposed to be that way. All of this would be fine if normal Windows apps were on their way out. If we all were to ditch our mice. If the Desktop were only there for compatibility reasons, to run those old apps no one is going to use in a year or two anyway. Only, even Microsoft doesn’t seem to be on that path. It looks like Office will not be a Metro app, for example. I don’t want to see Windows 8 fail. Metro is incredibly cool for tablets and phones. (Windows 7 also was incredibly great – for Windows – as a desktop OS. It works really well.) It’s really awesome! But I’m not sure about the Metro and old Windows UI hodgepodge. I just can’t convince myself that touch interfaces work well with the mouse. It’s just not fun to swipe with a mouse. And interfaces which are fun to use with swipes and taps are not necessarily fun to use with a mouse. (The reverse is obviously also true.) All the Metro apps seem like incredibly cool tablet apps. I can see that I would have a lot of fun with them on my iPad. The Store is also cool and very well integrated. But with a mouse? In such a leaky environment? Where the mouse user is confronted with touch interfaces over and over? What Microsoft is doing is incredibly brave. That alone deserves recognition. But I really can’t see it succeeding. Maybe I’m wrong.
- _mayo 15y ago
  On the lock screen you can hit any key and the image will slide up and reveal the log in dialog. I do agree though, the issue that Windows 8 seems to suffer from is it's not that intuitive on a desktop. My biggest issue is there seems to be no indication of the hot corners when you first begin to use it, and even when they are activated, they feel finicky (especially the 'recent apps' pane on the left).
run4yourlives 15y ago
I don't understand the thinking here: are they abandoning business users? People use their computers in very different ways, and while a user may have a windows PC at work and an iPad at home, that doesn't mean they want to "do work" on the iPad. In many cases they actually hate the idea. Secondly, I get the feeling that many windows users are still 100% windows because that's what they know. Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to re-learn the OS at every release. I can't help but think this is what makes more and more think, "well, if I have to learn a new OS I should try out those apples/Linux that everyone loves to talk about". That can't be good from a Microsoft pov.
- powertower 15y ago
  > I don't understand the thinking here: If you're a consumer, you use the Metro UI. If you're a producer, you use the Desktop. You can set the desktop to be default on bootup. And I'm 90% sure this is how home computers will ship from DELL. While tablets will be Metro. The desktop is not going anywhere, MS has simply re-aligned the default UI to cater for the mass-market: the consumers that want to browser youtube, check the email, tweet, etc. > Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to re-learn the OS at every release. IMO, they are insistent on improving their products.
  - king_magic 15y ago
    > If you're a consumer, you use the Metro UI. \ If you're a producer, you use the Desktop. The problem with this is that the "new" desktop is fundamentally different from the old one. It's not as simple as saying "oh, just use the desktop". > IMO, they are insistent on improving their products. I wouldn't consider presenting users with a puzzle to be an improvement. I can pick up my iPad and instantly figure it out. I can pick up a MacBook Air with iOS-like features and instantly understand how they work. I was stunned at how much effort was required to learn Windows 8. Absolutely stunned. How exactly is that an improvement? By the same token, I can pick up a Windows Phone 7 device and instantly understand how to use it - but Windows 8 still somehow turned out to be a confusing mess with a mouse/keyboard. Even on a touchscreen device - it's not completely clear how things work. It was as confusing to use as a Blackberry Playbook.
techblock 15y ago
I saw this. Really does show that for many people Windows 8 might be extremely cumbersome. I think this is Microsoft's hail mary.
drucken 15y ago
Comments from the IRC chat in the background says it all: "If Joe can't figure it out, Windows 8 will be the new Vista" :)
cf0ed2aa-bdf5 15y ago
I seriously have no idea what Microsoft thought when they decided to abandon the start button. They trained their users for nearly two decades to use the start menu and abandon it for a weird hybrid between desktop OS and tablet OS which ends up being neither. It's actually rather sad. I am definitely going to skip this version of Windows and hope that Microsoft will come to its senses and realize that you can either have a Tablet/Mobile interface or a desktop interface but not both.
- brudgers 15y ago
  >"I seriously have no idea what Microsoft thought when they decided to abandon the start button." I suspect that they were thinking about the mountain of user data they have and drawing reasonable conclusions from it. My family members use the power button to shut down Windows, not the start button. They tend to use icons to launch apps, not the start menu. Though atypical in some ways, I suspect these are not among them.
  - smacktoward 15y ago
    It's entirely possible to look at a mountain of data and take away incorrect or misleading conclusions from it. The existence of data is not in and of itself a guarantee that the human beings who look at it will interpret it correctly.
    - brudgers 15y ago
      I agree. However, it is easier to draw incorrect conclusions from anecdote.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Luckily, Microsoft has a pattern of releasing an OS that tries out new ideas but is kind of janky, followed shortly after by a more polished one that brings it all together: Windows Vista & Windows 7, Windows 2000 & Windows XP, Windows 95 & Windows 98, Windows ME & Windows 98. . .
brudgers 15y ago
If someone had filmed me using trying to figure out how to eject a floppy disk from a Mac as a first time user, the results would have been similar - but the video would have been significantly longer. Using a new operating system takes some getting used to. But first time use isn't the relevant metric for an activity which one will do for years and in which one engages for productivity. The metrics should match the expected learning curve - i.e. F16's are not designed for toddlers.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  The thing is, this isn't a first-time user. The guy in that video is a Windows user. The expected learning curve should be short and shallow, because he should theoretically be dealing with incremental changes and not a completely alien system. But he's sitting down at a new version of Windows and using it as if it were his first time using an alien OS. In other words, the metrics are completely at odds with what should be the expected learning curve.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    What criteria are you using to determine an appropriate expected learning curve? Is an operating system upgrade supposed to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 BMW 3 series? Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan where the brake, accelerator, and steering wheel remain the same, but all the other controls, the instrumentation, and cabin layout are different? Any change has a learning curve which can feel steep at first. I've personally experienced it when changing browsers among IE, firefox, chrome, and Opera (never mind mobile versions) even though they all pretty much work the same way. And my father makes the same face when he has new email from someone he doesn't know.
    - bunderbunder 15y ago
      Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan Bad analogy. You go on to point out why: where the brake, accelerator, and steering wheel remain the same
funkah 15y ago
Well, from that standpoint why should Windows ever change? MS shoulda just stuck to shipping security updates for Windows 95, apparently.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  Change can be incremental. Compare OS X 10.0 to the current version - there's a whole lot that has changed, and the user experience is massively superior. And they managed to get there through a series of 7 incremental releases where the single most jarring change was swapping the semantics of the "scroll" gesture. Stuff has come, stuff has gone, but they never once did it in a way that left existing users at a loss for how to interact with the new version. Heck, skip the tiny increments. I'd go so far as to suggest that if a Mac user were to time-travel forward from 1984, they would be less confused by the current version of OS X than Windows 7 users seem to be by Windows 8.
  - jff 15y ago
    Your time-traveling Mac user would probably be pretty surprised that it took until 2001 to get real multi-tasking and memory protection, and that the only way to do that was to switch to the Dread UNIX :)
wavephorm 15y ago
Warning mobile users: OnSwipe site, cashed my iPad browser immediately.
lucb1e 15y ago
You'd think Microsoft has an entire panel of USER beta testers, not just bughunters. Seems not.
- smackfu 15y ago
  More like Microsoft has enough user beta testers that they can aggregate their anecdotes in order to get useful data, instead of just treating single user anecdotes as "proof" of anything.
- Splines 15y ago
  MSFT does (IMO) rigorous usability testing, but I'm not so sure the organization is agile enough to take that feedback into account.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
mkup 15y ago
It reminds me old good times when we started "vi" editor in fullscreen terminal and asked newbies to close the program.
- underwater 15y ago
  At least "vi" gives some feedback. "ed" is far worse.
  - mdkess 15y ago
    ?
RexRollman 15y ago
I've been playing with Windows 8 and it to be a horrible UI experience, although I do like the changes made to Explorer and it's theme. I really hope Microsoft makes a way to run Explorer directly on login, even if it is hidden away somewhere.
nsns 15y ago
This has also been the case with Win95, many users had trouble using the mouse, trying to raise it in the air in order to raise the cursor on the screen etc. While I'm not sure about Metro's usefulness for laptops and desktops, I do think that the real test for the cancellation of the start button is whether the learning curve is short, and the change, once you've mastered it, is perceived as an improvement.
hetman 15y ago
To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. I'm sure anyone that is actually told how it works will have little trouble with it. I'm not sure why an OS has to retain a 20 year old UI paradigm if a nicer method appears to replace it. People seem to hate change, even for the better. This reminds me of a recurring theme in the Linux world where any Windows originated UI feature seems to follow the pattern: 1) Users complain loudly about not copying useless Windows features. 2) UI features get copied from Windows with a 5 year delay once they become the expected norm. 3) 10 years later the community staunchly opposes the removal of features. The ones which were once "unnecessary Windows stuff".
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  > To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. It may be convenient, but the real problem here is discoverability. There's no way you can realize that screen edges are interactive unless you either knew that beforehand, stumbled upon it on accident or saw a YouTube video explaining it.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. However it's mystery meat: it provides no clue as to what is active and what is not (in fact, it provides no activable element at all). There's a reason why WP7 mandates (if not requires) side-arrows or that a bit of next screen's content be visible on the edges of the current screen: it hints that there is something there, it's a very nice clue (even with that, the most frequent criticism of WP7 is that it's hard to know what is active and what is not). Completely hidden "edge of screen" elements are very nice but only work if you know they're there already. What do you do when you don't? You're boggled, and either you try hunting the interface for active areas (looking for pointer changes, old-school adventure games style) or you give up and go back to something you can use at a glance.
  - 15y ago
user2459 15y ago
The 'you figure it out' test doesn't work across the board. It works for common tasks but when you're introducing a new paradigm obviously it needs to be taught. All the new paradigms on windows 8 can be taught in less than a 10 word sentence. This kind of citizen's journalism is unscientific, a waste of time and of no value to microsoft.
dgregd 15y ago
Users want desktops and tables. They have different UI and that's OK. You operate cars, trucks and excavators in a similar way but not exactly the same way. MS wants to translate its power from desktop monopoly to tablet market. And therefore they play against users. It seems that MS Windows team is too powerful to let smaller teams cannibalize Windows market share. "Innovators Dilemma" case? Personally I would import only tablet features which make sense for desktop OS. For example app sandbox and market, standard app upgrade api, notifications.
csomar 15y ago
A "real" user is not the average user. It can be a lot below the average. Another thing to mention is that despite the changes being huge (but not really that huge), the learning curve is smaller that switching to the Mac or Linux for example. You may figure out how to quickly launch the browser and a couple of apps on the Mac, but you'll need months to get used to it and know the few times per month used functionality.
dhughes 15y ago
I think MS should make a Windows: Bifocals. My dad does the same thing, bifocal eyeglasses and a belly make for some weird contortions when trying to view a monitor.
mckoss 15y ago
If I didn't know better, I'd interpret MS's actions as trying to drive desktop computer users to Mac and Linux; kind of like their redesign of Office (ribbon) driving people to Google Apps. MS doesn't seem to be "protecting" it's market share anymore; it seems to want be seen as an innovator, rather than make its current users happy (which seems a very odd philosophy for a company with 90% market share). The only way I can understand this is to believe that MS is consciously "ignoring" internal usability data in order to push forward an innovation agenda.
- ttt_ 15y ago
  Yes, Microsoft is fond of alienating its user base, it amazes me how often they do that. I don't plan on using Windows 8, but if I did, I'd probably be alienated just as much as since until now I haven't really used a single touch device. Also, if the users are going to have to simulate touch gestures with a mouse, I foresee an increse in RSI for the next generation.
cgranade 15y ago
I get that moving forward means breaking existing paradigms. I'm happy that MS is trying Metro (not so happy with the horribly anti-user policies surrounding Metro, but I digress), and don't mind that it's a change. That said, they need to leave some kind of path for existing users to map concepts onto the new UI. A great example of this, I think, is in Gnome Shell, where the "Activities" hotcorner is clearly labelled, and fills the same UI role as the "Applications" menu in previous versions of Gnome. A user moving from Gnome 2 would likely try to click Activities, and while they may be surprised at the overlay that results, would still find all their applications in one place there. From the looks of it, Windows 8 provides no such path for users to attach existing intuition to. Change is fine, but it has to be done well.
primigenus 15y ago
This is a terrible video because the guy keeps pointing things out to his dad. If you want to get some objective data about how people respond to this, you let them figure it out by themselves and you let them start from scratch: turn on the computer and go from there. So until someone does that on a reasonable scale (say, 5 people), there's nothing to see here.
- ConnorWGarvey 15y ago
  I love the scattered Mac peripherals and the totally flippant attitude. Completely impartial.
puppybeard 15y ago
Don't consumer operating systems always offer a virtual tour of how to use them?
- WiseWeasel 15y ago
  The difference is you actually have to sit through it this time.
  - puppybeard 15y ago
    Yeah, if I installed Windows 8, I'd probably take the time the time to learn how the new things work. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's bad. What I don't like is how consumption-oriented Metro is. It doesn't matter how slick it is, I don't want to be bombarded with notifications when I sit down at my pc. But of course, I can avoid it entirely, which I probably will. Windows 7 should do me for the next five years, easy.
bayleo 15y ago
I'm more interested in what is going on w/ those Thinkgeek LED clocks lining his shelf.
JacobAldridge 15y ago
I'm remind of the original Windows 95 ads (with Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones). At the time, the Start Button was new and (iirc) the ads focused on the Start Button and the (obvious now) fact that it 'started' the user's experience. Not having seen Windows 8, I don't know what UI has replaced the Start Button. I hope that before I use Windows 8 I do get some of those basics from somewhere (unlike my iPhone, which required far too much Googling to make work. Perhaps I'm showing my age). Edit: Start me up original Windows 95 ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI
achy 15y ago
I think apple was smart with the way they went mobile, in that they didn't really try to carry over any of their exiting OSX UI. Often it is 10x harder to unlearn habits than to form new ones. If I'm presented with something that is 'exactly like before except for a bunch of glaring omissions and additions' it will feel like the uncanny valley and getting used to things will be much harder. Apple went for the 'Everything that you do in iOS is new but seamlessly intuitive' route which lends a reasonable learning curve and more importantly no steep 'unlearning' curve.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  This is very true and applies in a lot of ways e.g. Building an application to try to take customers away from an incumbent. I've tried to use Gimp and LibreOffice, but they both are close enough to Photoshop and MS Office that I can't ever learn their "dialects", which are very close to the originals', but not quite. Instead, I constantly feel like I'm fighting them. When I moved to Pages instead, I was forced to learn a whole new language, and so that's what happens. No remapping, just mapping.
molecularbutter 15y ago
Microsoft needs to break Windows 8 Metro away from the desktop and make it tablet only, why is this so hard for them to see?
- Achshar 15y ago
  because android isn't going anywhere with it's ridiculous fragmentation. and Microsoft wont be going either if they want their app store to be a success.
JVIDEL 15y ago
Win8 is the result of higher ups at MSFT getting caught in trends instead of being able to tell which strategy works and which doesn't, as they should. Tablets are a bad business, read tablets not the iPad. The iPad's sales and huge profits are a Black Swan in a lake full of regular White Swan tablets making no money and carving a hole in OEMs quarterly results, so at the end some are actually considering leaving the nascent tablet market. That's because the majority of people still prefers to pay $500 for a very functional and feature-loaded laptop than paying that same amount (or more) for a barely competitive tablet. That vast majority uses Windows, and now MSFT instead of taking a page from Apple and using WP7 for tablets they are giving the finger to all the Windows users that keep their company going (almost every other division is hemorrhaging money or barely breaking even) by forcing them into the limitations of a tablet UI.
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
  Limitations are both a curse and a blessing. One of the brilliant things for new users about Windows 8 is they heavily encourage use of the Metro design language, ensuring consistency in application interfaces.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - JVIDEL 15y ago
    For 99% of the people out there UI consistency is a non-issue, they care more about being able to do-X/run-X than having every app look the same.
- kooshball 15y ago
  >(almost every other division is hemorrhaging money or barely breaking even) This is incorrect. You can see the latest earnings results here. The division results are at the bottom. http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q2/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn... The only division losing money is the Online Services Division. Windows and Windows Live is not even the largest in terms Revenue or Profit, it is dwarfed by Microsoft Business Division.
Skywing 15y ago
I do feel bad for users like the one in the video. I feel bad because I know that my father is going to be that person in the video, too. By the time Windows 8 reaches my father's computer, he'll be in his late 50s. He gets around Windows 7 just fine, but he does not stray away from his familiar things. He knows where the browser is and he knows how to tinker around in the control panel to change certain settings. The moment something does not do what he expects, though, he's pretty lost. Especially lost if he can't easily find an explanation as to what's happening, on Google. I have used Windows 8 already, and I can say that if what my father has to use is what I used of it, then he's in for a rough trip. He'll learn it, but sadly it'll take much longer than it will for me, for example.
shingen 15y ago
First of all, Microsoft screwed up in removing the start button. It was completely unnecessary to remove it, and they added no value in doing so. They could have just as easily had the start button pop out the appropriate side navigation, and then let users optionally decide which approach to keep. Second, I'm sure there will be tutorials built into Windows 8 for people that want to learn how to use Metro and any of the other changes. Some of the comments here seem to ignore that. It doesn't excuse the stupidity of removing the start button of course.
- jakejake 15y ago
  I wouldn't be totally surprised if MS internally has argued endlessly about removing the start button. That's a huge move on their part. I wouldn't be surprised if this consumer preview is partly an experiment to see how people react. I feel like I'm pretty open to changes in software, I'm a habitual upgrader. But ditching the start menu really throws me for a loop. Having to leave my working screen and go to another screen just to launch a new app is super annoying. It could be that tablets are the future, but most of us are still using an actual computer so it sucks to have functionality reduced down to a tablet when you are working at a desktop.
cabirum 15y ago
This is all wrong. His dad would never install the Consumer Preview himself. He did not know it exists. He did not read blog posts about it, articles, interviews, etc. CP was released for developers and users who are interested in seeing what the new Windows looks like. They are already familiar with it and know how it works. Obviously, after installing the final release there will be a tutorial explaining all the new features, problem solved.
yaix 15y ago
I am pretty sure it's the mouse that will valish, and your office PC will have a touch screen as well. I have done it quite a few times already, touching the screen of my netbook, only to realize that its not my smartphone. In 5 year, every computer sold will have a touch screen, be it a tablet, phone or a PC. People who want to continue using the mouse will continue using W7 for the next 10 years, like they did with XP before.
- marknutter 15y ago
  Hold your arm out in front of you for 5 minutes.
  - m_for_monkey 15y ago
    He didn't say the touch screen will be vertical.
    - artursapek 15y ago
      Having to look down at a screen for prolonged periods of time presents another ergonomic problem - neck cramps. I don't see why we're trying to change something that works really well already.
      - m_for_monkey 15y ago
        I didn't say the touch screen will be horizontal.
  - yaix 15y ago
    Why would you have your finger pressed to the screen for 5 minutes? Asuming that the number of notebook style PCs continues to rise, your fingers, when on the keyboard are actually pretty close to the screen, often closer than they are to the mouse. So you would just move your have foreward some 10 or 20 cm and every once in a while. To touch on a cell in Excel or mark a couple of words in a text processor. Maybe use two fingers when in Photoshop or AutoCAD. Well, for the later maybe a mouse is necessary, but that's what W7 will be around for for quite a while.
bungle 15y ago
Maybe MS thinks that the computer in a future is actually your phone. Then you have different accesories for it. At office you have display, keyboard and mouse. The phone automatically senses their presense and atarts to wirelesly communicate with them, i.e. bringing metroless desktop to those peripheals. Then you might have tablet like dummy screen that communicates wirelessly with the phone bringing metrolook to the screen. And you could also use the phone as is with metro. It could easily hook to your home entertainment too. Yes, this is fuuristic, and it is not going to happen soon.
AJ007 15y ago
I called out Microsoft on this here and on /. when the first previews came out. It made no sense. I remote in to Windows machines on my iPad. Its very difficult to use and I understand that. Now Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too, look Windows is a tablet and desktop! It can do both! No, that means it fails at both as the common user is exposed to a sub-par experience no matter which device they are using. This reminds me a lot of Windows Media Center. I don't know if it was XP of Vista that came with bundled versions of it, but it left the user thinking, "What the F is this?" Microsoft is in serious trouble, and they know it. They refuse to take seriously the things that are most vital to their long term survival as a company selling consumer products. Apple's version of a half-assed product release is Apple TV -- "just a hobby"; compare that to Microsoft's expansive portfolio of half-assed products, Apple TV looks like a polished, finished product (and it is.) If Steve Jobs was still alive and ran Microsoft, one would imagine that everyone responsible for Windows Metro would be fired.
shahar2k 15y ago
an easy way to look at the way window 8 seems to treat the desktop is to look at the way windows 7 and previous treat the command line. There are still many commandline apps, even many important parts of windows require the command line to operate, however microsoft hasnt exactly put a great deal of development time into advancing commandline UI technology (and there are many companies who HAVE done just that) plainly speaking it seems they are relegating the desktop to be the "next commandline" another relic, however the transition fails to address the fact that at it's current state, metro is not able to replace the desktop for anything but the most basic applications. another problem mentioned elsewhere ("windows 8 is leaky") can also be explained another way - tablets have touchscreens but no easy way to use a mouse / keyboard, desktops have mouse / keyboard but generally no easy way to use a touchscreen, so using one interaction method pretty much precludes the other and trying to make an interface which works with both creates a mushy middling kind of experience which combines good and BAD things from both methods.we see this when trying to use a mouse with metro apps as well as when trying to use touch with desktop ones. I'm treating windows 8 as another vista for now (and I used vista for many years) it's usable, full of new ideas, but lacking in that final polish where all the new pieces and old pieces meet.
mrhyperpenguin 15y ago
I have the HP TouchSmart tm2t (a touchscreen laptop) and the touchscreen controls make Windows 8 easy and actually enjoyable to use. I don't know what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 8. I know they intended to make touch a first class citizen but it seems like they've forgotten about the mouse and keyboard.
conradfr 15y ago
It's ok, you always have to skip one version of Windows out of two. It will all be figured it out in Windows 9. What's funny is that they put Windows in phones and it didn't work, so now now they try to put Windows Phone in pcs.
BCounsell 15y ago
how did we ever manage to transition from MS-DOS to Windows in the first place? I tried Windows 3.1 for the first time yesterday and I could not for the life of me figure out how to get to the command line. I don't see how I can be productive after the first 30 seconds. WINDOWS FAIL!
LilValleyBigEgo 15y ago
This is more of the Industry pushing general purpose computing devices toward single use, media purchase and consumption devices.
LocalPCGuy 15y ago
My biggest beef with Metro wasn't the lack of the Start Menu, although that was up there. Rather, it was that the Touch events that make it useful are NOT emulated with a mouse (at least, I couldn't figure out how to make them work.) What should be simple things, like being able to just click the desktop ANYWHERE, and drag it back and forth to more it horizontally (like you can do with a finger/touch) doesn't work. You have to go to the bottom of the screen and use the scroll bar. Swipe-In events from the top/sides/bottom of the screen don't work, ruining much of the default "usability" (if you call it that) of new apps like IE10(Metro version) or even the default desktop Metro UI functionality and charms. The mouse is definitely a second-class citizen in Metro, and it shouldn't be. If Microsoft would just make the touch controls work with a mouse, that would eliminate probably 70% of my problems with Metro. Put the Start Menu back, and I'm left with just vague uneasiness cause something is changing.
- contextfree 15y ago
  You can scroll with the wheel or by pushing against the sides of the screen, as well as the scrollbar (which btw makes it easier to jump to another part of the page than it would be with touch). "swipe-in from top/bottom" = right-click, and "swipe from sides" = swing around the corners. In general the design philosophy for mouse in Win8 is that it shouldn't be used to imitate the touch controls, but rather it should have its own independent set of controls for the same actions, that better fit the mouse.

225 points by ukdm 15y ago

There seems to be a serious fear of change. Should we converge on some adequate solution and stop moving? Regardless of whether Windows 8 has a good user interface or not, it should be judged against the effectiveness of the change, not just because it is different.

rplnt 15y ago

I never understood why they removed the "start" button in the later releases. I was used to using the "win" key so I didn't really care. Only after few weeks I found out that it is possible to open metro using the mouse.

ayiteddybear 15y ago

The same thing will happen when a user upgrades from gnome2 to unity, kde3 to 4, gnome2 to gnome shell. i just dont understand the point. should we stop innovation or what?

doodyhead 15y ago

I wonder how the experience would have went if he hadn't set the desktop up for him initially. For many new users, I imagine they would be starting with Windows 8 from scratch on a new PC or a fresh install, which surely provides a guided tour and lots of hints and tips. I still agree that excluding the Start button seems like a bad idea. Many novice users don't ever think of using the keyboard for navigation and it's clear from the video that switching back to Metro with the mouse is non-obvious.

digitallimit 15y ago
How do you switch back with the mouse?
- bradford 15y ago
  click the lower left corner. It's functionally similar to pressing the old start button. though there's clearly some guesswork involved, since no start button is present.
  - el_devo 15y ago
    You can also click the lower right corner, then click the windows flag on the menu that pops out. This has exactly the same problem as the above method.
bunderbunder 15y ago
For many new users, I imagine they would be starting with Windows 8 from scratch on a new PC or a fresh install, which surely provides a guided tour and lots of hints and tips. No, it doesn't. At least not the Consumer Preview. And that workflow only works for the very first person to use the system. It's defeated in any situation where you've got multiple people sharing a computer, and all using the same account. (i.e., normal computer usage patterns.) It's also defeated in any situation where the user dismisses the tour without even looking at it first. (i.e., normal computer usage patterns.) What they actually need to have Win8 do is automatically detect if it's running on a standard PC, and if so then have it default to the kind of user interface that PC users have been used to for the past 17 years. I suspect that Metro is a great interface for tablets, and I could see even making it very easy to get to from PCs, for users who like it. But making it the default for PCs will be a dangerous and stupid move my Microsoft if they decide to stick with it. It's not just that it'll be confusing to users. It'll be that it's sacrificing the single biggest thing which ensures their continuing dominance in the PC market - familiarity. The interface on Win8 CP manages to be different enough from previous versions of Windows that it will feel more alien to their customers than the OS of their primary competitor, Apple. The last thing Microsoft needs to be doing right now is accelerating the rate at which Apple takes their customers by voluntarily jettisoning the primary reason why many of their users haven't switched yet. it's clear from the video that switching back to Metro with the mouse is non-obvious. And how. "Non-obvious" is like the official slogan of Windows 8. It's amazing how many things are non-obvious on Win8 consumer preview. When I first tried it (having not tried developer preview first), I found myself at a loss the first time I tried to find the control panel, get to the desktop, open IE in a Window (that is, get the non-Metro browser), get back to the Start screen from the desktop, close a Metro app, switch Metro apps, shut the computer down, open an application that isn't on the start screen (e.g., cmd.exe), add an app to the start screen. . . All of this might have been easy enough to figure out, except that I was sitting there looking at an OS named "Windows 8", so I kept (perhaps foolishly) expecting it to behave somewhat like the one named "Windows 7". Long story short, Windows 8 is the first operating system since Unix where I felt the need to keep some sort of instruction manual close at hand while I was getting used to it. Even Unity felt less jarring to me.

peter_l_downs 15y ago

One user's review doesn't "prove" anything. All it shows is that Windows 8 fails for that user, at that time. James Randi's lecture [1] on proving a negative (in this case, "windows 8 doesn't work for users") is highly relevant and poignant. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI EDIT: fixed link formatting

Jach 15y ago
My opinion on Randi went down, of course you can prove negative statements. (Edit: In fact, here's a PDF: http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales... But the most obvious instance is that anything you prove true you can also prove is not false.) Anyway, it is important to note that "prove" in this English, not mathematical, context really means "suggests", if you want to be technical and pedantic. It suggests that other users who share similar traits to the person in the video will also experience difficulties.
- peter_l_downs 15y ago
  From that PDF: > However, it would be a grievous mistake to insist that someone prove all > the premises of any argument they might give. [...] > So why is it that people insist that you can’t prove a negative? I think it > is the result of two things. (1) an acknowledgement that induction is not > bulletproof, airtight, and infallible, and (2) a desperate desire to keep > believing whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it. You can prove negative statements within a set of assumptions. But, as even this author acknowledges, it is impossible to absolutely prove anything in all cases, and I think that is what Randi basis his argument on: that nothing can be absolutely proved false in all cases. Disclaimer: I'm not an epistemologist, nor a philosopher, nor an experienced logician. I may have misread this PDF and/or Randi's speech.
  - Jach 15y ago
    I actually believe it's primarily a third reason the author didn't mention: (3) not understanding what a "proof" is and what it means to "prove" something. Of course it ties into the 2nd reason in that many people aren't motivated to learn what a proof actually is. The "impossible to absolutely prove" phrase has a misuse of "prove". A proof is absolute. A proof is either valid or invalid judged solely on whether it follows the rules of the predicate calculus (or the rules of some other proof-framework you're using which is likely using the predicate calculus or an extension behind the scenes anyway). A proof's conclusions are "true" if and only if they are true. ( http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth ) It is true (so far as we know, we might be wrong in the end) that we can't be absolutely certain that something is false, but it's the same case for being absolutely certain that something is true. (Here "absolutely certain" means "no admittance to even the possibility of being incorrect".) This is more generally identified as the problem of induction, but it's more of a law than a problem. One can guess from the name it has to do with inductive arguments that rely on guessing+evidence rather than deductive proofs that rely on accepting premises (which may be true or false) and a proof framework like the predicate calculus. Edit: Have a Feynman video on UFOs. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A When he says "I can't prove it's impossible", the interpretation you should take is "I can't produce a set of premises we can all agree with that leads to a deductive proof that UFOs are impossible."

michaelfeathers 15y ago

I heard a long time ago that the Start button actually came from usability testing that MS did in retirement homes. If this is true, it makes the video even more poignant.

rhplus 15y ago
The original Start button had an animated prompt to help users out the first time they loaded Windows 95. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 8 ships with similar hinting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxwAlqCCmk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxwAlqCCmk

TheCapn 15y ago

I'm doing a coding competition on Saturday and my team has decided on a Windows Desktop app using the provided APIs so I naturally had to get my laptop running Windows. Since I already use my valid Win7 key on my desktop I dropped on a VirtualBox installation over my linux and put in the Win8 Consumer preview. Holy hell. The start button was the first thing> I landed my self on the desktop (because fuck Metro) and quickly realized I have no idea how I can actually do anything. Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries as they were being nabbed by my Linux OS so I was S.O.L. there but it should not be this frustrating to actually use an OS to install Visual Studio + Libraries + FF. At this point I'm willing to axe that Virtual OS and just dual boot with a Win7 copy that sits on the "you have 30 days to activate" B.S. before axing it next Monday. The thing is that Microsoft is going the way of thinking "the average user no longer requires a desktop." I tend to agree, the content creators - whether they're programmers or artists - are the ones who require a fully operational OS. Those who simply consume the content are well off with smart devices which Metro was designed for. But these two worlds are DIFFERENT. I need the ability to dig through the internals of my OS. I need the ability to work with my system registry, services, administrative options and everything else mixed in. When a seasoned user suddenly struggles to accomplish tasks that are second nature you've IMMEDIATELY lost a sale.

grannyg00se 15y ago
"Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries" What the hell is a Windows key? Why would an OS be built to expect a special OS specific key? To be honest, I know what a windows key is, but I haven't used a windows key keyboard in my lifetime. I can get to my Windows 7 start menu by clicking on it, and failing that, CTRL-ESC will work. If there's nothing to click on, and I'm now forced to CTRL-ESC all the time, I can live with it, but it's definitely not something I would call an improvement. I know there's a familiarization burden with every new major release, but I'm hearing about an awful lot of extremely inconvenient sounding issues with this one. I wonder how hard it would've been to include an OS-wide "tablet mode" / "desktop mode" toggle.
- bunderbunder 15y ago
  To be honest, I know what a windows key is, but I haven't used a windows key keyboard in my lifetime. On an Apple keyboard, the Command key does the job. (Or vice versa, if you use a PC keyboard on a Mac.) To be honest, I haven't seen a keyboard that was manufactured since the late 90s and didn't have a 3rd key down there (whether it's Command or Windows). Even the Happy Hacking keyboard has one.

btb 15y ago

I had similar problems with the windows 8 server beta. Tried installing it in a vm to check it out. And I was unable to figure out how to do anything at all with it. No windows explorer, or command prompt available. I dont even get the metro skin, it just popped up the server configuration manager. I spent 10 mins googling if there was a way to get the start button back to no avail(since most posts were about the consumer preview). I guess I will try again once the final version is out.

ayiteddybear 15y ago
just press windows key and type "explorer" there is windows explorer. just press windows key and type "command" there is command prompt.
WiseWeasel 15y ago
Wow, I had no idea they did this same UI overhaul to their Server product. I'd like to hear the business case for that drastic product change.

emehrkay 15y ago

This is actually painful. I'll make the OS X comparison -- OS X provides an icon to lunch the ipad-like icon view that I am certain he would have attempted to click on edit: ...the start button as seen in earlier builds, is that icon on windows 8

ugh 15y ago

Windows 8 is leaky. Tablet paradigms leak into mouse and keyboard interfaces. It extremely confusing. There is no clean cut, no mode switch. I understand the abstract principle behind it, but that does not help. Two examples I noticed when fooling around with it. Nothing major, but they illustrate the problem very well. This is using a default and clean install of the consumer preview: So you boot it up and are presented with a big image that displays the time and nothing else. Clicking just makes the image hop, you actually have to swipe upwards (with the mouse!) to be allowed to log in. You see this PDF in the Explorer and double click it. A Metro app launches and removes all UI elements you just saw and are used to. There is no way to close it on screen, nowhere to click to get out of it. You have to know about the hot corners or keyboard shortcuts to get out of it. Even then: It’s a jarring transition between two completely different UI paradigms. That is no fun even if you know how to get out of it, even if you know that it’s supposed to be that way. All of this would be fine if normal Windows apps were on their way out. If we all were to ditch our mice. If the Desktop were only there for compatibility reasons, to run those old apps no one is going to use in a year or two anyway. Only, even Microsoft doesn’t seem to be on that path. It looks like Office will not be a Metro app, for example. I don’t want to see Windows 8 fail. Metro is incredibly cool for tablets and phones. (Windows 7 also was incredibly great – for Windows – as a desktop OS. It works really well.) It’s really awesome! But I’m not sure about the Metro and old Windows UI hodgepodge. I just can’t convince myself that touch interfaces work well with the mouse. It’s just not fun to swipe with a mouse. And interfaces which are fun to use with swipes and taps are not necessarily fun to use with a mouse. (The reverse is obviously also true.) All the Metro apps seem like incredibly cool tablet apps. I can see that I would have a lot of fun with them on my iPad. The Store is also cool and very well integrated. But with a mouse? In such a leaky environment? Where the mouse user is confronted with touch interfaces over and over? What Microsoft is doing is incredibly brave. That alone deserves recognition. But I really can’t see it succeeding. Maybe I’m wrong.

_mayo 15y ago
On the lock screen you can hit any key and the image will slide up and reveal the log in dialog. I do agree though, the issue that Windows 8 seems to suffer from is it's not that intuitive on a desktop. My biggest issue is there seems to be no indication of the hot corners when you first begin to use it, and even when they are activated, they feel finicky (especially the 'recent apps' pane on the left).

run4yourlives 15y ago

I don't understand the thinking here: are they abandoning business users? People use their computers in very different ways, and while a user may have a windows PC at work and an iPad at home, that doesn't mean they want to "do work" on the iPad. In many cases they actually hate the idea. Secondly, I get the feeling that many windows users are still 100% windows because that's what they know. Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to re-learn the OS at every release. I can't help but think this is what makes more and more think, "well, if I have to learn a new OS I should try out those apples/Linux that everyone loves to talk about". That can't be good from a Microsoft pov.

powertower 15y ago
> I don't understand the thinking here: If you're a consumer, you use the Metro UI. If you're a producer, you use the Desktop. You can set the desktop to be default on bootup. And I'm 90% sure this is how home computers will ship from DELL. While tablets will be Metro. The desktop is not going anywhere, MS has simply re-aligned the default UI to cater for the mass-market: the consumers that want to browser youtube, check the email, tweet, etc. > Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to re-learn the OS at every release. IMO, they are insistent on improving their products.
- king_magic 15y ago
  > If you're a consumer, you use the Metro UI. \ If you're a producer, you use the Desktop. The problem with this is that the "new" desktop is fundamentally different from the old one. It's not as simple as saying "oh, just use the desktop". > IMO, they are insistent on improving their products. I wouldn't consider presenting users with a puzzle to be an improvement. I can pick up my iPad and instantly figure it out. I can pick up a MacBook Air with iOS-like features and instantly understand how they work. I was stunned at how much effort was required to learn Windows 8. Absolutely stunned. How exactly is that an improvement? By the same token, I can pick up a Windows Phone 7 device and instantly understand how to use it - but Windows 8 still somehow turned out to be a confusing mess with a mouse/keyboard. Even on a touchscreen device - it's not completely clear how things work. It was as confusing to use as a Blackberry Playbook.

techblock 15y ago

I saw this. Really does show that for many people Windows 8 might be extremely cumbersome. I think this is Microsoft's hail mary.

drucken 15y ago

Comments from the IRC chat in the background says it all: "If Joe can't figure it out, Windows 8 will be the new Vista" :)

cf0ed2aa-bdf5 15y ago

I seriously have no idea what Microsoft thought when they decided to abandon the start button. They trained their users for nearly two decades to use the start menu and abandon it for a weird hybrid between desktop OS and tablet OS which ends up being neither. It's actually rather sad. I am definitely going to skip this version of Windows and hope that Microsoft will come to its senses and realize that you can either have a Tablet/Mobile interface or a desktop interface but not both.

brudgers 15y ago
>"I seriously have no idea what Microsoft thought when they decided to abandon the start button." I suspect that they were thinking about the mountain of user data they have and drawing reasonable conclusions from it. My family members use the power button to shut down Windows, not the start button. They tend to use icons to launch apps, not the start menu. Though atypical in some ways, I suspect these are not among them.
- smacktoward 15y ago
  It's entirely possible to look at a mountain of data and take away incorrect or misleading conclusions from it. The existence of data is not in and of itself a guarantee that the human beings who look at it will interpret it correctly.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    I agree. However, it is easier to draw incorrect conclusions from anecdote.
bunderbunder 15y ago
Luckily, Microsoft has a pattern of releasing an OS that tries out new ideas but is kind of janky, followed shortly after by a more polished one that brings it all together: Windows Vista & Windows 7, Windows 2000 & Windows XP, Windows 95 & Windows 98, Windows ME & Windows 98. . .

brudgers 15y ago

If someone had filmed me using trying to figure out how to eject a floppy disk from a Mac as a first time user, the results would have been similar - but the video would have been significantly longer. Using a new operating system takes some getting used to. But first time use isn't the relevant metric for an activity which one will do for years and in which one engages for productivity. The metrics should match the expected learning curve - i.e. F16's are not designed for toddlers.

bunderbunder 15y ago
The thing is, this isn't a first-time user. The guy in that video is a Windows user. The expected learning curve should be short and shallow, because he should theoretically be dealing with incremental changes and not a completely alien system. But he's sitting down at a new version of Windows and using it as if it were his first time using an alien OS. In other words, the metrics are completely at odds with what should be the expected learning curve.
- brudgers 15y ago
  What criteria are you using to determine an appropriate expected learning curve? Is an operating system upgrade supposed to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 BMW 3 series? Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan where the brake, accelerator, and steering wheel remain the same, but all the other controls, the instrumentation, and cabin layout are different? Any change has a learning curve which can feel steep at first. I've personally experienced it when changing browsers among IE, firefox, chrome, and Opera (never mind mobile versions) even though they all pretty much work the same way. And my father makes the same face when he has new email from someone he doesn't know.
  - bunderbunder 15y ago
    Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW 3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan Bad analogy. You go on to point out why: where the brake, accelerator, and steering wheel remain the same

funkah 15y ago

Well, from that standpoint why should Windows ever change? MS shoulda just stuck to shipping security updates for Windows 95, apparently.

bunderbunder 15y ago
Change can be incremental. Compare OS X 10.0 to the current version - there's a whole lot that has changed, and the user experience is massively superior. And they managed to get there through a series of 7 incremental releases where the single most jarring change was swapping the semantics of the "scroll" gesture. Stuff has come, stuff has gone, but they never once did it in a way that left existing users at a loss for how to interact with the new version. Heck, skip the tiny increments. I'd go so far as to suggest that if a Mac user were to time-travel forward from 1984, they would be less confused by the current version of OS X than Windows 7 users seem to be by Windows 8.
- jff 15y ago
  Your time-traveling Mac user would probably be pretty surprised that it took until 2001 to get real multi-tasking and memory protection, and that the only way to do that was to switch to the Dread UNIX :)

wavephorm 15y ago

Warning mobile users: OnSwipe site, cashed my iPad browser immediately.

lucb1e 15y ago

You'd think Microsoft has an entire panel of USER beta testers, not just bughunters. Seems not.

smackfu 15y ago
More like Microsoft has enough user beta testers that they can aggregate their anecdotes in order to get useful data, instead of just treating single user anecdotes as "proof" of anything.
Splines 15y ago
MSFT does (IMO) rigorous usability testing, but I'm not so sure the organization is agile enough to take that feedback into account.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

mkup 15y ago

It reminds me old good times when we started "vi" editor in fullscreen terminal and asked newbies to close the program.

underwater 15y ago
At least "vi" gives some feedback. "ed" is far worse.
- mdkess 15y ago
  ?

RexRollman 15y ago

I've been playing with Windows 8 and it to be a horrible UI experience, although I do like the changes made to Explorer and it's theme. I really hope Microsoft makes a way to run Explorer directly on login, even if it is hidden away somewhere.

nsns 15y ago

This has also been the case with Win95, many users had trouble using the mouse, trying to raise it in the air in order to raise the cursor on the screen etc. While I'm not sure about Metro's usefulness for laptops and desktops, I do think that the real test for the cancellation of the start button is whether the learning curve is short, and the change, once you've mastered it, is perceived as an improvement.

hetman 15y ago

To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. I'm sure anyone that is actually told how it works will have little trouble with it. I'm not sure why an OS has to retain a 20 year old UI paradigm if a nicer method appears to replace it. People seem to hate change, even for the better. This reminds me of a recurring theme in the Linux world where any Windows originated UI feature seems to follow the pattern: 1) Users complain loudly about not copying useless Windows features. 2) UI features get copied from Windows with a 5 year delay once they become the expected norm. 3) 10 years later the community staunchly opposes the removal of features. The ones which were once "unnecessary Windows stuff".

TeMPOraL 15y ago
> To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. It may be convenient, but the real problem here is discoverability. There's no way you can realize that screen edges are interactive unless you either knew that beforehand, stumbled upon it on accident or saw a YouTube video explaining it.
masklinn 15y ago
> To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with Windows. However it's mystery meat: it provides no clue as to what is active and what is not (in fact, it provides no activable element at all). There's a reason why WP7 mandates (if not requires) side-arrows or that a bit of next screen's content be visible on the edges of the current screen: it hints that there is something there, it's a very nice clue (even with that, the most frequent criticism of WP7 is that it's hard to know what is active and what is not). Completely hidden "edge of screen" elements are very nice but only work if you know they're there already. What do you do when you don't? You're boggled, and either you try hunting the interface for active areas (looking for pointer changes, old-school adventure games style) or you give up and go back to something you can use at a glance.
- 15y ago

user2459 15y ago

The 'you figure it out' test doesn't work across the board. It works for common tasks but when you're introducing a new paradigm obviously it needs to be taught. All the new paradigms on windows 8 can be taught in less than a 10 word sentence. This kind of citizen's journalism is unscientific, a waste of time and of no value to microsoft.

dgregd 15y ago

Users want desktops and tables. They have different UI and that's OK. You operate cars, trucks and excavators in a similar way but not exactly the same way. MS wants to translate its power from desktop monopoly to tablet market. And therefore they play against users. It seems that MS Windows team is too powerful to let smaller teams cannibalize Windows market share. "Innovators Dilemma" case? Personally I would import only tablet features which make sense for desktop OS. For example app sandbox and market, standard app upgrade api, notifications.

csomar 15y ago

A "real" user is not the average user. It can be a lot below the average. Another thing to mention is that despite the changes being huge (but not really that huge), the learning curve is smaller that switching to the Mac or Linux for example. You may figure out how to quickly launch the browser and a couple of apps on the Mac, but you'll need months to get used to it and know the few times per month used functionality.

dhughes 15y ago

I think MS should make a Windows: Bifocals. My dad does the same thing, bifocal eyeglasses and a belly make for some weird contortions when trying to view a monitor.

mckoss 15y ago

If I didn't know better, I'd interpret MS's actions as trying to drive desktop computer users to Mac and Linux; kind of like their redesign of Office (ribbon) driving people to Google Apps. MS doesn't seem to be "protecting" it's market share anymore; it seems to want be seen as an innovator, rather than make its current users happy (which seems a very odd philosophy for a company with 90% market share). The only way I can understand this is to believe that MS is consciously "ignoring" internal usability data in order to push forward an innovation agenda.

ttt_ 15y ago
Yes, Microsoft is fond of alienating its user base, it amazes me how often they do that. I don't plan on using Windows 8, but if I did, I'd probably be alienated just as much as since until now I haven't really used a single touch device. Also, if the users are going to have to simulate touch gestures with a mouse, I foresee an increse in RSI for the next generation.

cgranade 15y ago

I get that moving forward means breaking existing paradigms. I'm happy that MS is trying Metro (not so happy with the horribly anti-user policies surrounding Metro, but I digress), and don't mind that it's a change. That said, they need to leave some kind of path for existing users to map concepts onto the new UI. A great example of this, I think, is in Gnome Shell, where the "Activities" hotcorner is clearly labelled, and fills the same UI role as the "Applications" menu in previous versions of Gnome. A user moving from Gnome 2 would likely try to click Activities, and while they may be surprised at the overlay that results, would still find all their applications in one place there. From the looks of it, Windows 8 provides no such path for users to attach existing intuition to. Change is fine, but it has to be done well.

primigenus 15y ago

This is a terrible video because the guy keeps pointing things out to his dad. If you want to get some objective data about how people respond to this, you let them figure it out by themselves and you let them start from scratch: turn on the computer and go from there. So until someone does that on a reasonable scale (say, 5 people), there's nothing to see here.

ConnorWGarvey 15y ago
I love the scattered Mac peripherals and the totally flippant attitude. Completely impartial.

puppybeard 15y ago

Don't consumer operating systems always offer a virtual tour of how to use them?

WiseWeasel 15y ago
The difference is you actually have to sit through it this time.
- puppybeard 15y ago
  Yeah, if I installed Windows 8, I'd probably take the time the time to learn how the new things work. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's bad. What I don't like is how consumption-oriented Metro is. It doesn't matter how slick it is, I don't want to be bombarded with notifications when I sit down at my pc. But of course, I can avoid it entirely, which I probably will. Windows 7 should do me for the next five years, easy.

bayleo 15y ago

I'm more interested in what is going on w/ those Thinkgeek LED clocks lining his shelf.

JacobAldridge 15y ago

I'm remind of the original Windows 95 ads (with Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones). At the time, the Start Button was new and (iirc) the ads focused on the Start Button and the (obvious now) fact that it 'started' the user's experience. Not having seen Windows 8, I don't know what UI has replaced the Start Button. I hope that before I use Windows 8 I do get some of those basics from somewhere (unlike my iPhone, which required far too much Googling to make work. Perhaps I'm showing my age). Edit: Start me up original Windows 95 ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI

achy 15y ago

I think apple was smart with the way they went mobile, in that they didn't really try to carry over any of their exiting OSX UI. Often it is 10x harder to unlearn habits than to form new ones. If I'm presented with something that is 'exactly like before except for a bunch of glaring omissions and additions' it will feel like the uncanny valley and getting used to things will be much harder. Apple went for the 'Everything that you do in iOS is new but seamlessly intuitive' route which lends a reasonable learning curve and more importantly no steep 'unlearning' curve.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
This is very true and applies in a lot of ways e.g. Building an application to try to take customers away from an incumbent. I've tried to use Gimp and LibreOffice, but they both are close enough to Photoshop and MS Office that I can't ever learn their "dialects", which are very close to the originals', but not quite. Instead, I constantly feel like I'm fighting them. When I moved to Pages instead, I was forced to learn a whole new language, and so that's what happens. No remapping, just mapping.

molecularbutter 15y ago

Microsoft needs to break Windows 8 Metro away from the desktop and make it tablet only, why is this so hard for them to see?

Achshar 15y ago
because android isn't going anywhere with it's ridiculous fragmentation. and Microsoft wont be going either if they want their app store to be a success.

JVIDEL 15y ago

Win8 is the result of higher ups at MSFT getting caught in trends instead of being able to tell which strategy works and which doesn't, as they should. Tablets are a bad business, read tablets not the iPad. The iPad's sales and huge profits are a Black Swan in a lake full of regular White Swan tablets making no money and carving a hole in OEMs quarterly results, so at the end some are actually considering leaving the nascent tablet market. That's because the majority of people still prefers to pay $500 for a very functional and feature-loaded laptop than paying that same amount (or more) for a barely competitive tablet. That vast majority uses Windows, and now MSFT instead of taking a page from Apple and using WP7 for tablets they are giving the finger to all the Windows users that keep their company going (almost every other division is hemorrhaging money or barely breaking even) by forcing them into the limitations of a tablet UI.

TazeTSchnitzel 15y ago
Limitations are both a curse and a blessing. One of the brilliant things for new users about Windows 8 is they heavily encourage use of the Metro design language, ensuring consistency in application interfaces.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- JVIDEL 15y ago
  For 99% of the people out there UI consistency is a non-issue, they care more about being able to do-X/run-X than having every app look the same.
kooshball 15y ago
>(almost every other division is hemorrhaging money or barely breaking even) This is incorrect. You can see the latest earnings results here. The division results are at the bottom. http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY12/Q2/default.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn... The only division losing money is the Online Services Division. Windows and Windows Live is not even the largest in terms Revenue or Profit, it is dwarfed by Microsoft Business Division.

Skywing 15y ago

I do feel bad for users like the one in the video. I feel bad because I know that my father is going to be that person in the video, too. By the time Windows 8 reaches my father's computer, he'll be in his late 50s. He gets around Windows 7 just fine, but he does not stray away from his familiar things. He knows where the browser is and he knows how to tinker around in the control panel to change certain settings. The moment something does not do what he expects, though, he's pretty lost. Especially lost if he can't easily find an explanation as to what's happening, on Google. I have used Windows 8 already, and I can say that if what my father has to use is what I used of it, then he's in for a rough trip. He'll learn it, but sadly it'll take much longer than it will for me, for example.

shingen 15y ago

First of all, Microsoft screwed up in removing the start button. It was completely unnecessary to remove it, and they added no value in doing so. They could have just as easily had the start button pop out the appropriate side navigation, and then let users optionally decide which approach to keep. Second, I'm sure there will be tutorials built into Windows 8 for people that want to learn how to use Metro and any of the other changes. Some of the comments here seem to ignore that. It doesn't excuse the stupidity of removing the start button of course.

jakejake 15y ago
I wouldn't be totally surprised if MS internally has argued endlessly about removing the start button. That's a huge move on their part. I wouldn't be surprised if this consumer preview is partly an experiment to see how people react. I feel like I'm pretty open to changes in software, I'm a habitual upgrader. But ditching the start menu really throws me for a loop. Having to leave my working screen and go to another screen just to launch a new app is super annoying. It could be that tablets are the future, but most of us are still using an actual computer so it sucks to have functionality reduced down to a tablet when you are working at a desktop.

cabirum 15y ago

This is all wrong. His dad would never install the Consumer Preview himself. He did not know it exists. He did not read blog posts about it, articles, interviews, etc. CP was released for developers and users who are interested in seeing what the new Windows looks like. They are already familiar with it and know how it works. Obviously, after installing the final release there will be a tutorial explaining all the new features, problem solved.

yaix 15y ago

I am pretty sure it's the mouse that will valish, and your office PC will have a touch screen as well. I have done it quite a few times already, touching the screen of my netbook, only to realize that its not my smartphone. In 5 year, every computer sold will have a touch screen, be it a tablet, phone or a PC. People who want to continue using the mouse will continue using W7 for the next 10 years, like they did with XP before.

marknutter 15y ago
Hold your arm out in front of you for 5 minutes.
- m_for_monkey 15y ago
  He didn't say the touch screen will be vertical.
  - artursapek 15y ago
    Having to look down at a screen for prolonged periods of time presents another ergonomic problem - neck cramps. I don't see why we're trying to change something that works really well already.
    - m_for_monkey 15y ago
      I didn't say the touch screen will be horizontal.
- yaix 15y ago
  Why would you have your finger pressed to the screen for 5 minutes? Asuming that the number of notebook style PCs continues to rise, your fingers, when on the keyboard are actually pretty close to the screen, often closer than they are to the mouse. So you would just move your have foreward some 10 or 20 cm and every once in a while. To touch on a cell in Excel or mark a couple of words in a text processor. Maybe use two fingers when in Photoshop or AutoCAD. Well, for the later maybe a mouse is necessary, but that's what W7 will be around for for quite a while.

bungle 15y ago

Maybe MS thinks that the computer in a future is actually your phone. Then you have different accesories for it. At office you have display, keyboard and mouse. The phone automatically senses their presense and atarts to wirelesly communicate with them, i.e. bringing metroless desktop to those peripheals. Then you might have tablet like dummy screen that communicates wirelessly with the phone bringing metrolook to the screen. And you could also use the phone as is with metro. It could easily hook to your home entertainment too. Yes, this is fuuristic, and it is not going to happen soon.

AJ007 15y ago

I called out Microsoft on this here and on /. when the first previews came out. It made no sense. I remote in to Windows machines on my iPad. Its very difficult to use and I understand that. Now Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too, look Windows is a tablet and desktop! It can do both! No, that means it fails at both as the common user is exposed to a sub-par experience no matter which device they are using. This reminds me a lot of Windows Media Center. I don't know if it was XP of Vista that came with bundled versions of it, but it left the user thinking, "What the F is this?" Microsoft is in serious trouble, and they know it. They refuse to take seriously the things that are most vital to their long term survival as a company selling consumer products. Apple's version of a half-assed product release is Apple TV -- "just a hobby"; compare that to Microsoft's expansive portfolio of half-assed products, Apple TV looks like a polished, finished product (and it is.) If Steve Jobs was still alive and ran Microsoft, one would imagine that everyone responsible for Windows Metro would be fired.

shahar2k 15y ago

an easy way to look at the way window 8 seems to treat the desktop is to look at the way windows 7 and previous treat the command line. There are still many commandline apps, even many important parts of windows require the command line to operate, however microsoft hasnt exactly put a great deal of development time into advancing commandline UI technology (and there are many companies who HAVE done just that) plainly speaking it seems they are relegating the desktop to be the "next commandline" another relic, however the transition fails to address the fact that at it's current state, metro is not able to replace the desktop for anything but the most basic applications. another problem mentioned elsewhere ("windows 8 is leaky") can also be explained another way - tablets have touchscreens but no easy way to use a mouse / keyboard, desktops have mouse / keyboard but generally no easy way to use a touchscreen, so using one interaction method pretty much precludes the other and trying to make an interface which works with both creates a mushy middling kind of experience which combines good and BAD things from both methods.we see this when trying to use a mouse with metro apps as well as when trying to use touch with desktop ones. I'm treating windows 8 as another vista for now (and I used vista for many years) it's usable, full of new ideas, but lacking in that final polish where all the new pieces and old pieces meet.

mrhyperpenguin 15y ago

I have the HP TouchSmart tm2t (a touchscreen laptop) and the touchscreen controls make Windows 8 easy and actually enjoyable to use. I don't know what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 8. I know they intended to make touch a first class citizen but it seems like they've forgotten about the mouse and keyboard.

conradfr 15y ago

It's ok, you always have to skip one version of Windows out of two. It will all be figured it out in Windows 9. What's funny is that they put Windows in phones and it didn't work, so now now they try to put Windows Phone in pcs.

BCounsell 15y ago

how did we ever manage to transition from MS-DOS to Windows in the first place? I tried Windows 3.1 for the first time yesterday and I could not for the life of me figure out how to get to the command line. I don't see how I can be productive after the first 30 seconds. WINDOWS FAIL!

LilValleyBigEgo 15y ago

This is more of the Industry pushing general purpose computing devices toward single use, media purchase and consumption devices.

LocalPCGuy 15y ago

My biggest beef with Metro wasn't the lack of the Start Menu, although that was up there. Rather, it was that the Touch events that make it useful are NOT emulated with a mouse (at least, I couldn't figure out how to make them work.) What should be simple things, like being able to just click the desktop ANYWHERE, and drag it back and forth to more it horizontally (like you can do with a finger/touch) doesn't work. You have to go to the bottom of the screen and use the scroll bar. Swipe-In events from the top/sides/bottom of the screen don't work, ruining much of the default "usability" (if you call it that) of new apps like IE10(Metro version) or even the default desktop Metro UI functionality and charms. The mouse is definitely a second-class citizen in Metro, and it shouldn't be. If Microsoft would just make the touch controls work with a mouse, that would eliminate probably 70% of my problems with Metro. Put the Start Menu back, and I'm left with just vague uneasiness cause something is changing.

contextfree 15y ago
You can scroll with the wheel or by pushing against the sides of the screen, as well as the scrollbar (which btw makes it easier to jump to another part of the page than it would be with touch). "swipe-in from top/bottom" = right-click, and "swipe from sides" = swing around the corners. In general the design philosophy for mouse in Win8 is that it shouldn't be used to imitate the touch controls, but rather it should have its own independent set of controls for the same actions, that better fit the mouse.