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Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

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Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#141

Post by yen223 »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #55
corporalagumbo wrote: post #29

This seems a little harsh, to say the least. Among other things, he seems to be criticising Microsoft for both the early efforts of third-party devs (live tiles) and because users take time to grasp some of the new UI fundamentals (charms bar). Both of those issues will disappear quickly as the OS picks up steam. As an iPad owner myself, I am nothing but intrigued and excited by 8's tablet interface. It seems like it…

What parts of Mountain Lion do you consider "a complete mess"? LaunchPad is a joke, but other than that I find Mountain Lion to be very intuitive and easy on the eyes.

Am I the only person around here who actually likes LaunchPad?

It integrates so well with Apple's lovely touchpad. Map it to your favourite hot corner, and suddenly all your apps are much easier to access.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#142

Post by ygra »

rlu wrote: post #87
potatolicious wrote: post #12

Have been using a Surface as well as a Win8 desktop for a couple of weeks now, and I have to say this is pretty accurate. When WinPhone first came out with the Metro UI I was a fan - there's a visual simplicity to it that's very appealing. After you use it for a while though the weaknesses become pretty glaring and hard to accept. It is often very hard to tell what UI elements are interactive and what are purely info…

What bothers me about the OP though is that if you really dislike Metro so much on a desktop, you don't have to use it! I'll repeat that even though I think we all know this already: if you don't want to use Metro apps, you don't have to use Metro apps. It is really that simple. So, if you're a power user and want to stay away from all of that nonsense, then click on the "Desktop" tile and you're done. Sure, you have…

The problem is that you cannot escape completely. A major point is that some settings are available only from the Modern UI, some are only available from the desktop, some are there on both. But the transitions are well-hidden most of the time. Not that most users (me included) need to frequently access settings (I'm on the same stance with UAC since Vista: It's not an annoyance beyond the first day of setting up a machine), but the lack of communication where something can be found is pretty annoying at times.

I understand that time and budget constraints make it hard to offer both in either mode, but that's definitely an area to improve.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#143

Post by gnud »

chrisherring wrote: post #129
M4v3R wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have yet to find one regular (i.e. not tech-savvy) Windows user who knows how to open and use task manager.

Therefore since that is the equivalent to the Windows 8 process of forcing a program to close the complexity of the action is really a non issue.

I disagree.

In windows XP, Vista and 7, if you click the magical red X on a misbehaving program, Windows will offer to kill if after something between 5-50 seconds. Non-tech-savvy users _do_ use that functionality.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#144

Post by ygra »

potatolicious wrote: post #23
isaacwaller wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drag down from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen to close a Metro app

Thank you . This would've been very useful as part of the animated tutorial on your first boot that you can't skip (and that I've seen 3 times this week thanks to setting up new machines).

That animated tutorial would be much better if it were interactive. I guess all that users take away after seeing it is “move the mouse into a corner and see what happens” – if they remember anything at all amidst the dozens “we're setting things up” screens (it's not that bad, I know).

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#145

Post by Ingaz »

novamantis wrote: post #81
suresk wrote: post #33

Random usability rant: I find it slightly odd that, even now on Windows 8, keyboard customization requires so much effort in Windows. For example, I always make my capslock key an extra control key (if you haven't tried this before - try it!) and on OS X and most flavors of Linux, this is an easy 5 second process. On Windows 8, there are a ton of Keyboard settings - including promising-sounding ones like "Change how…

I make my capslock a backspace. Seriously, when do you really need to type so many capitals that can't just be rationalised by using Shift instead? Using it as Control as well is a great idea! You should first try out Autohotkey, instead of resorting to registry hacks. Cheers

Autohotkey is great, but I think it's overkill for remapping a CapsLock.

SharpKeys (if you're lazy) or registry hack (if you "smart"): https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/effective-emacs are enough.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#146

Post by corporalagumbo »

ricardobeat wrote: post #107
corporalagumbo wrote: post #29

This seems a little harsh, to say the least. Among other things, he seems to be criticising Microsoft for both the early efforts of third-party devs (live tiles) and because users take time to grasp some of the new UI fundamentals (charms bar). Both of those issues will disappear quickly as the OS picks up steam. As an iPad owner myself, I am nothing but intrigued and excited by 8's tablet interface. It seems like it…

Computer interfaces are going to become incredibly smart, fluid and responsive, and W8 is the first step in that direction. That's not what I expected to listen from an iPad owner. Wasn't the iPad a huge step in that direction? From reviews, 'fluid and responsive' don't apply to W8 yet. On OSX: the imported iOS features are out of sight, except for Mission Control, which didn't change that much. The default desktop h…

Mmmm, not in my opinion. Look at my comment upthread for my feelings on the iPad UI. Basically I think the iPad has done very well not because Apple made an incredible interface, but because they kept it simple and didn't do anything stupid. The bar set by their competiton in terms of stupidity was very low after all. Yes, it's a great product, and well done Apple for focussing and making it. But it's not the be-all and end-all.

Having spent a lot of time with the iPad, I'm not convinced it's the future. Sure, some apps are great, but the sandboxed app model is too limited. Okay, web browsing is pretty good. Okay, maybe you can do some interesting stuff with one of those music suite apps. Beyond that, it's really just a toy. In my opinion.

The time is right for a better take on tablets - all it needs is a competitor to actually become competent (apparently this is challenging...) and the market to get over it's silly Apple infatuation. Look at safari on the iPad for instance. Really, it just looks like normal desktop safari? I have to tap on little tabs, and thin text-label bookmarks in a little row? And I have to manage my bookmarks in a janky drop-down menu of nested folders (hilariously not even bloody wide enough to read the bookmarks!) Seriously, I understand Apple doesn't want to challenge anyone with anything unexpected, but come on... Surely they can do better than that. It's just a shame none of the third party browsers can compete with safari's internals - or that Apple doesn't allow 3rd party apps to integrate with or replace core functionality. Yeesh.

My takeaway: Apple isn't really all that great. They've just been the least retarded of the major tech companies - so far. We can do better.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#147

Post by rplnt »

novamantis wrote: post #88
squidsoup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly none of the linux desktop environments are particularly great either - unity, gnomeshell, and kde all have different problems and none of them are nearly as refined as the OS X UI. That being said, if you are comfortable with a minimal tiling wm like awesome or xmonad, you can have a very productive environment.

Well, guh. The point of those DEs is too be highly customisable. Although, I agree that they should be more appealing out of the box.

Gnome-anything is far from customizable. If you don't count hacking it by editing XMLs and javascripts (for gnome-shell).

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#149

Post by tehayj »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #115
w1ntermute wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common misconception. Google removed it for about a week, until they found and implemented a workaround. For all practical purposes, the universal search works exactly the same. I just tried it out on my Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.2.

It's part of Google Now and I don't think it's bad at all. You just do the search, and then at the bottom of the screen you change from "Web" to "Tablet" and voila, results from tablet. What is bad is the fact that Gmail doesn't support it. But it pulls up tweets, apps, chrome history, music, etc. Rather neat, in my opinion.

It works great with Google Now. I use it often like a launcher and just type a few letters and then click on the app I want to run.

Re: Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users

#150

Post by moe6 »

Some parts really need to be worded better.

I can't go back from Windows 8, as a power user with 3 monitors too, and am also eagerly awaiting the Surface Pro.

I just don't see nor feel many of the "hacker news" sort of geek hate with how certain things have been done in 8. I just went at it openly and while some parts need some work for Desktop, I actually quite like it.

I think everyone also should be aware that this is basically their first iteration, of which they've said they're going for a shorter cycle akin to Mac OS, and that the Metro apps are going to be low density at least for now because of the pitiful resolution the regular Surface is at. Many of these apps are also first generation or quick ports of apps on other ecosystems. Of course they're going to target the Surface tablet first then think about how they'd do it, if they wanted to, for the desktop or laptop.

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