For a small business in which people are moving about to different offices and off-site, laptop/desktop/server + Windows 8.1 + cloud + remote computing + smartphones = a functionally useful system rather than a system with frustrating gaps. It’s a terrific concept that actually works, but unfortunately its interface for computers is not logically structured, leaving one to flop about at random, guessing at where to move the cursor and when to click the mouse. Most small business folks are not Karnak. We don’t intuit our way through the day. Microsoft made a 99 yard run but dropped the ball before crossing the goal line.
A long-time problem in the computer/software industry is that project development is line, whereas technical communication (e.g. that which has grown out of technical writing roots, such as information design) is staff, with the line merrily doing its thing and the staff left to clean up the mess and tie it up in a bow shortly before the release date. The result is a kludge because the cart (the hardware and code) has been put in front of the horse (the person using the product).
I suspect that this is one of the reasons Window 8 has not been received as well as was intended. It can do all sorts of cool and groovy stuff, particularly if your business is on the go, but without a logical and non-intuitive interface it is frustrating to use for people who are out there trying to earn a living rather than sitting in their parent’s basements playing with computers.
Windows 8 and 8.1 is the operating system equivalent of giving a car driver a parts bucket and expecting the car driver to drive away happily. If appropriate resources had been put into the design of the interface, I expect the reception would have been positive rather than negative.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the trend in all interfaces these days.
Before reading on, visit the Daily Show web site and try to guess where the option to view full episodes is. If you are not already familiar with it, did you find it in less than 10 minutes?
You click on the three horizontal lines in the fixed bar near the top.
There used to be de facto standards for menus. Microsoft had its “file…edit…view” standard in all its programs. If you visited a web site, you could find your way around by clicking on some underlined text or somewhere there would be the word “options” or “menu” or something similarly intuitive. Now, if you want to get to the menu in Word, you click on the Microsoft logo. If you want to get to the menu in Windows Media, you right click somewhere on the top bar. If you land on an unfamiliar web site, you have to click on some random symbol. If you land on some familiar web site, they have probably redesigned it to have a “modern interface” where you play guess-where-to-click.
Everyone (except the SDMB) is taking a bit step backwards from intuitive interfaces.
That may be because people got burned by Vista. If they bought it despite hearing bad things about it, they were sorry, and weren’t about to buy a new OS everyone hated. I have Vista, and its problems are more under the hood - the interface itself was not a big change from XP.
A lot of computers are purchased by corporate IT departments, and the last thing they want to do is to support a ton of users floundering with an unintuitive interface. Not enough of them have Windows phones or tablets to make the unification of the interface worthwhile.
8.1 might be better, but you only get one shot, though Microsoft traditionally thinks they get three.
And I think that may be a lot of it there–Windows XP was “good enough” for a large number of people, they were migrating off of XP and onto Win8 not because they wanted cool new features, but because Microsoft told them XP was going away.
If you force someone to upgrade like that, and make a major change in the way they work, you better either make sure the changes are such that the new way is clearly and obviously much superior, or you better have a real good and easy help/tutorial section. Win8 did neither.
Heck, some version of Clippy may have even been worthwhile. “You appear to be flailing the mouse pointer around as if you’re trying to figure out how to open the side menu. Try putting it in the bottom right corner.”
A major factor was eliminating the Start menu (because it wasn’t used much) AND replacing what people WERE using - frequently used programs and shortcuts on the desktop.
I was forced to move to a new computer when my Win XP laptop began dying. I started way back with Windows 3.somethingorother. I’ve been few a few different versions since then. I was certainly willing to learn a new OS.
Windows 8 had me tearing at my hair and screaming. There was no start menu. There were charms. Instead of being ordered into directories on the hard drive, it wanted me to put files and documents into libraries. Accidentally swiping the touchpad from the side can bring up another window. It reminded me very much of using my mother’s iPad. I DO NOT WANT AN iPAD. I want a laptop. I was extremely frustrated. Then, some friends recommended Classic Shell. Now, 95% of the time my computer will do what I want and need.
To get back to the original question, Microsoft is a huge corporation, chock-full of bureaucracy, inertia, and turf wars. Huge corporations have a very, very hard time putting out quality products; everything in their culture mitigates against it.
The irony is that under the hood, it’s actually quite an improvement in speed and performance from 7. After slapping Classic Shell on it, it’s basically a supercharged Windows 7. Without that, it’s a frustrating descent into madness and pointlessly obfuscated menus. Running tech support on my MIL’s laptop was an exercise in wanting to toss it through the wall, and she wouldn’t let me put CS on it because it runs the same way as a Windows Phone. Which she doesn’t own. Or plan to in the near future. Or would be able to navigate if she did. scream at the heavens
As pointed out, heirarchal structure is absolutely still there; contextual organization is an option (and a powerful one, if you take a few minutes to set it up), not a requirement.
DVD video removal is irksome, although there are easy ways to add it back in.
Solitaire and Minesweeper are free downloads from the store and greatly updated versus prior versions. Minesweeper in particular really adds new life into a tired game.
I will be the first to admit bad decisions were made on some of these things, but complaints of “missing features” can be corrected very quickly. I feel more sympathetic for people that simply dislike the interface – I personally disagree and greatly enjoy it, but I don’t think everybody has to share my tastes.
The hybrid concepts they’ve leaked for Win 9 (and started including in 8.1) are really nice, and I think MS could have avoided a ton of backlash by integrated more of a “classic mode” out of the gate.
What is so fucking hard to understand that changing the appearance of stuff doesn’t make it better. Yes they’ve managed some improvements but at the expense of the sanity of it’s users.
I’m convinced that they make obvious visual changes just to prove they did something. They don’t believe people will feel they got something for their money even if it runs twice as fast.
Atttention MS. If you want to make your customers happy stop making them your beta testers and put in real improvements instead of reinventing the !#$% wheel.
This is the key. Microsoft doesn’t care about making its customers happy.
It’s the biggest monopoly in the world, and has complete control over you, me, your boss and his entire IT department.
Microsoft tech geeks live in a world of their own, and are completely cut off from the people who use their product. The geeks fill the internet with praise over the wonders of every new operating system-it’s faster, it supports xyz protocol, etc, etc. But this is all totally irrelevant to the people who have to use a computer to earn a living and support their family.
Most people use their computers for producing the standard stuff of business: text documents on Word, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint graphics, etc, etc. What works now is perfectly good enough for 90 percent of the public, and nobody wants to have all their work habits destroyed, lose a couple days of production while they re-learn how to do the same thing they have been doing for the past 15 years—and in the end find that have zero advantages over the previous operating system.
Gone forever are the old days when everybody wanting a new computer so they could leave AOL and get a broadband connection.
Windows 9’s changes include a standard option to default to a normal desktop view and a modified start menu that combines 8’s live tiles into a standard left-corner pop-up menu.
Windows 8 runs faster than 7 in many ways, includes several new power-user-friendly features (notably the vastly improved copy dialogs), deep cloud storage integration, user account profile syncing, and improved plug-and-play and update features.
The Live Tile system allows lots of at-a-glance information and encourages a “neater” organization than the old “pile of icons on the desktop” approach of most users.
The only functional failing of Windows 8 is that they didn’t do enough to ensure a seamless transition for mouse users. It turns out Windows isn’t allowed to have a learning curve, even a shallow one.
Obviously MS is not relying on entrenched monopoly or they wouldn’t bother changing so dramatically. They know that they can’t just rely on existing IT contracts, so they tried to build a system that would work on the biggest emerging form factors.
You’re arguing that what’s already there is good enough. That’s not a good long-term business plan, nor is it right. Computers and UI today are mediocre compared to what they will be in twenty years – unless companies decide to just stop trying anything new.
If you want what you have and think it’s good enough…keep it.
You can organize things into categories and sub-categories, but there’s no heirarchal menu, there’s just the “All Apps” which means you have to wade through everything to get to what you want.
That’s right - you need to go to the store. Not only is there no way to intuitively know this, it turns the feature into a sales pitch. I, for one, don’t want to be driven to their store to get something that used to be included, no strings attached, in every prior version.
Visual changes are a necessary part of keeping a product looking modern (because the definition of ‘modern’ will not stay still. Have you looked at Win95 GUI components recently? They were the bees tits when they first came out - now they look terrible.
There must be a lot of kool-aid consumed at MS. I’ve noticed over the years that when I talk to my friends at MS they always seem surprised and confused that anyone would ever consider a competitors product. Even with solid data regarding pros and cons, there seems to be kind of a consistent (between different people) pause as they try to incorporate this information in their world view.
But why did they choose a graphic design that looks like it was rendered in CGA? Primary colors, blocky design, no shading or shadows. This was modern in 1985.