6 ms·

Meet Microsoft's Antidote to Vista

35 points by pierrefar 18y ago

ktharavaad 18y ago
>>> create a good user experience <<< >>> User interface is customer service for the computer <<< >>> centralized planning, in contrast with the old culture that let Windows subgroups set their own agendas <<< seems like to me that not only are they moving towards a more "mac-like" focus on user interface, easier-to-use software. They are also copying apple's approach to software/hardware design, which is centralized around steve jobs.
- Keyframe 18y ago
  oh come on
  - jnovek 18y ago
    No kidding. How is delivering a good user experience and designing a product-appropriate development process Apple's property? Shouldn't everyone who writes software try to do those things?
    - Raphael_Amiard 18y ago
      I think he was referring to the fact that they're trying to centralize more what everything is happening into the different sections in charge of developping windows and it's subsets.
    - Maciek416 18y ago
      The contrast here is being made between two development styles: A centralized, controlled, and focused production system at Apple, versus what Microsoft apparently had before Windows 7: A network of fiefdoms which fought each other over implementation and design details but nevertheless had to secure each others' approval for changes. This brought about stalemates and some truly bizarre outcomes. Here's the famous story about the Windows shutdown menu relating to this: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c... If Microsoft has overcome these [alleged] problems, it would represent a significant change in their development style.
ahpeeyem 18y ago
"The team tried to build an operating system...with manners, not one that constantly interrupts with bubbles, boxes and warnings that, data showed, people ignored or raced to close. The Windows groups agreed in principle but old habits often reared up. Many Windows teams still wanted to be able to create alert bubbles for their functions. "We've probably talked to every team in Windows about, 'No no no no, we don't want you to pop your notifications. Windows is not going to use these notifications to tell users things,'"" Great, getting rid of popup dialogs and notifications sounds like a huge step in the right direction - people are so used to not understanding or caring what they say they just ignore them anyway.
- jnovek 18y ago
  While I agree that users generally ignore notification bubbles in Windows, how should users receive notifications? I mean, sometimes you really do have to tell people stuff. Is it OK to pop up a notification bubble if you only do it every once in a while? I feel pretty certain that a notification bubble is better than any system that steals focus from another window without responding to a user action. Is there another accepted way of delivering notifications that I'm not thinking of?
  - ahpeeyem 18y ago
    I don't have any answers but I hope the Windows 7 team do. As with you my main gripe is with dialogs that steal focus - especially ones that popup while you're typing, and only show for a split second because the focus is defaulted to a button and as you press the space bar you unwittingly 'OK' the dialog box! I'm interested to see how Windows 7 works.
  - chime 18y ago
    > Is there another accepted way of delivering notifications that I'm not thinking of? Yes. Designing your software so that it minimizes the need for such notifications. E.g. Dropbox has not once shown me a popup yet it does some very critical file sync operations. Every other app I used before Dropbox kept annoying me with "do you REALLY want to sync this file even though the source is older?" Dropbox silently and smartly handles this (by keeping both copies of the file and naming them accordingly).
jwvgoethe 18y ago
"More research and testing yielded a solution - the ribbon, which displayed different commands depending on what the PC user was doing. Then Larson-Green pushed Microsoft to get even more radical: to release Office 2007 without the hedge of a "classic mode" that would emulate the old look and feel for people who didn't like the changes." The ribbon almost gives me a stroke every time I have to use office. I've always said that whoever developed it should be drug out into the street and shot. well apparently now we know who it was. The odd thing is that microsoft considered the ribbon a success?! even more stunningly they put ribbon lady in charge of their next OS. I swear it seems that microsofts enemies are making their top level corporate decisions. This spells doom for windows 7.
- stuff4ben 18y ago
  I love the ribbon in Office 2007. It took a while to "get" the paradigm shift, but it works. As a developer, I don't use Office that much, but when I do, all of the commands I need are just a ribbon away. No more hunting through tabs of preferences or endless menus. It's also not just Microsoft that considers the ribbon a success, many other users do and they've won awards for the innovative UI.
  - jwvgoethe 18y ago
    "as a developer" this seems to be the problem with microsofts new user interfaces. The tech elite may like them, but they are impossible for the ordinary user. I posit that the vast majority of non technical end users utterly hate hate hate the ribbon. I imagine the same thing will happen with windows 7. In fact we've already been seeing it; the tech elite trying out the beta are liking it, which means that it will be unusable from the end user's perspective.
    - thismat 18y ago
      Everyday users never like change, sometimes change is needed to move forward. If you honestly think that Apple doesn't do this, then you should compare the user experience from Jaguar to Leopard, while there is a lot of similarity, a LOT has changed as well, and people had to adjust to it. Just because people don't like change, doesn't mean there should never be change. Isn't that part of the issue that holds innovation back when it comes to Microsoft? They could of done something drastic like Apple and dropped support for their old OS (Classic > OSX) instead of catering to the masses, and probably produced a better product, but they can't upset the masses who are 'used' to things.
Goronmon 18y ago
I find it interesting how bad of a image Vista has. While there were obviously issues right off the bad with hardware incompatibilities, etc...it turned out to be a really solid OS from my end. I used it for over a year and a half with fewer problems than I had with XP. Most people just seem to "know" that Vista is a terrible OS. The read some forum post that heard that it was terrible, or they saw some random news story a while back saying people weren't too happy with Vista. I've even heard some people claim it was Windows Me all over again. Then you have some of the "advice" people give out for Vista users. My favorite, of course, is that the first thing a Vista user should do is completely disable UAC. Now, sure, those pop-ups can be annoying, but I'd prefer a quick second of annoyance when loading up a program over executables starting off silently with admin privileges. In any case, I've used the Windows 7 beta as my main OS for a couple months now and haven't had any issues so far.
- pbz 18y ago
  All those observations are coming from a technical person's point of view. One thing that MS doesn't seem to get is that first impressions matter, they matter a lot. I bought a computer that came with Vista. It took me close to 5 minutes - I'm not kidding - to start up the machine to the point I was able to use anything. And it was very slow even afterwards. You just can't convince a regular person, after having such an experience, that Vista is great. You can't wash away those bad feelings with an SP or with your positive testimony. You just can't. Regular folks are far more emotional than that. This is something we as developers have to remind ourselves every day.
  - Goronmon 18y ago
    You just can't convince a regular person, after having such an experience, that Vista is great. I wonder how many "regular" users jumped on board at the very beginning while there were still issues? I rarely have talked to someone who has actual experience with the problems from Vista (other than it being included on a system with poor performance, which was an issue, I'll admit). If Vista really was a poor OS, then Windows 7 would be just putting 'lipstick on a pig'.
duncanj 18y ago
Is she being set up for the Carly Fiorina award?
GeneralMaximus 18y ago
MS should take some time to write an HIG document and put it online for everyone to see. That would help a lot. I also hope MS uses fewer "violent" colors in Win7. I'm a Mac user, and I love the way the Mac UI just recedes into the background with gray as it's dominating color. I don't like the reds and greens in the Vista UI. Of course, I could turn on classic mode, but why should I have to do that? I like the modern Aero UI, and I want to keep it - sans the violent colors. All those horrid bright colors make the Vista UI distracting, especially for someone who spends a lot of time in CLI environments.

35 points by pierrefar 18y ago

>>> create a good user experience <<< >>> User interface is customer service for the computer <<< >>> centralized planning, in contrast with the old culture that let Windows subgroups set their own agendas <<< seems like to me that not only are they moving towards a more "mac-like" focus on user interface, easier-to-use software. They are also copying apple's approach to software/hardware design, which is centralized around steve jobs.

Keyframe 18y ago
oh come on
- jnovek 18y ago
  No kidding. How is delivering a good user experience and designing a product-appropriate development process Apple's property? Shouldn't everyone who writes software try to do those things?
  - Raphael_Amiard 18y ago
    I think he was referring to the fact that they're trying to centralize more what everything is happening into the different sections in charge of developping windows and it's subsets.
  - Maciek416 18y ago
    The contrast here is being made between two development styles: A centralized, controlled, and focused production system at Apple, versus what Microsoft apparently had before Windows 7: A network of fiefdoms which fought each other over implementation and design details but nevertheless had to secure each others' approval for changes. This brought about stalemates and some truly bizarre outcomes. Here's the famous story about the Windows shutdown menu relating to this: http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c... If Microsoft has overcome these [alleged] problems, it would represent a significant change in their development style.

ahpeeyem 18y ago

"The team tried to build an operating system...with manners, not one that constantly interrupts with bubbles, boxes and warnings that, data showed, people ignored or raced to close. The Windows groups agreed in principle but old habits often reared up. Many Windows teams still wanted to be able to create alert bubbles for their functions. "We've probably talked to every team in Windows about, 'No no no no, we don't want you to pop your notifications. Windows is not going to use these notifications to tell users things,'"" Great, getting rid of popup dialogs and notifications sounds like a huge step in the right direction - people are so used to not understanding or caring what they say they just ignore them anyway.

jnovek 18y ago
While I agree that users generally ignore notification bubbles in Windows, how should users receive notifications? I mean, sometimes you really do have to tell people stuff. Is it OK to pop up a notification bubble if you only do it every once in a while? I feel pretty certain that a notification bubble is better than any system that steals focus from another window without responding to a user action. Is there another accepted way of delivering notifications that I'm not thinking of?
- ahpeeyem 18y ago
  I don't have any answers but I hope the Windows 7 team do. As with you my main gripe is with dialogs that steal focus - especially ones that popup while you're typing, and only show for a split second because the focus is defaulted to a button and as you press the space bar you unwittingly 'OK' the dialog box! I'm interested to see how Windows 7 works.
- chime 18y ago
  > Is there another accepted way of delivering notifications that I'm not thinking of? Yes. Designing your software so that it minimizes the need for such notifications. E.g. Dropbox has not once shown me a popup yet it does some very critical file sync operations. Every other app I used before Dropbox kept annoying me with "do you REALLY want to sync this file even though the source is older?" Dropbox silently and smartly handles this (by keeping both copies of the file and naming them accordingly).

jwvgoethe 18y ago

"More research and testing yielded a solution - the ribbon, which displayed different commands depending on what the PC user was doing. Then Larson-Green pushed Microsoft to get even more radical: to release Office 2007 without the hedge of a "classic mode" that would emulate the old look and feel for people who didn't like the changes." The ribbon almost gives me a stroke every time I have to use office. I've always said that whoever developed it should be drug out into the street and shot. well apparently now we know who it was. The odd thing is that microsoft considered the ribbon a success?! even more stunningly they put ribbon lady in charge of their next OS. I swear it seems that microsofts enemies are making their top level corporate decisions. This spells doom for windows 7.

stuff4ben 18y ago
I love the ribbon in Office 2007. It took a while to "get" the paradigm shift, but it works. As a developer, I don't use Office that much, but when I do, all of the commands I need are just a ribbon away. No more hunting through tabs of preferences or endless menus. It's also not just Microsoft that considers the ribbon a success, many other users do and they've won awards for the innovative UI.
- jwvgoethe 18y ago
  "as a developer" this seems to be the problem with microsofts new user interfaces. The tech elite may like them, but they are impossible for the ordinary user. I posit that the vast majority of non technical end users utterly hate hate hate the ribbon. I imagine the same thing will happen with windows 7. In fact we've already been seeing it; the tech elite trying out the beta are liking it, which means that it will be unusable from the end user's perspective.
  - thismat 18y ago
    Everyday users never like change, sometimes change is needed to move forward. If you honestly think that Apple doesn't do this, then you should compare the user experience from Jaguar to Leopard, while there is a lot of similarity, a LOT has changed as well, and people had to adjust to it. Just because people don't like change, doesn't mean there should never be change. Isn't that part of the issue that holds innovation back when it comes to Microsoft? They could of done something drastic like Apple and dropped support for their old OS (Classic > OSX) instead of catering to the masses, and probably produced a better product, but they can't upset the masses who are 'used' to things.

Goronmon 18y ago

I find it interesting how bad of a image Vista has. While there were obviously issues right off the bad with hardware incompatibilities, etc...it turned out to be a really solid OS from my end. I used it for over a year and a half with fewer problems than I had with XP. Most people just seem to "know" that Vista is a terrible OS. The read some forum post that heard that it was terrible, or they saw some random news story a while back saying people weren't too happy with Vista. I've even heard some people claim it was Windows Me all over again. Then you have some of the "advice" people give out for Vista users. My favorite, of course, is that the first thing a Vista user should do is completely disable UAC. Now, sure, those pop-ups can be annoying, but I'd prefer a quick second of annoyance when loading up a program over executables starting off silently with admin privileges. In any case, I've used the Windows 7 beta as my main OS for a couple months now and haven't had any issues so far.

pbz 18y ago
All those observations are coming from a technical person's point of view. One thing that MS doesn't seem to get is that first impressions matter, they matter a lot. I bought a computer that came with Vista. It took me close to 5 minutes - I'm not kidding - to start up the machine to the point I was able to use anything. And it was very slow even afterwards. You just can't convince a regular person, after having such an experience, that Vista is great. You can't wash away those bad feelings with an SP or with your positive testimony. You just can't. Regular folks are far more emotional than that. This is something we as developers have to remind ourselves every day.
- Goronmon 18y ago
  You just can't convince a regular person, after having such an experience, that Vista is great. I wonder how many "regular" users jumped on board at the very beginning while there were still issues? I rarely have talked to someone who has actual experience with the problems from Vista (other than it being included on a system with poor performance, which was an issue, I'll admit). If Vista really was a poor OS, then Windows 7 would be just putting 'lipstick on a pig'.

duncanj 18y ago

Is she being set up for the Carly Fiorina award?

GeneralMaximus 18y ago

MS should take some time to write an HIG document and put it online for everyone to see. That would help a lot. I also hope MS uses fewer "violent" colors in Win7. I'm a Mac user, and I love the way the Mac UI just recedes into the background with gray as it's dominating color. I don't like the reds and greens in the Vista UI. Of course, I could turn on classic mode, but why should I have to do that? I like the modern Aero UI, and I want to keep it - sans the violent colors. All those horrid bright colors make the Vista UI distracting, especially for someone who spends a lot of time in CLI environments.