31–40 of 75 posts
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
Well, what do I know... I'm just one data point... probably an outlier.
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
CAN WE GET RID OF ALL CAPS IN MENUS?
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
I really still didn't get the "better" on the Ribbon interface.
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
I've been using the ribbon UI in Office frequently for years, and still find its usability inferior to the old menu system. Aside from its poor usability, I dislike the visual clutter of having all the functions visible all the time. Personally, I'm less productive thanks to the ribbon UI. Well, what do I know... I'm just one data point... probably an outlier.
The "miserable counter-productive "ribbon" interface on Microsoft Word" was the result of a lot of actual user testing. I could understand people disliking it just because it was new, but it's been years now... How long does it take people to realize a better interface is more productive? Edit: oh I just noticed it's Dvorak. Never mind.
This is pretty much my exact reaction to the article. That was the exact line that gave me pause, then I looked up at the byline and saw Dvorak's name. I do find his pining for the failed WinFS particularly odd, though. It's something that was pretty much intended to back up the kind of anti-desktop model he's complaining about.
A nice rant from John C. Dvorak. First though surely MS have to work out what a Windows PC is for in 2014 and beyond. (I accept their true response would be something like "make money on every PC sold like we always did"). Chromebooks have demonstrated a minimalist PC for our age. Now what value can Windows deliver on top of that? I think that is difficult to answer from a consumer's point of view. There might be a b…
Ms Office, really. Take that away and businesses will move to other OSes. Everybody is tired of the constant poor quality of Microsoft products.
The fact is, Microsoft has seen this future coming for some time. They got themselves into antitrust trouble for going after Netscape and Java so aggressively in the 90s because they were afraid of OSes becoming commodity software.
So, how have they reacted to a world where operating systems are increasingly commodity software? By throwing their competitive advantages in their bread and butter market -- the enterprise -- out the window (no pun intended).
Applications have to be rewritten to run on Metro (and thus the cheap RT devices they so desperately want to compete with the iPad), central management of RT devices is not any real improvement over other devices, and whereas in the past they made the mistake of trying to shoehorn a desktop OS onto a touch device (e.g., XP Tablet Edition), now they've gone the complete opposite direction and tried to make a touch-centric interface designed for small screens in a world where 24-27" displays aren't uncommon.
While Microsoft needed to do something to stay relevant, they've so badly mismanaged the transition that I think the end result is going to be an acceleration in line of business applications moving to web applications that run anywhere. Again, that's something that's already happening, but the entire W8/RT thing has done Microsoft absolutely no favors.
If you live with a Chrome OS device and Windows machines rapidly the Windows machines get relegated to "legacy apps only" status (this coming from someone that really doesn't like the overall Google direction). MS need to face the fact they've lost the client war, and focus on their true killer apps of Excel and Exchange. Exchange should be the core of their business, not Windows.
Allow me to take this opportunity to address something related to a minor point from the article: >To me an app is a small bit of code for an iPhone to do something cute. Are we going to call the massive SAP suite an "app?" Lately I've been hearing many people complain about "serious" desktop applications being called "apps". Do you think this is a valid complaint? (Myself, I'm not sure; I won't disclose my reasoning…
Amongst developers, using the word 'app' to describe any kind of software seems like the navy referring to everything as a 'boat'. Using more specific words improves the conversation and our thought processes.
But when talking with end users, it seems to make sense to classify their system into 'Apps' and 'files'. The average user still gets confused by the difference between Windows, Word and a Word Document. If saying "Apps are things you find in an App Store" helps end users be more effective with their computers, then it makes sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they could avoid the Start Menu. What do you want from the start menu? The ability to launch and search for programs. Launch is on the Metro screen now - that's covered. A full-screen start menu like the Metro desktop is fine - the start-menu kept growing absurdly anyways. I think Metro could be made to work if you made sure it was operable with a mouse - that is, no auto-hiding, no gestures. Give me a single…
>I think Metro could be made to work if you made sure it was operable with a mouse - that is, no auto-hiding, no gestures. Give me a single, consistent always-visible taskbar instead of schizophrenia and that "charms" crap, and on-screen always-visible buttons to launch an app-search-bar or to hit up the I can live with this on the desktop, but what's particularly insane is they went with this same interface for Serv…