4 ms·

Hardly any arguments in that article at all, besides 'if you use Windows 8 long enough you will eventually learn how it works' and 'stop complaining, Windows 8

by w0utert 14y ago

Hardly any arguments in that article at all, besides 'if you use Windows 8 long enough you will eventually learn how it works' and 'stop complaining, Windows 8 is the future'. Windows 95 and XP/2000 didn't actually have a user-friendly interface either, in fact, I think it was downright terrible. Yet, everyone knows how to use it, which makes it appear 'easy' and 'user-friendly'. This article completely steers around the fact that user-friendly interfaces have to be intuitive, consistent, and predictable. Metro could become all of these, but as long as Microsoft keeps insisting on trying to fuse it with the traditional Windows desktop interface, it will never reach it's full potential.

tjoff 14y ago
They were very user friendly. They might not have been beginner-friendly but that is a short-sighted goal to aim for.
- w0utert 14y ago
  I have to disagree. The traditional Windows interface is full of undiscoverable hidden stuff, inconsistent and illogical ways that make doing simple things hard, the start menu was never a good UI paradigm to begin with, the taskbar has always been a big mess that basically became unusable if you had more than 5 windows open, the way you interact with the file system is completely arbitrary, task management is basically limited to a list of running processes, nothing like Spaces or Mission Control like OS X has, and so on. Really, after installation and configuration, any Linux system with Gnome 2.x or XFCE is more user-friendly than Windows before W7, even though both basically try to copy almost every aspect of the Windows desktop user interface. Don't you think there is a reason why almost anyone who has ever used a Mac says OS X is more user-friendly, or why both Gnome and now Microsoft are moving away from the classic Windows desktop paradigm? It never was so great in the first place.
  - tjoff 14y ago
    All your points can as easily be stated for Gnome 2.x, XFCE or OS X as well. Only that windows UI is in my opinion vastly superior just because it is consistent and well thought out compared to the rest. Don't you think there is a reason why almost anyone who has every used a Mac says OS X is more user-friendly... Yes there is a reason. OS X might be more beginner-friendly but as soon as you actually start to use it you realize it isn't user-friendly. As on most/all simple systems (including OS X) doing stuff that wasn't intended is extremely cumbersome. Doing things on Windows is comparatively both easy and logical, which enables you to do what you want (and not what the designer thought you wanted) way faster than OS X allows you to. Just see how well OS X handles multiple windows, it's a joke compared to Windows.
    - w0utert 14y ago
      > All your points can as easily be stated for Gnome 2.x, XFCE or OS X as well. Only that windows UI is in my opinion vastly superior just because it is consistent and well thought out compared to the rest. Half of what you are saying is exactly what I said myself: Gnome and XFCE indeed follow almost the exact same desktop paradigm as Windows, so obviously they share many of the same problems. Most notably the problems of having a start menu to do things or a taskbar that quickly gets cluttered if you have many applications open at the same time. The other half of your statement doesn't make any sense to me. What exactly is more 'consistent' or 'well thought out' in Windows 9x/XP/2000, compared to Gnome 2.x/XFCE? > Yes there is a reason. OS X might be more beginner-friendly but as soon as you actually start to use it you realize it isn't user-friendly. As on most/all simple systems (including OS X) doing stuff that wasn't intended is extremely cumbersome. I guess one of us must live in some kind of bizarro world, because what you are saying is completely the opposite of my experience. OS X = easy out of the box, consistent, great window management, powerful CLI for power users. Yes, it has 'hidden settings', but so does every other OS, and for almost all of them you have nice GUI tools to control them Windows = cumbersome to use and many non-discoverable functions out of the box, inconsistent in almost everything, very basic window management (basically min/maximize/close plus a taskbar), a CLI that is almost an insult to the user. Yes it is also full of 'hidden settings' which are all stuffed in some kind of binary blob called the registry, indexed by cryptic keys. Care to give some examples of things that are easy in Windows and hard in OS X? I'd love to hear them. > Doing things on Windows is comparatively both easy and logical, which enables you to do what you want (and not what the designer thought you wanted) way faster than OS X allows you to. You can't be serious about this, if you are, you have never used OS X (or any modern Linux desktop environment, for that matter). I've been using all 3 platforms extensively over the last decade, and Windows is decidedly the worst when it comes to doing things faster. OS X is hands-down the best in that respect. Just count the number of clicks or key presses required to do anything. In OS X most if not everything I regularly do takes at most one keypress and/or 3 clicks. In Windows I often have to click through 5 or 6 windows, dialogs, dropdowns, tabs and whatnot. Just launching applications in a 3-level deep start menu already takes 5 clicks. You really come off as a lifetime Windows user who got so comfortable with the desktop environment that you simply don't notice how backwards and inconvenient it is.
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chris_wot 14y ago
Not sure why you have been voted down, I agree that there was very little to persuade me in this article. In fact, he directly contradicts himself in regards to the ribbon - first he says it is awesome, then he says it sucks on a tablet interface. He really can't have it both ways.

by w0utert 14y ago

tjoff 14y ago

They were very user friendly. They might not have been beginner-friendly but that is a short-sighted goal to aim for.

w0utert 14y ago
I have to disagree. The traditional Windows interface is full of undiscoverable hidden stuff, inconsistent and illogical ways that make doing simple things hard, the start menu was never a good UI paradigm to begin with, the taskbar has always been a big mess that basically became unusable if you had more than 5 windows open, the way you interact with the file system is completely arbitrary, task management is basically limited to a list of running processes, nothing like Spaces or Mission Control like OS X has, and so on. Really, after installation and configuration, any Linux system with Gnome 2.x or XFCE is more user-friendly than Windows before W7, even though both basically try to copy almost every aspect of the Windows desktop user interface. Don't you think there is a reason why almost anyone who has ever used a Mac says OS X is more user-friendly, or why both Gnome and now Microsoft are moving away from the classic Windows desktop paradigm? It never was so great in the first place.
- tjoff 14y ago
  All your points can as easily be stated for Gnome 2.x, XFCE or OS X as well. Only that windows UI is in my opinion vastly superior just because it is consistent and well thought out compared to the rest. Don't you think there is a reason why almost anyone who has every used a Mac says OS X is more user-friendly... Yes there is a reason. OS X might be more beginner-friendly but as soon as you actually start to use it you realize it isn't user-friendly. As on most/all simple systems (including OS X) doing stuff that wasn't intended is extremely cumbersome. Doing things on Windows is comparatively both easy and logical, which enables you to do what you want (and not what the designer thought you wanted) way faster than OS X allows you to. Just see how well OS X handles multiple windows, it's a joke compared to Windows.
  - w0utert 14y ago
    > All your points can as easily be stated for Gnome 2.x, XFCE or OS X as well. Only that windows UI is in my opinion vastly superior just because it is consistent and well thought out compared to the rest. Half of what you are saying is exactly what I said myself: Gnome and XFCE indeed follow almost the exact same desktop paradigm as Windows, so obviously they share many of the same problems. Most notably the problems of having a start menu to do things or a taskbar that quickly gets cluttered if you have many applications open at the same time. The other half of your statement doesn't make any sense to me. What exactly is more 'consistent' or 'well thought out' in Windows 9x/XP/2000, compared to Gnome 2.x/XFCE? > Yes there is a reason. OS X might be more beginner-friendly but as soon as you actually start to use it you realize it isn't user-friendly. As on most/all simple systems (including OS X) doing stuff that wasn't intended is extremely cumbersome. I guess one of us must live in some kind of bizarro world, because what you are saying is completely the opposite of my experience. OS X = easy out of the box, consistent, great window management, powerful CLI for power users. Yes, it has 'hidden settings', but so does every other OS, and for almost all of them you have nice GUI tools to control them Windows = cumbersome to use and many non-discoverable functions out of the box, inconsistent in almost everything, very basic window management (basically min/maximize/close plus a taskbar), a CLI that is almost an insult to the user. Yes it is also full of 'hidden settings' which are all stuffed in some kind of binary blob called the registry, indexed by cryptic keys. Care to give some examples of things that are easy in Windows and hard in OS X? I'd love to hear them. > Doing things on Windows is comparatively both easy and logical, which enables you to do what you want (and not what the designer thought you wanted) way faster than OS X allows you to. You can't be serious about this, if you are, you have never used OS X (or any modern Linux desktop environment, for that matter). I've been using all 3 platforms extensively over the last decade, and Windows is decidedly the worst when it comes to doing things faster. OS X is hands-down the best in that respect. Just count the number of clicks or key presses required to do anything. In OS X most if not everything I regularly do takes at most one keypress and/or 3 clicks. In Windows I often have to click through 5 or 6 windows, dialogs, dropdowns, tabs and whatnot. Just launching applications in a 3-level deep start menu already takes 5 clicks. You really come off as a lifetime Windows user who got so comfortable with the desktop environment that you simply don't notice how backwards and inconvenient it is.
- deleted 14y ago
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chris_wot 14y ago

Not sure why you have been voted down, I agree that there was very little to persuade me in this article. In fact, he directly contradicts himself in regards to the ribbon - first he says it is awesome, then he says it sucks on a tablet interface. He really can't have it both ways.