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Actually it's a terribly efficient design. The usability studies that involved eye-tracking showed that when the start menu is open, users gaze is purely focuse

by gagaga 13y ago

Actually it's a terribly efficient design. The usability studies that involved eye-tracking showed that when the start menu is open, users gaze is purely focused on the start menu, not other objects on the desktop. If this is the case, then why not use the whole screen as your start menu? Now you can show many more apps, search results, and allow users to spatially group apps and folders to their liking. The backlash came from the fact that it was a change from 20+ years of ingrained behavior, not that it was an inherently poor design. However, you could argue breaking the previous mental model of users will definitely create issues and therefore is a bad design.

nly 13y ago
Where I'm looking and what I'm thinking are different things. I used to use the start menu out of muscle memory like a zombie, it was subconscious. A full screen experience is jarring
derekp7 13y ago
So with the old start menu, users were looking at the start menu when they opened it. That makes perfect sense -- why else would you open the start menu if you didn't want to look at it? However, it also took up a smaller section of the screen, so you could more readily find what you are looking at. With the Metro screen, I have to play Where's Waldo whenever I want to find an app (I have the same problem with Gnome 3 shell, trying to find an app icon in that massive wasteland). But that's just me -- I also didn't like the sliding start menu design either (Windows 7, KDE 4), where submenus open in the same space as the folder icons -- I'd rather, when clicking on a submenu, have it open into new screen real estate like any of the traditional menus.
- gagaga 13y ago
  So your problem isn't with the small-start screen vs big screen, but with the density of information? With the Metro Start Screen you can customize apps, folders, and their sizes to your liking, or just type what application you want and hit enter to launch it.
- sp332 13y ago
  How can you more readily find something in a smaller space? And the new start menu is much easier to organize then the old start menu.
  - jimmaswell 13y ago
    Look at the window on the far left of your task bar, and tell me if you can read the system clock while looking at it. Now tell me if you can make out what the window directly next to it on the taskbar is while still looking at the first one. Peripheral vision is a limitation.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    >How can you more readily find something in a smaller space? Is this a serious question?
    - sp332 13y ago
      Yeah. By default, the Win7 start menu shows 10 most recent apps, then if you click "all programs" it shows a couple dozen little icons (about 1/3 of my menu) at once. If you have to scroll around to find little things, it takes longer than just looking at a single static page of larger icons.
      - conradfr 13y ago
        Well I use the start menu quit often, but almost never the "all programs", maybe I'm not the one. Also I think the "start menu" argument encompass in reality the whole concept of Metro against traditional desktop UI.
      - userbinator 13y ago
        If you don't remember the XP/Vista classic start menu, it's a linear list that expands to the height of the screen (and it takes multiple columns if the height isn't sufficient); no scrolling, no (or limited) two-dimensional scan. Even better, the list can be sorted for fast searching.
    - 13y ago
smhinsey 13y ago
It's also about poor consideration of the varying circumstances of real world use. Ideas about a full screen start menu that work well in small form factors can't just be assumed to work on a desktop display. I think the new start menu is great on a small touchscreen device like a tablet, but my workstation has a pair of 30'' monitors and it's ridiculous.
overgard 13y ago
Using the whole screen is one of those things that sounds more efficient in theory, but with large monitors there's a lot of scanning you have to do. With the menu I can scan top to bottom in an alphabetical way -- very quick to do. With tiles I have to scan in two dimensions, and there's no particular order to them so I can't just skim over any of them. It's not the exact same thing, but it reminds me of the weird misadventure they made in Office 2000 where they would hide infrequently used menu items. It sounded good in theory, I mean, less menu items should mean less confusion right? But in practice the main response was "where the hell did that thing I was looking for go?" and "why does my menu keep changing?"
- gagaga 13y ago
  The users can dictate the ordering of apps and folders on the Metro Start Screen. Not only that, users can incorporate spatial organization to make apps even easier to scan and find quickly. You could argue that this is a better design. However, all designs have pros and cons and are not necessarily best for all use cases. As to your second point, I think the question is how do you improve your UI without breaking previous mental models/behavior?
caf 13y ago
20 years ago people were still using Program Manager instead of a start menu to launch applications... which was typically maximised to full screen, with spatially grouped apps in child windows. The more things change, eh?

by gagaga 13y ago

nly 13y ago

Where I'm looking and what I'm thinking are different things. I used to use the start menu out of muscle memory like a zombie, it was subconscious. A full screen experience is jarring

derekp7 13y ago

So with the old start menu, users were looking at the start menu when they opened it. That makes perfect sense -- why else would you open the start menu if you didn't want to look at it? However, it also took up a smaller section of the screen, so you could more readily find what you are looking at. With the Metro screen, I have to play Where's Waldo whenever I want to find an app (I have the same problem with Gnome 3 shell, trying to find an app icon in that massive wasteland). But that's just me -- I also didn't like the sliding start menu design either (Windows 7, KDE 4), where submenus open in the same space as the folder icons -- I'd rather, when clicking on a submenu, have it open into new screen real estate like any of the traditional menus.

gagaga 13y ago
So your problem isn't with the small-start screen vs big screen, but with the density of information? With the Metro Start Screen you can customize apps, folders, and their sizes to your liking, or just type what application you want and hit enter to launch it.
sp332 13y ago
How can you more readily find something in a smaller space? And the new start menu is much easier to organize then the old start menu.
- jimmaswell 13y ago
  Look at the window on the far left of your task bar, and tell me if you can read the system clock while looking at it. Now tell me if you can make out what the window directly next to it on the taskbar is while still looking at the first one. Peripheral vision is a limitation.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  >How can you more readily find something in a smaller space? Is this a serious question?
  - sp332 13y ago
    Yeah. By default, the Win7 start menu shows 10 most recent apps, then if you click "all programs" it shows a couple dozen little icons (about 1/3 of my menu) at once. If you have to scroll around to find little things, it takes longer than just looking at a single static page of larger icons.
    - conradfr 13y ago
      Well I use the start menu quit often, but almost never the "all programs", maybe I'm not the one. Also I think the "start menu" argument encompass in reality the whole concept of Metro against traditional desktop UI.
    - userbinator 13y ago
      If you don't remember the XP/Vista classic start menu, it's a linear list that expands to the height of the screen (and it takes multiple columns if the height isn't sufficient); no scrolling, no (or limited) two-dimensional scan. Even better, the list can be sorted for fast searching.
  - 13y ago

smhinsey 13y ago

It's also about poor consideration of the varying circumstances of real world use. Ideas about a full screen start menu that work well in small form factors can't just be assumed to work on a desktop display. I think the new start menu is great on a small touchscreen device like a tablet, but my workstation has a pair of 30'' monitors and it's ridiculous.

overgard 13y ago

Using the whole screen is one of those things that sounds more efficient in theory, but with large monitors there's a lot of scanning you have to do. With the menu I can scan top to bottom in an alphabetical way -- very quick to do. With tiles I have to scan in two dimensions, and there's no particular order to them so I can't just skim over any of them. It's not the exact same thing, but it reminds me of the weird misadventure they made in Office 2000 where they would hide infrequently used menu items. It sounded good in theory, I mean, less menu items should mean less confusion right? But in practice the main response was "where the hell did that thing I was looking for go?" and "why does my menu keep changing?"

gagaga 13y ago
The users can dictate the ordering of apps and folders on the Metro Start Screen. Not only that, users can incorporate spatial organization to make apps even easier to scan and find quickly. You could argue that this is a better design. However, all designs have pros and cons and are not necessarily best for all use cases. As to your second point, I think the question is how do you improve your UI without breaking previous mental models/behavior?

caf 13y ago

20 years ago people were still using Program Manager instead of a start menu to launch applications... which was typically maximised to full screen, with spatially grouped apps in child windows. The more things change, eh?