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Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

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Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#211

Post by aik »

devth wrote: post #83

This prototype is a failure of both design and usability. It's an offense and a joke against anyone who expects to be able to interact with a machine in an efficient and intelligent manner. - It's ugly as hell - A beginner is bombarded with way too many things to click on - An expert is annoyed by useless buttons and waste of space Sure, you can turn it off, but who wants to configure and reconfigure UI preferences f…

Just one question:

Are these two statements different or restating the same thing with a different perception:

>> after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance

and something like:

"It takes me years to find some features because they're so well hidden, and perhaps unintuitive."

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#212

Post by jarin »

nkassis wrote: post #115
51Cards wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, and despite the content of my above post I've never been an Apple guy, always a Windows one. Every time I went over to the Apple OS I felt I had one hand tied behind my back by lack of options. I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. I started on "PCs" in 1981 and have grown with them, this all comes naturally. So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68.…

". I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. ... So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68" Well she no more typical a computer user than you are I would think. I like to see a curve of typical computer users age distribution (but I understand it would be a little skewed if it's hard for the older generations to use computers). I feel that ribbon is designed for a select group of new user…

What "advanced" things are you talking about that a regular user would need?

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#213

Post by jad »

sid0 wrote: post #55
adriand wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the iOS way would be that documents would end up in a place that is shown when you open a word processor, and that pictures would end up in a place that is shown when you open up an image navigator.

You still haven't answered my question. I have a set of documents, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. I also have a set of pictures, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. My USB drive already has a set of documents and a set of pictures, and I'd like to get a subset of the documents and a subset of the pictures onto internal storage so that I can plug out my USB drive afterwards and…

I think others have explained this, but I'll give it a try anyway.

Plug an SD card with photos on it into the iPad camera connection kit, and plug that into the iPad. The Photos app opens, you tap the photos you want to import, and you're done.

Your other cases are simple extensions of this example. The fact that an iPad can't do this right now with more file types or with a USB drive is not an inherent limitation of the approach.

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#214

Post by cytzol »

revscat wrote: post #191
cytzol wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider that you haven't missed these things because you aren't used to using them?

No, I don't think so. Every function given by this ribbon is available in Finder without buttons. I can give you the steps, if you'd like.

If you have to give me steps, then I think you've missed the point of the Ribbon!

The Finder has a lot of places you can perform operations on a file: the menu bar, the toolbar, the Get Info inspector, and the context menu. All the Ribbon does is turn them into buttons and put them in the same place. There's no remembering how to do stuff - and yes, some people can't remember how to do basic file management - because it's all done from the same row at the top. I could say the same thing about "Every function in the Finder I can do without having to use menus".

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#215

Post by jad »

sid0 wrote: post #85
sunchild wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to, but the images could be handled as with any other media import upon attaching the drive – i.e., within the image browsing app. As for moving images to the USB drive, that's an export from the image browsing app.

I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to Aha, therein lies the rub. These documents could be essentially arbitrary files, and there's no substitute to a general purpose file manager for them. Writing an app for every single file format that could be present on the USB drive is highly inefficient compared to the usual file manager. My basic point is that filesystems are a well-established standard , a…

You're missing the point. iOS devices have file systems. The simple fact is that people just don't understand them very well. Most normal users just put everything on their desktop because it's the only way they can ever find them again.

Maybe you can provide a practical example of a case where you need to move files onto your system that can't be opened by any of the applications installed on your system. I can't think of a single time I've needed to do that. Files don't have inherent value. They're only useful if you have software that can make use of them.

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#216

Post by rolleiflex »

nkassis wrote: post #115
51Cards wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're saying, and despite the content of my above post I've never been an Apple guy, always a Windows one. Every time I went over to the Apple OS I felt I had one hand tied behind my back by lack of options. I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. I started on "PCs" in 1981 and have grown with them, this all comes naturally. So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68.…

". I also try to keep in mind that I'm not typical. ... So when I judge a UI I literally stick my Mom on it... she's 68" Well she no more typical a computer user than you are I would think. I like to see a curve of typical computer users age distribution (but I understand it would be a little skewed if it's hard for the older generations to use computers). I feel that ribbon is designed for a select group of new user…

The only thing I felt missing that I needed from OSX Finder is "Rename All". Do you have any other examples of this?

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#217

Post by rolleiflex »

aquark wrote: post #210
kyleslattery wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. There is almost no reason to touch wifi and bluetooth settings on iOS devices. I have wifi enabled all the time, and battery life is still excellent. Android devices on the other hand, need constant fiddling. My Droid would barely last a day with everything turned off, and with wifi, etc. turned on, it would die after only about 6 hours.

Getting on a plane would be a fairly common use case, and independent of the 'power' level of the user. Disclaimer: I don't own an iOS device, so don't know how intuitive it might or might not be.

Well, for plane use, it has "Airplane Mode" as the first option of the Settings app, so at least for that it's covered.

Re: Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

#220

Post by jrockway »

kyleslattery wrote: post #185
bmelton wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you got downvoted, and I upvoted to try and offset, but ignoring that... I think that you overstate the importance of turning off wifi and bluetooth. Those are power user options, for sure. When you're trying to conserve battery power, you're trying to streamline how you use the device, which to me, smacks of 'power user'. The flipside to that argument is that it is ridiculously easy to browse a web…

Yes, absolutely. There is almost no reason to touch wifi and bluetooth settings on iOS devices. I have wifi enabled all the time, and battery life is still excellent. Android devices on the other hand, need constant fiddling. My Droid would barely last a day with everything turned off, and with wifi, etc. turned on, it would die after only about 6 hours.

Actually, it's probably the mobile network that's killing you. I get about a day of battery life with everyone on, and about a day of battery life with wifi and bluetooth off. But when I turn the cell phone radio off, suddenly my battery life increases to nearly a week. (I found this out by accident. I went to Sweden where my phone doesn't work, so I turned off everything except Wifi. A few days without charging later, I still had about 60% battery!)
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