Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

thomaspark.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#31

Post by cemery »

awa wrote: post #17
gizmo wrote: post #3

The article asserts that MS completely got it wrong but it doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader with arguments as to why. To me it isn't obvious that adding a ribbon with the most frequently used features to the top of the explorer is a bad approach. I think the ribbon was a mostly a success in MS Office, Notepad, MS Paint, Wordpad and so on. So why not also use a ribbon in the explorer?

Bingo... This is what I was thinking about while reading the article, He cites 1 other blogger who has complained about this. Personally, I generally use the shortcuts for copy-paste but I do appreciate having the ability to avoid right-clicking to do some of the other tasks

You appreciate not having to right click? Right click is on your mouse, where as in order to use the ribbon you have to go up to the top. This seems like pulling the most useful feature out from under your finger to duplicate it somewhere further away. How does this make sense?

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#32

Post by alanfalcon »

gizmo wrote: post #3

The article asserts that MS completely got it wrong but it doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader with arguments as to why. To me it isn't obvious that adding a ribbon with the most frequently used features to the top of the explorer is a bad approach. I think the ribbon was a mostly a success in MS Office, Notepad, MS Paint, Wordpad and so on. So why not also use a ribbon in the explorer?

The before and after pictures are supposed to speak for themselves, I assume. I know that for me, just seeing the two pictures makes is very clear "how they messed up." I'm willing to agree that not everyone is so offended by huge, ugly, attention grabbing, screen real estate hogging interfaces.

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#34

Post by roel_v »

moe wrote: post #9
desigooner wrote: post #6

When the F will people start seeing things from a non-power users perspective before writing such a rant?! At the very least, back up your post with some sort of an objective argument. I know a lot of people who spend minutes looking for simple options that are hidden in menu entries. I think the ribbon is going to be of good use for such people who'd appreciate the most common use-cases/functions within the reach of…

for such people Except those people are quickly dying out - literally. Also, by any metric, the visual layout and appearance are beyond terrible. There doesn't seem to be a logical grouping at all. If this is the answer then someone must have asked the wrong question. (a button labeled "easy access"? seriously?)

"Except those people are quickly dying out - literally."

Eh, I strongly disagree. I still have the misfortune to every now and then watch people who are supposed to be from the 'internet generation' (in their teens to early twenties) struggle with just-beyond-basic computer tasks - like opening a file with a different program when the extension association has somehow been screwed up. When I extrapolate their demographic traits, I can come to no other conclusion than that the vast majority of the general population does not have the computer skills that designers and software developers assume them to have.

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#35

Post by MortenK »

desigooner wrote: post #6

When the F will people start seeing things from a non-power users perspective before writing such a rant?! At the very least, back up your post with some sort of an objective argument. I know a lot of people who spend minutes looking for simple options that are hidden in menu entries. I think the ribbon is going to be of good use for such people who'd appreciate the most common use-cases/functions within the reach of…

Problem is the ribbon is so full of buttons, that people will spend just as much time looking in the ribbons, as they did in the menus.

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#36

Post by plinio_silva »

gizmo wrote: post #3

The article asserts that MS completely got it wrong but it doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader with arguments as to why. To me it isn't obvious that adding a ribbon with the most frequently used features to the top of the explorer is a bad approach. I think the ribbon was a mostly a success in MS Office, Notepad, MS Paint, Wordpad and so on. So why not also use a ribbon in the explorer?

Exactly what I thought, it's almost as if they implicitly say the only good way to make a file explorer is to make it just like osx' dolphin, where you need to use drag motions for any operation. Sure, let's get rid of the buttons and the context menu and make our users open a couple windows so they can drag stuff around.

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#37

Post by georgemcbay »

gizmo wrote: post #3

The article asserts that MS completely got it wrong but it doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader with arguments as to why. To me it isn't obvious that adding a ribbon with the most frequently used features to the top of the explorer is a bad approach. I think the ribbon was a mostly a success in MS Office, Notepad, MS Paint, Wordpad and so on. So why not also use a ribbon in the explorer?

The ribbon is a weird thing for me because despite trying to adopt it for quite a while now, I still don't like it, yet I'm not egocentric enough to think that alone makes it a bad design. The evidence that it isn't is all around me... everyone I know who is a "regular person" and uses Windows loves the ribbon.

Damn it.

At least Microsoft generally gives you the option of configuring the ribbon manually in a way that suits your needs (especially in Win 8). This is much better than when I run into UX/UI elements that do things I personally don't like when Apple is involved, because then I'm pretty much stuck with it.

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#38

Post by JoachimSchipper »

redthrowaway wrote: post #22
jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #8

The article assumes that Microsoft's goal is to empower and delight the user. This isn't really the case; their goal is to reduce support costs for corporate IT departments. Many of Microsoft's strategies and tactics that seem nonsensical seem more sensible once you realize that corporate IT managers, rather than end users, are their customers.

I think that's a bit of a facile assumption. Sure, Enterprise is huge for Microsoft. But so is the consumer space . The vast majority of new computers sold are still Windows boxen, and at $250 a pop home users are still a massive market for Microsoft. Sure, many or their choices since the NT integration with XP have been driven by Enterprise needs, but not at the expense of home users. I'm far more ready to believe t…

> $250 a pop

Home users typically buy OEM windows, which is quite a bit cheaper: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/newegg-reveals... suggests ~$150.

(This is irrelevant, until you get into revenue discussions.)

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#39

Post by gldalmaso »

awa wrote: post #17
gizmo wrote: post #3

The article asserts that MS completely got it wrong but it doesn't even attempt to persuade the reader with arguments as to why. To me it isn't obvious that adding a ribbon with the most frequently used features to the top of the explorer is a bad approach. I think the ribbon was a mostly a success in MS Office, Notepad, MS Paint, Wordpad and so on. So why not also use a ribbon in the explorer?

Bingo... This is what I was thinking about while reading the article, He cites 1 other blogger who has complained about this. Personally, I generally use the shortcuts for copy-paste but I do appreciate having the ability to avoid right-clicking to do some of the other tasks

If you live in a non-english speaking country, you'll learn that Microsoft does us the favor of "translating" the shorcuts. So, in portuguese, CTRL + S means "save" in about every program you'll encounter, but for Microsoft products, it means "sublinhar" (underline).

CTRL + A is not "select all" but "abrir" (open).

Well, that's just messed up... thanks a lot Microsoft...

Re: User Research Gone Astray: The Case of Windows 8 Explorer

#40

Post by mrdod »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #8

The article assumes that Microsoft's goal is to empower and delight the user. This isn't really the case; their goal is to reduce support costs for corporate IT departments. Many of Microsoft's strategies and tactics that seem nonsensical seem more sensible once you realize that corporate IT managers, rather than end users, are their customers.

Right, and corporate IT managers want interfaces like Metro which cannot be turned off and require touch to be used effectively.
Post reply on HN