168 replies to this topic 8 votes

[migo]

devHead, on 12 March 2012 - 10:13, said:

This video should be shown to Sinofsky and the rest of the Windows Dev Team. Why in the world remove the familiar Start button and make it so you have to hover your mouse in corners to discover how to access the rest of the UI. That's just retarded if you ask me. To say nothing of the fact that it was still jarring to me to be switching between the Start screen and the Desktop, even after a week of using it. I don't know; maybe I need to give it a couple of months. But making nothing discoverable and the Start screen having no visible cue of how to return to it from the Desktop unless you hover your mouse in the bottom left corner (but why would you ever do that? the Start button is no more) or in the top right hand corner to display the 'Charms' bar (a UI feature that has never existed before and gives no indication on first use that such a thing even exists). Kind of insane.

It's not easy at start, but all you need is someone to tell you about it once, and you're fine.

[V23]

There will be a tutorial in the final build. People didn't know how to use a desktop at first...they learned. People didn't know how to use an iPhone/iPad at first...they learned. Windows 8 will be no different.

[Intrinsica]

If they force the user through a first time tutorial then it won't be such a big deal - providing the user is willing to learn.

Something comes to mind though with the tutorial option. How much "new learning" will be required for users? Ok, so in the video's scenario the father will learn that he can return to the "start menu" by either going to the bottom left corner, or by going over to the right side of the screen. But what if the tutorial then starts telling him about the masses of keyboard shortcuts that are available to "make life easier"? Is he going to be able to remember each one of those shortcuts after the first tutorial? I doubt it, and that means that he won't get the "full experience" of Windows 8. Heck, I tried just working through my keyboard and seeing what each combination might do. Once I had finished, I tried testing myself by trying to do something simple, and I couldn't remember which combination would do it, so I had to work back through my keyboard again to try and find the right one.

And finally, continuing with the idea of the shortcut keys: a normal user doesn't always use the shortcut keys. Some don't even know that there are shortcut keys. I don't think I know all the shortcut keys for Windows XP, and it's been around for quite a few years now. Trying to say that "once you learn the shortcut keys it's fine" is valid if you're used to using shortcut keys, but for those that continue to rely on their mouse it's more difficult.

Is Windows 8 intuitive? No. Not in my opinion.

Compare this to previous versions of Windows. Each one has been slightly different, but the amount of new learning has been minimal. It has made it easy for users to go, "this looks different, but I can still work. Oh hey, and look at this new feature. That makes life easier!" Windows 8 changes many things, and it left me with the idea, "great, now I can't do anything until I've learnt about all the new changes and features."

[morden]

Intrinsica, on 12 March 2012 - 11:44, said:

If they force the user through a first time tutorial then it won't be such a big deal - providing the user is willing to learn.

Something comes to mind though with the tutorial option. How much "new learning" will be required for users? Ok, so in the video's scenario the father will learn that he can return to the "start menu" by either going to the bottom left corner, or by going over to the right side of the screen. But what if the tutorial then starts telling him about the masses of keyboard shortcuts that are available to "make life easier"? Is he going to be able to remember each one of those shortcuts after the first tutorial? I doubt it, and that means that he won't get the "full experience" of Windows 8. Heck, I tried just working through my keyboard and seeing what each combination might do. Once I had finished, I tried testing myself by trying to do something simple, and I couldn't remember which combination would do it, so I had to work back through my keyboard again to try and find the right one.

And finally, continuing with the idea of the shortcut keys: a normal user doesn't always use the shortcut keys. Some don't even know that there are shortcut keys. I don't think I know all the shortcut keys for Windows XP, and it's been around for quite a few years now. Trying to say that "once you learn the shortcut keys it's fine" is valid if you're used to using shortcut keys, but for those that continue to rely on their mouse it's more difficult.

Is Windows 8 intuitive? No. Not in my opinion.

Compare this to previous versions of Windows. Each one has been slightly different, but the amount of new learning has been minimal. It has made it easy for users to go, "this looks different, but I can still work. Oh hey, and look at this new feature. That makes life easier!" Windows 8 changes many things, and it left me with the idea, "great, now I can't do anything until I've learnt about all the new changes and features."

your right, this version is much more different from the predecessors than before but really, is that a problem? theres a few times in a lifetime when you need to re-learn something "basic" and can't expect the whole world to wait on you or piggyback all the old stuff for confort: if MS would do that Windows would come on 6 disks and would be the Wing Commander of our time - the app developers would have to write apllications for 4-5 UI concepts, users would have to learn to differenciate between product versions which differ only in their UIs

Win95 was a great transition user interface-wise, Win8 is a same jump - people will cope; users cry even if an icon gets changed or a menu renamed - for the shortcuts, I wouldn't care a bit: most users don't even do generic shortcuts like ctrl+a or win+r and seen only a handful of human beings who use aero snap - that does not makes these features useless or difficult to use and wouldn't even say unintuitive

[Intrinsica]

Morden, on 12 March 2012 - 12:04, said:

your right, this version is much more different from the predecessors than before but really, is that a problem? theres a few times in a lifetime when you need to re-learn something "basic" and can't expect the whole world to wait on you or piggyback all the old stuff for confort...

I agree that there needs to be progression. But the idea of re-learning something isn't always a good thing, there needs to be a justification for it.

Example 1: We thought the Earth was flat. We learnt that it was spherical and changed our thinking. This is a good example of change and can be justified.

Example 2: Someone wakes up tomorrow and decides that he's going to walk around on his hands rather than his feet. He tells the rest of the world that this is the way of the future. Are you going to start walking around on your hands, or are you going to point out that it's not as convenient as the method before? This is an example of a bad change and cannot be justified (unless you don't have any legs, I guess).

My point is that not all change is bad, but not all change is good. Microsoft is trying to progress with Windows 8 by creating one operating system for all devices. I freely admit that I think it would work fine on a touch device, but for me it falls down when it comes to the desktop side of things. In order to cater for the touch market they have had to change the desktop side of things, and in my opinion it is not a change for the better.

[NinjaGinger]

So everything has to be learned again. It looks like that anyways. Not only would I have to learn for myself, my mum just would not be able to handle it. For the first time ever, I think I will skip an operating system. Yea I know its beta and yes they will still work on it but when Windows 7 was in beta, I had a pretty good idea what it will be like when finished. As I have said before, it appears to me that Microsoft has forgotten desktop PCs. Phone or tablet, brilliant, desktop PC not so much. I really hope I'm wrong.

[morden]

Intrinsica, on 12 March 2012 - 12:17, said:

I agree that there needs to be progression. But the idea of re-learning something isn't always a good thing, there needs to be a justification for it.

Example 1: We thought the Earth was flat. We learnt that it was spherical and changed our thinking. This is a good example of change and can be justified.

Example 2: Someone wakes up tomorrow and decides that he's going to walk around on his hands rather than his feet. He tells the rest of the world that this is the way of the future. Are you going to start walking around on your hands, or are you going to point out that it's not as convenient as the method before? This is an example of a bad change and cannot be justified (unless you don't have any legs, I guess).

My point is that not all change is bad, but not all change is good. Microsoft is trying to progress with Windows 8 by creating one operating system for all devices. I freely admit that I think it would work fine on a touch device, but for me it falls down when it comes to the desktop side of things. In order to cater for the touch market they have had to change the desktop side of things, and in my opinion it is not a change for the better.

for an average computer user progress equals change equals re-learning which by definition cannot be a GOOD thing, just a necessity or if lucky, choice - that's how I see it... most users will just huff and puff about the changes then cope with the ones they cannot evade and bypass the ones they can or do not need

i really think with the Start Screen, superbar and desktop all being apart users must learn to be much more organized then before when just filling the start menu and the desktop with clutter; a much more conscous, more organized and more self-aware user is needed who KNOWS what he/she wants to reach with one click after bootup, what can wait for a scroll or two, what needs to be searched and what is needed on the superbar and the desktop - it will need some learning (or more to the point, a paradigm shift in computer usage for the average guy) but i really believe that at the end a more organized user will emerge

[morden]

oh and one more thing: the CP is a beta, and not like the almost-feature-ready Win7 builds but a real beta where i think feedback is needed very much; i also have plenty of problems with W8 and providing feedback as crazy

so no sweat, i'm pretty sure that the current state of Windows 8 does not represent the RTM... and i think mostly the UI, hot corners, animations etc.

[DKAngel]

i have to admin i am liking win8 and its **** easy to navigate with a mouse and keyboard, anyone who thinks its just for tablets is retarded

[CSharp.]

Morden, on 12 March 2012 - 13:16, said:

i really think with the Start Screen, superbar and desktop all being apart users must learn to be much more organized then before when just filling the start menu and the desktop with clutter; a much more conscous, more organized and more self-aware user is needed who KNOWS what he/she wants to reach with one click after bootup, what can wait for a scroll or two, what needs to be searched and what is needed on the superbar and the desktop

I'm not sure I get this. You think all of this is a good thing?! And you expect users to be able and be willing to change in those ways? Why again?

[Wyn6]

CJEric, on 12 March 2012 - 15:13, said:

I'm not sure I get this. You think all of this is a good thing?! And you expect users to be able and be willing to change in those ways? Why again?

Here's the thing. Change has to happen. In all walks of life, change must occur. As they say, change is constant. True not all change is good change yet it still comes to pass. While not a fact, I speculate we will not be using computers the same way in 20 years as we do now. We will not have the same UI (if we do, that will be sad in my opinion). Things WILL change. Microsoft may then be seen as a pioneer or a mere catalyst. We don't know.

And, here's a revelation... with change comes a learning curve. People had to learn to drive cars, fly planes, use electric ovens, disco (sorry) program VCRs, AND use computers in the first place.

If you sit a person, who has never used a computer in their life, in front of a desktop with Windows 7 on it, it's not intuitive at all. They have no clue how to use it. They would first start tapping on the keyboard to see if that did anything as it's right in front of them. They may even ignore the mouse altogether or start messing with it if they failed to get anywhere with the keyboard.

If they did grab the mouse they would soon notice the pointer goes where they drag. But, there's an empty screen with what looks like a basket on it. Let's drag the mouse pointer to that. Hmm. Nothing happened. IF they accidentally pressed a mouse button and somehow thought to click once the pointer was on this basket, that would still do nothing unless it was a right-click. Then they would be getting somewhere.

But, for the first few minutes it would be befuddling. If someone were to show them, or there was a tutorial or pop-ups, something letting them know how to do it, it would be much easier. The reason some of you think 7 is so intuitive is because you've been computing most if not all of your lives.

Good thing is, with 8 people already know how to use a mouse and keyboard. So, now we just gotta figure out the rest. Not to mention, we don't know what's going to change between now and RTM. Mouse to the right or left edge of screen to make Charms and Preview Pane pop up. Mouse to the bottom of the screen to make all context menus pop up. Who knows? I don't.

Bye.

[CSharp.]

Let me get this straight. One of the reasons so many people are still using Windows is, because that's what they're used to and they know how to get around it. Suddenly the iPad comes along and gets insanely popular, a device that you can sit people in front of who've never used it before and they'll figure it out in mere minutes. So as a response Microsoft is coming out with a system that the Windows-using population will have a problem getting used to, and which doesn't have a clear advantage over an iPad either?

[techguy77]

CJEric, on 12 March 2012 - 17:19, said:

Let me get this straight. One of the reasons so many people are still using Windows is, because that's what they're used to and they know how to get around it. Suddenly the iPad comes along and gets insanely popular, a device that you can sit people in front of who've never used it before and they'll figure it out in mere minutes. So as a response Microsoft is coming out with a system that the Windows-using population will have a problem getting used to, and which doesn't have a clear advantage over an iPad either?

That is a good example against any claims here that people are resistant to change. That is not true. People are resitant to crap not to good change. As you said good example is iPad. Apparently people didn't have problem adjusting and learning its interface. Why? Because it is bloody good despite my opinion about those devices and Apple in general. One thing i always credited Apple with is Style and Taste! They have the most brilliant designers.

V23, on 12 March 2012 - 10:54, said:

There will be a tutorial in the final build. People didn't know how to use a desktop at first...they learned. People didn't know how to use an iPhone/iPad at first...they learned. Windows 8 will be no different.

Probably there will be some Welcome Video Tutorial.

[morden]

CJEric, on 12 March 2012 - 15:13, said:

I'm not sure I get this. You think all of this is a good thing?! And you expect users to be able and be willing to change in those ways? Why again?

CJEric, on 12 March 2012 - 15:13, said:

I'm not sure I get this. You think all of this is a good thing?! And you expect users to be able and be willing to change in those ways? Why again?

Yes, I think everything's a good thing that forces users to use their PCs more counciosly and productively. Why? Because in the end it's better for everyone, even for the user.

[xWhiplash]

Here is the thing that everybody seems to be missing. All of these interface designs are perfect for tablet and phones. But NOT desktop computers.

The ones that use the iPad or any tablet are the ones that use it as a secondary device. I use it for just email and surfing. There are people that only use computers for emails and surfing/paying bills and so on. In that case, the metro UI will work for them on desktop computers.

However, desktop computers are most commonly used for more direct milti tasking. Having programs become full screen by default is very annoying. I would sometimes have two programs side by side (Thank you aero snap!) and I can work on both or compare something.

Then there is a very big issue going from one UI design to another constantly.

Also, yes it is very, VERY annoying having a full screen "start screen" whenever we go there. You lose part of your concentration when the entire screen is filled up. Do not bring up the fact that your focus will be on just the windows 7 start menu just as much. The fact is, I can still see 90% of my work from the corner of my eye.

I do not know how to explain it. What if I accidentally press the windows key in the middle of my Photoshop work. The past 20 years, I would get a small overlay at the bottom left that would be less annoying than 100% filled screen.

Also, keep in mind that people have jobs. SOME of those jobs have them sitting at a computer, probably still on Windows XP. Some people do not have the energy to memorize TWO ways of doing things because they work on Windows XP, and have Windows 8 at their home.

The Desktop UI does not need to be completely different. Take a look at Apple's new OS. Now, take a look 10 years ago at OS X 10.0. Notice something similar? The Dock is still there by default in Mountain Lion. Yes, they do have some iOS elements in the new OS. They are not as intrusive as the Metro UI elements are, and some are 100% completely optional.