5 ms·

Windows 8 designer: Why Microsoft forced Metro on us all

37 points by alt_ 13y ago

radicalbyte 13y ago
Interesting; I've just switched to Mac from PC and the thing I love more than anything is the virtual desktops. Windows is just painful to use nowadays.
quarterto 13y ago
self-described UX designer The "self-described" here seems redundant and patronising. It sounds like "so-called UX designer" or "supposed UX designer". This is presumably the guy's actual job title; do you see CNet saying "self-described CEO"? Nope.
- pavlov 13y ago
  Did you read the article? Cnet tried to confirm his job title, but Microsoft didn't want to provide that information; hence "self-described".
acqq 13y ago
"It was for your good." Pure spin, no content. Flagged.
- ars 13y ago
  Did you actually read it? He's saying that by splitting windows they can add all sorts of power features to desktop, while not messing with the more casual users since they stay on metro. Personally a little option box that turns on those power features and defaults to off makes more sense to me <shurg>. Like how Pine (and Alpine) do it.
  - acqq 13y ago
    What you refer to doesn't change my observation of the article as just a spin. Specifically, this: "Now that the casual users are aware of their new pasture, we can start tailoring. It will be a while before the power users start seeing the benefits of this (that's why I said they'd benefit in the long run). Right now we still have a lot of work to do on making Metro seem tasty for those casual users, and that's going to divert our attention for a while. But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making the desktop more advanced. We'll add things that we couldn't before." Bull. They just did what they thought was the best for them: "everything must be Windows (even if we try to catch up with Apple's success.)"
    - ars 13y ago
      I'm OK with you calling it spin, but don't say "no content" because that's not accurate.
      - acqq 13y ago
        "Somebody on the internet claims that he is from Microsoft, it is unconfirmed but here's what he writes (and nothing new is inside)" Content? Not for me. Waste of time. Including this one, having to explain. I'm surprised you see that much worth in the article to even discuss it with me. Do you have any direct involvements? That would explain...
        ars 13y ago
        > it is unconfirmed It actually was confirmed. > I'm surprised you see that much worth in the article to even discuss it with me. A bit - is their strategy of splitting power and basic really the way to go? I don't agree, but it's a valid argument even if I disagree. You claim no content, but there is content - the very argument I repeated in the paragraph above this one. > Do you have any direct involvements? That would explain... No, it would not explain. Not only do I not work for Microsoft I hardly ever even use any of their products. Linux for me, and I used OS/2 for many years.
stusmall 13y ago
They say they contacted MS to verify his identity but didn't include their reply. From reading this article without the context of the reddit thread I would venture to guess if he really was then it is past tense now.
- benologist 13y ago
  Pretty sure publications just do that to make it look like they contributed to stories they outright steal.
- nacs 13y ago
  Seems he still works there according TFA: "CNET contacted Microsoft to verify the identify of the self-dubbed Windows UX designer. A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that Miller does work for the company but declined to reveal any details about his specific role."
bitJericho 13y ago
"Does Microsoft need to force-feed us a not-so-good version of Windows before we can get something better?" Am I the only one that remembers the hate from the Windows XP start menu?
- MartinCron 13y ago
  The now-beloved Windows XP interface that people called childish at its introduction? You're not the only one. Although in fairness, moving from the lower-saturation Windows 7 to an XP VM was shocking all over again. So many colors!
  - Consultant32452 13y ago
    I remember the XP start button being called childish because it utilized a color scheme straight out of the Playskool toy section. It wasn't the functionality of the start button at all. We had been happily using the start button since.. win95?
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      I definitely heard a number of people complain about how it was organized. I forget exactly what the complaints were though.
      - MartinCron 13y ago
        The XP start menu was different in that there were high-profile things "pinned" to the top of the menu and then other things were under the "All Programs". Also, the icons were much larger than the Windows95/98/ME/2000 start menu.
- blakesterz 13y ago
  There was hate for the XP Start Menu? I remember everyone loving that. Don't recall any hate, maybe I missed it.
  - 13y ago
tempestn 13y ago
This actually makes me hopeful. It was looking a lot like Windows 8 was the first step toward phasing out the desktop entirely. Certainly providing the simplest, most streamlined default experience for casual users makes sense, for the reasons specified. If they're explicitly thinking that that will then allow them to provide more advanced tools for power users as well, since they will no longer be right on the surface to confuse casual users, that's fantastic. Makes me hopeful that Windows 9 will continue the trend shared by Microsoft OSes and Star Trek movies.
MaysonL 13y ago
The casual users I know who have been exposed to Windows 8 have uniformly had the reaction "WTF?", often violently and expletiveladenly expressed.
- Consultant32452 13y ago
  People don't like any kind of change. My daughter has no reference about what is "normal" or how computer interfaces should look. She is quite happy with the win8 interface and took to it like a duck to water.
  - TillE 13y ago
    > People don't like any kind of change. I hear this view constantly, but it's just absurd. I started using OS X for the first time just a year ago and generally loved it, even though it's very different in many ways to Windows or KDE/GNOME. The multi-touch trackpad gestures are particularly useful. You don't get complaints when you offer users significant new functionality. Good change is good. Bad change is bad. Sideways change is also probably bad.
brudgers 13y ago
If you ever wonder why complaints about Metro rarely involve system administrators it is because Microsoft started the interface redesign at the command line with PowerShell. And for a GUI, Metro provides significant and logical access from the keyboard.
- jbigelow76 13y ago
  I've never heard this. I stopped spinning up Windows Server 2012 VMs and went back to 2008R2 instead because I absolutely detested Metro on the server (I happily installed Win8 on my laptop and have a Surface too so it's not about hating on Win8), it destroyed the ability to multitask. From a sysadmin perspective maybe hardcore Powershell jockeys don't mind it as much but if that's the case Windows Server 2012 has a GUI less install option that would suit them even better than Metro.
GSimon 13y ago
If Microsoft purposely did that with the intention of making the desktop default in Windows 9, that's kind of smart trick. A cruel, but smart one, that is if they do make the desktop in Windows 9..
- jfoster 13y ago
  The Windows 8 pricing does seem to support the theory that Microsoft knew it wasn't good. The non-upgrade version was much cheaper than it was for previous iterations of Windows.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Or it could just be an attempt to reduce "barriers to entry". Get aggressive on pricing to accelerate adoption on something that is very different and thus (as history shows) a hard sell.
  - GSimon 13y ago
    Yea but you take that also as them needing to compensate for the loss of sales, so a higher price for less volume. Or you could take it one step further and suggest they did it so that less people would buy it (because of the higher cost), thus making Windows 9 that much more appealing in comparison.
Aqwis 13y ago
It took some getting used to, but I now much prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7 on my laptop (that said, I still use W7 on my desktop PC). Why? It simply allows me to do much more without touching the touchpad. I power on the laptop, press Ctrl+Alt+Del, start typing my password without having to awkwardly alt+tab around as I would in W7. I log in to the desktop, press Win and start typing c,h,r...enter, Chrome starts. I press Ctrl+L, type a URL or a search, scroll on the page using pgdown or pgup... only having to use the touchpad if I want to click on a link or select some text. Sure, I could do much of this in W7 if I wanted to, but W7's start menu search is far inferior to W8's Metro search, and I would have to ALT+TAB a lot more around if I wanted to avoid using the touchpad.
- agersant 13y ago
  In W7, you can use Win+Number to focus a window. This is much more convenient than Alt+Tab (but doesn't scale beyond ten windows).
  - bentcorner 13y ago
    I'm not a big fan of this feature. Unless you pin several icons and have really good muscle memory knowing what is past three or four icons is too difficult.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Having used at my parent's place I find it also quite ok.
- daigoba66 13y ago
  > but W7's start menu search is far inferior to W8's Metro search That's interesting because I personally consider Win8's start screen search far inferior to Win7's start menu. Neither come close to being as powerful and as useful as OSX's spotlight, but I honestly felt Win7 did a finer job.
  - pmelendez 13y ago
    That's arguably but the thing most people don't realize is that Win 8 is the more keyboard centric version of Windows and that in a laptop is priceless :)
kohanz 13y ago
Did we really need insider information to confirm that Windows 8 was designed strictly for casual users?
- tomphoolery 13y ago
  It's news to me. I had no idea Windows 8 was designed for any users.
  - pavlov 13y ago
    It's pretty great on tablets. Maybe that wasn't the right design target, but clearly it was designed for some users.
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE#t=0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE#t=0 http://davidhewson.com/2014/02/10/revising-without-paper-finally-it-works/ http://davidhewson.com/2014/02/10/revising-without-paper-fin... Doing a complete book edit without paper (stylus only), or drawing and publishing web comics is now possible on a tablet. Windows8 is the only content-creation tablet device right now. The Samsung Galaxy Tab (Android) tries to do the same with their Wacom stylus and everything... but the experience just isn't the same. When you can actually use _real_ Photoshop, Word, One Note, and have the best handwriting recognition software... the Stylus on Win8 is far above everyone else. Stylus machines are rare... but you still have some choice. Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Dell Venue Pro (8 and 11), Asus Vivotab Note, Lenovo Helix, and Lenovo Thinkpad. So the price range is between $300 (Intel Atom based Vivotab Note) and $2000 (Lenovo Helix Intel i7 with 8 GB of RAM) for Windows8 based stylus tablets.
    - sigsergv 13y ago
      It's great on tablets until you need to click on tiny button on tiny window that eventually appear on great 9" FullHD display.
skc 13y ago
Funny enough, there's no proof this guy was a Windows 8 designer. Wonder if this is a case of "It's true because it's on the internet"
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 13y ago
Casual users are like sheep. Sometimes, you gotta force 'em for their own good. The author is correct, Metro is the heaven for all those grandmas and family relatives who before would call/mail us on "how do I power on the computer"-type problems. Now, you put 'em in front of a Metro PC and boom, your incoming calls reduce by half.
- abat 13y ago
  I don't think that's true. I was in a store this morning where the cashier was talking to tech support because she didn't know how to restart the new win8 computer. All the hidden menus (eg charm bar) were making it very unintuitive for her. A lot of win8 is not easy to figure out by yourself if you've only used win 7 before.
- tammer 13y ago
  The problem is, we don't live in the year 2003. Grandma has a PC. Sure, she doesn't know how to "use" it in the grand sense that we savvy users might. But, she knows how to do things. She knows how to Facebook, she knows how to send an email. Unlike us, she doesn't think of these things as general concepts. They're very specific, down to the smallest detail. Email for her is hotmail.com Now, grandma is presented with Metro (or as I like to call it, The Boxes). The small, basic knowledge she gathered over time that gave her freedom of communication is now worth nothing. Perhaps she'll explore, and perhaps over time she might find that the interface is in fact easier to use. The problem is she wants to send an email now, and none (and I really mean NONE) of the anchors, symbols or paradigms she's used to even exist anymore. On a tablet, this makes sense. She can intuitively poke around and maybe get to the email app. She's not used to touching a screen, and the opportunity gives her a chance to learn something new. With a mouse and keyboard, she doesn't know what to click on. She's never clicked on text and had it perform an action. "Charms" bar? Corner of the screen? Ha. Now imagine we're not only talking about grandma, but instead average non-technical office worker. Not only does said office worker need to send the email now, she needs to send a dozen yesterday. She has no time to learn something new. Her company paid good money for a device that's supposed to save time. I agree that this article gets to the bottom of the issue, though. Microsoft has underestimated its users.
higherpurpose 13y ago
Funny because it's the casual users that are staying away from Windows 8. At least the "power users", if they really have no choice but using Windows 8, at least they can get around it. But casual users have no idea how to do that, and they are also who will be the most bothered by the "sudden change" in how Windows works.
bunderbunder 13y ago
> Try to add a powerful new feature to Windows, and casual users balk. One example Miller cited is multiple desktops, a feature in OS X and Linux, but still not built into Windows. Each time Microsoft conducted user tests on multiple desktops, casual users got confused, prompting the company to cut it. The same feature's confusing to causal OS X and Linux users, too. Which is most definitively not a problem, because casual users won't be coming into contact with that feature, anyway. OS X is a single-desktop interface until you actively choose to create a second desktop. Most Linux setups behave roughly the same. On territory this well-trodden, it should have required precisely zero lateral thinking for Microsoft to figure out how to respond to that focus group result. Similarly, when Apple added a tablet-inspired application launcher to OS X, they figured out a great way to make it both easy-to-access and non-disruptive, without displacing any existing workflows. The launcher's there and works well for users who want it, and is effectively non-existent for users who don't. That anecdote from the article, if true, is yet another delightfully pithy illustration of Microsoft's fundamental difficulty with UX: They don't grasp the difference between "one size fits all" and "all fit one size".
Kapura 13y ago
>In one respect, Miller is saying that Windows 8 was the price we had to pay to get to a smoother and friendlier Windows 9. If so, is that really the best way to treat your customers? Does Microsoft need to force-feed us a not-so-good version of Windows before we can get something better? Or was Windows 8 an unnecessary slip-up on the road to the future? What a load of trash. People need to stop judging Microsoft products in terms of unreleased products. I understand that the hackers et al. who use the power features in Windows are upset that MS changed the game on them, but putting Metro as the forefront of the UI was, as the article describes, a necessary step in getting users to actually use it. Metro UI is quite good for browsing content and navigating to the things that you're certain to want. It's good looking and it works pretty well. Just because it's your launch screen doesn't mean it's supposed to be the only tool you ever need. If you log on to windows 8 to check facebook, it's awesome. If you log on to manage hard drive partitions, you're going to need to be looking elsewhere. Microsoft is trying to make products for the consumer market. If you want to blame anybody for Metro, blame Apple. iOS and other simple, clean user experiences showed consumers that there is a better way than the old desktop standards. The applications you want can be at your fingertips, instead of in a button in the corner. Microsoft HAD to make the initial experience of the UI simpler to stay competitive in the modern market for personal computing.
dman 13y ago
How far will this divide go? There is a desktop version skype and a metro version (ditto with IE). I recently cringed when I had to explain to a casual user that they should be using the desktop version of Skype instead of the metro version. Having to explain that there are two different versions of Skype was jarring and bizarre.
pavlov 13y ago
IMHO, one huge thing they got wrong with Windows 8 Metro/"Modern UI" on non-touch computers was to repurpose the right mouse button in a completely unexpected way. On a Windows 8 tablet, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the "control bar" of a Metro application (I don't know what is the official name of that UI element). This is crucial to know because the bar is hidden by default, yet it contains fundamental actions like deleting a message in Mail or navigating to a URL in Internet Explorer. When using a mouse instead, you're supposed to right-click to bring up the "control bar". This is completely non-discoverable and also goes against every established UI convention: for the past 20+ years, the right button has been used for context menus, but suddenly in Metro it brings up a hidden application-global menu instead. Windows 8.1 tried to fix this by adding a button in the corner that brings up the bar, so at least you can find it by clicking around. But that's still not good enough. The bar makes sense on a tablet where screen real estate is limited and the swipe feels very natural, but on a desktop it's just a bad toolbar implementation that adds extra mouse navigation to simple tasks because people never figure out the right-click shortcut.
throwwit 13y ago
I see it as a big push to monetize screen real estate just like what's happening with xbox.

37 points by alt_ 13y ago

Interesting; I've just switched to Mac from PC and the thing I love more than anything is the virtual desktops. Windows is just painful to use nowadays.

quarterto 13y ago

self-described UX designer The "self-described" here seems redundant and patronising. It sounds like "so-called UX designer" or "supposed UX designer". This is presumably the guy's actual job title; do you see CNet saying "self-described CEO"? Nope.

pavlov 13y ago
Did you read the article? Cnet tried to confirm his job title, but Microsoft didn't want to provide that information; hence "self-described".

acqq 13y ago

"It was for your good." Pure spin, no content. Flagged.

ars 13y ago
Did you actually read it? He's saying that by splitting windows they can add all sorts of power features to desktop, while not messing with the more casual users since they stay on metro. Personally a little option box that turns on those power features and defaults to off makes more sense to me <shurg>. Like how Pine (and Alpine) do it.
- acqq 13y ago
  What you refer to doesn't change my observation of the article as just a spin. Specifically, this: "Now that the casual users are aware of their new pasture, we can start tailoring. It will be a while before the power users start seeing the benefits of this (that's why I said they'd benefit in the long run). Right now we still have a lot of work to do on making Metro seem tasty for those casual users, and that's going to divert our attention for a while. But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making the desktop more advanced. We'll add things that we couldn't before." Bull. They just did what they thought was the best for them: "everything must be Windows (even if we try to catch up with Apple's success.)"
  - ars 13y ago
    I'm OK with you calling it spin, but don't say "no content" because that's not accurate.
    - acqq 13y ago
      "Somebody on the internet claims that he is from Microsoft, it is unconfirmed but here's what he writes (and nothing new is inside)" Content? Not for me. Waste of time. Including this one, having to explain. I'm surprised you see that much worth in the article to even discuss it with me. Do you have any direct involvements? That would explain...
      - ars 13y ago
        > it is unconfirmed It actually was confirmed. > I'm surprised you see that much worth in the article to even discuss it with me. A bit - is their strategy of splitting power and basic really the way to go? I don't agree, but it's a valid argument even if I disagree. You claim no content, but there is content - the very argument I repeated in the paragraph above this one. > Do you have any direct involvements? That would explain... No, it would not explain. Not only do I not work for Microsoft I hardly ever even use any of their products. Linux for me, and I used OS/2 for many years.

stusmall 13y ago

They say they contacted MS to verify his identity but didn't include their reply. From reading this article without the context of the reddit thread I would venture to guess if he really was then it is past tense now.

benologist 13y ago
Pretty sure publications just do that to make it look like they contributed to stories they outright steal.
nacs 13y ago
Seems he still works there according TFA: "CNET contacted Microsoft to verify the identify of the self-dubbed Windows UX designer. A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that Miller does work for the company but declined to reveal any details about his specific role."

bitJericho 13y ago

"Does Microsoft need to force-feed us a not-so-good version of Windows before we can get something better?" Am I the only one that remembers the hate from the Windows XP start menu?

MartinCron 13y ago
The now-beloved Windows XP interface that people called childish at its introduction? You're not the only one. Although in fairness, moving from the lower-saturation Windows 7 to an XP VM was shocking all over again. So many colors!
- Consultant32452 13y ago
  I remember the XP start button being called childish because it utilized a color scheme straight out of the Playskool toy section. It wasn't the functionality of the start button at all. We had been happily using the start button since.. win95?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    I definitely heard a number of people complain about how it was organized. I forget exactly what the complaints were though.
    - MartinCron 13y ago
      The XP start menu was different in that there were high-profile things "pinned" to the top of the menu and then other things were under the "All Programs". Also, the icons were much larger than the Windows95/98/ME/2000 start menu.
blakesterz 13y ago
There was hate for the XP Start Menu? I remember everyone loving that. Don't recall any hate, maybe I missed it.
- 13y ago

tempestn 13y ago

This actually makes me hopeful. It was looking a lot like Windows 8 was the first step toward phasing out the desktop entirely. Certainly providing the simplest, most streamlined default experience for casual users makes sense, for the reasons specified. If they're explicitly thinking that that will then allow them to provide more advanced tools for power users as well, since they will no longer be right on the surface to confuse casual users, that's fantastic. Makes me hopeful that Windows 9 will continue the trend shared by Microsoft OSes and Star Trek movies.

MaysonL 13y ago

The casual users I know who have been exposed to Windows 8 have uniformly had the reaction "WTF?", often violently and expletiveladenly expressed.

Consultant32452 13y ago
People don't like any kind of change. My daughter has no reference about what is "normal" or how computer interfaces should look. She is quite happy with the win8 interface and took to it like a duck to water.
- TillE 13y ago
  > People don't like any kind of change. I hear this view constantly, but it's just absurd. I started using OS X for the first time just a year ago and generally loved it, even though it's very different in many ways to Windows or KDE/GNOME. The multi-touch trackpad gestures are particularly useful. You don't get complaints when you offer users significant new functionality. Good change is good. Bad change is bad. Sideways change is also probably bad.

brudgers 13y ago

If you ever wonder why complaints about Metro rarely involve system administrators it is because Microsoft started the interface redesign at the command line with PowerShell. And for a GUI, Metro provides significant and logical access from the keyboard.

jbigelow76 13y ago
I've never heard this. I stopped spinning up Windows Server 2012 VMs and went back to 2008R2 instead because I absolutely detested Metro on the server (I happily installed Win8 on my laptop and have a Surface too so it's not about hating on Win8), it destroyed the ability to multitask. From a sysadmin perspective maybe hardcore Powershell jockeys don't mind it as much but if that's the case Windows Server 2012 has a GUI less install option that would suit them even better than Metro.

GSimon 13y ago

If Microsoft purposely did that with the intention of making the desktop default in Windows 9, that's kind of smart trick. A cruel, but smart one, that is if they do make the desktop in Windows 9..

jfoster 13y ago
The Windows 8 pricing does seem to support the theory that Microsoft knew it wasn't good. The non-upgrade version was much cheaper than it was for previous iterations of Windows.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Or it could just be an attempt to reduce "barriers to entry". Get aggressive on pricing to accelerate adoption on something that is very different and thus (as history shows) a hard sell.
- GSimon 13y ago
  Yea but you take that also as them needing to compensate for the loss of sales, so a higher price for less volume. Or you could take it one step further and suggest they did it so that less people would buy it (because of the higher cost), thus making Windows 9 that much more appealing in comparison.

Aqwis 13y ago

It took some getting used to, but I now much prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7 on my laptop (that said, I still use W7 on my desktop PC). Why? It simply allows me to do much more without touching the touchpad. I power on the laptop, press Ctrl+Alt+Del, start typing my password without having to awkwardly alt+tab around as I would in W7. I log in to the desktop, press Win and start typing c,h,r...enter, Chrome starts. I press Ctrl+L, type a URL or a search, scroll on the page using pgdown or pgup... only having to use the touchpad if I want to click on a link or select some text. Sure, I could do much of this in W7 if I wanted to, but W7's start menu search is far inferior to W8's Metro search, and I would have to ALT+TAB a lot more around if I wanted to avoid using the touchpad.

agersant 13y ago
In W7, you can use Win+Number to focus a window. This is much more convenient than Alt+Tab (but doesn't scale beyond ten windows).
- bentcorner 13y ago
  I'm not a big fan of this feature. Unless you pin several icons and have really good muscle memory knowing what is past three or four icons is too difficult.
pjmlp 13y ago
Having used at my parent's place I find it also quite ok.
daigoba66 13y ago
> but W7's start menu search is far inferior to W8's Metro search That's interesting because I personally consider Win8's start screen search far inferior to Win7's start menu. Neither come close to being as powerful and as useful as OSX's spotlight, but I honestly felt Win7 did a finer job.
- pmelendez 13y ago
  That's arguably but the thing most people don't realize is that Win 8 is the more keyboard centric version of Windows and that in a laptop is priceless :)

kohanz 13y ago

Did we really need insider information to confirm that Windows 8 was designed strictly for casual users?

tomphoolery 13y ago
It's news to me. I had no idea Windows 8 was designed for any users.
- pavlov 13y ago
  It's pretty great on tablets. Maybe that wasn't the right design target, but clearly it was designed for some users.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE#t=0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE#t=0 http://davidhewson.com/2014/02/10/revising-without-paper-finally-it-works/ http://davidhewson.com/2014/02/10/revising-without-paper-fin... Doing a complete book edit without paper (stylus only), or drawing and publishing web comics is now possible on a tablet. Windows8 is the only content-creation tablet device right now. The Samsung Galaxy Tab (Android) tries to do the same with their Wacom stylus and everything... but the experience just isn't the same. When you can actually use _real_ Photoshop, Word, One Note, and have the best handwriting recognition software... the Stylus on Win8 is far above everyone else. Stylus machines are rare... but you still have some choice. Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2, Dell Venue Pro (8 and 11), Asus Vivotab Note, Lenovo Helix, and Lenovo Thinkpad. So the price range is between $300 (Intel Atom based Vivotab Note) and $2000 (Lenovo Helix Intel i7 with 8 GB of RAM) for Windows8 based stylus tablets.
  - sigsergv 13y ago
    It's great on tablets until you need to click on tiny button on tiny window that eventually appear on great 9" FullHD display.

skc 13y ago

Funny enough, there's no proof this guy was a Windows 8 designer. Wonder if this is a case of "It's true because it's on the internet"

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mschuster91 13y ago

Casual users are like sheep. Sometimes, you gotta force 'em for their own good. The author is correct, Metro is the heaven for all those grandmas and family relatives who before would call/mail us on "how do I power on the computer"-type problems. Now, you put 'em in front of a Metro PC and boom, your incoming calls reduce by half.

abat 13y ago
I don't think that's true. I was in a store this morning where the cashier was talking to tech support because she didn't know how to restart the new win8 computer. All the hidden menus (eg charm bar) were making it very unintuitive for her. A lot of win8 is not easy to figure out by yourself if you've only used win 7 before.
tammer 13y ago
The problem is, we don't live in the year 2003. Grandma has a PC. Sure, she doesn't know how to "use" it in the grand sense that we savvy users might. But, she knows how to do things. She knows how to Facebook, she knows how to send an email. Unlike us, she doesn't think of these things as general concepts. They're very specific, down to the smallest detail. Email for her is hotmail.com Now, grandma is presented with Metro (or as I like to call it, The Boxes). The small, basic knowledge she gathered over time that gave her freedom of communication is now worth nothing. Perhaps she'll explore, and perhaps over time she might find that the interface is in fact easier to use. The problem is she wants to send an email now, and none (and I really mean NONE) of the anchors, symbols or paradigms she's used to even exist anymore. On a tablet, this makes sense. She can intuitively poke around and maybe get to the email app. She's not used to touching a screen, and the opportunity gives her a chance to learn something new. With a mouse and keyboard, she doesn't know what to click on. She's never clicked on text and had it perform an action. "Charms" bar? Corner of the screen? Ha. Now imagine we're not only talking about grandma, but instead average non-technical office worker. Not only does said office worker need to send the email now, she needs to send a dozen yesterday. She has no time to learn something new. Her company paid good money for a device that's supposed to save time. I agree that this article gets to the bottom of the issue, though. Microsoft has underestimated its users.

higherpurpose 13y ago

Funny because it's the casual users that are staying away from Windows 8. At least the "power users", if they really have no choice but using Windows 8, at least they can get around it. But casual users have no idea how to do that, and they are also who will be the most bothered by the "sudden change" in how Windows works.

bunderbunder 13y ago

> Try to add a powerful new feature to Windows, and casual users balk. One example Miller cited is multiple desktops, a feature in OS X and Linux, but still not built into Windows. Each time Microsoft conducted user tests on multiple desktops, casual users got confused, prompting the company to cut it. The same feature's confusing to causal OS X and Linux users, too. Which is most definitively not a problem, because casual users won't be coming into contact with that feature, anyway. OS X is a single-desktop interface until you actively choose to create a second desktop. Most Linux setups behave roughly the same. On territory this well-trodden, it should have required precisely zero lateral thinking for Microsoft to figure out how to respond to that focus group result. Similarly, when Apple added a tablet-inspired application launcher to OS X, they figured out a great way to make it both easy-to-access and non-disruptive, without displacing any existing workflows. The launcher's there and works well for users who want it, and is effectively non-existent for users who don't. That anecdote from the article, if true, is yet another delightfully pithy illustration of Microsoft's fundamental difficulty with UX: They don't grasp the difference between "one size fits all" and "all fit one size".

Kapura 13y ago

>In one respect, Miller is saying that Windows 8 was the price we had to pay to get to a smoother and friendlier Windows 9. If so, is that really the best way to treat your customers? Does Microsoft need to force-feed us a not-so-good version of Windows before we can get something better? Or was Windows 8 an unnecessary slip-up on the road to the future? What a load of trash. People need to stop judging Microsoft products in terms of unreleased products. I understand that the hackers et al. who use the power features in Windows are upset that MS changed the game on them, but putting Metro as the forefront of the UI was, as the article describes, a necessary step in getting users to actually use it. Metro UI is quite good for browsing content and navigating to the things that you're certain to want. It's good looking and it works pretty well. Just because it's your launch screen doesn't mean it's supposed to be the only tool you ever need. If you log on to windows 8 to check facebook, it's awesome. If you log on to manage hard drive partitions, you're going to need to be looking elsewhere. Microsoft is trying to make products for the consumer market. If you want to blame anybody for Metro, blame Apple. iOS and other simple, clean user experiences showed consumers that there is a better way than the old desktop standards. The applications you want can be at your fingertips, instead of in a button in the corner. Microsoft HAD to make the initial experience of the UI simpler to stay competitive in the modern market for personal computing.

dman 13y ago

How far will this divide go? There is a desktop version skype and a metro version (ditto with IE). I recently cringed when I had to explain to a casual user that they should be using the desktop version of Skype instead of the metro version. Having to explain that there are two different versions of Skype was jarring and bizarre.

pavlov 13y ago

IMHO, one huge thing they got wrong with Windows 8 Metro/"Modern UI" on non-touch computers was to repurpose the right mouse button in a completely unexpected way. On a Windows 8 tablet, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the "control bar" of a Metro application (I don't know what is the official name of that UI element). This is crucial to know because the bar is hidden by default, yet it contains fundamental actions like deleting a message in Mail or navigating to a URL in Internet Explorer. When using a mouse instead, you're supposed to right-click to bring up the "control bar". This is completely non-discoverable and also goes against every established UI convention: for the past 20+ years, the right button has been used for context menus, but suddenly in Metro it brings up a hidden application-global menu instead. Windows 8.1 tried to fix this by adding a button in the corner that brings up the bar, so at least you can find it by clicking around. But that's still not good enough. The bar makes sense on a tablet where screen real estate is limited and the swipe feels very natural, but on a desktop it's just a bad toolbar implementation that adds extra mouse navigation to simple tasks because people never figure out the right-click shortcut.

throwwit 13y ago

I see it as a big push to monetize screen real estate just like what's happening with xbox.