Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8 • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#61

Post by higherpurpose » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #4

The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem more like a rant than an unbiased evalua…

And he's probably right. The issue remains that Microsoft is trying to mash two radically different usage paradigms into one.

So the obvious outcome (perhaps not to Microsoft) is that either the desktop mode will get worse, as it tries to get more "tablet-y" or the tablet mode gets worse as it tries to get more "desktop-y" - or both.

The author does say something with which I disagree. He says something along the lines "Windows 8 was the simplest desktop OS". Not it wasn't. Windows 8 - the desktop part - was probably made worse by the removal of the Start Menu, but not better. The Metro part is not "desktop". That's for tablets. So he can't say "the simplest desktop OS", because the whole Metro paradigm was intended for tablets, and it was much worse than the desktop paradigm on the desktop.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#62

Post by zamalek » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #46

zamalek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it wasn't. It isn't. Disclaimer: Emphasis on SUBJECTIVE before you indicate my opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. That's pretty-much what subjective means. I thought HN was smarter than this. Agreed, it's subjective. This is change aversion, not loss aversion. Humans don't like change, even if it is good for them. People don't like Windows 8 UI because it was a change, and they don't like th…

Emphasis on SUBJECTIVE before you indicate my opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. That's pretty-much what subjective means. I thought HN was smarter than this. Yet you spent your entire post claiming that the interface is objectively better. But people don't like it because it was change, it is "scientifically superior" (as if an interface is quantified only by the size of click targets), people ju…

> every other word you wrote was absolutely in conflict with that.

1. People don't like it likely due to change aversion. 2. In theory it's superior. 3. It can't be "objectively terrible" if some people like it. 4. All UIs from all version of Windows are great (opinion).

How did I contradict myself? Either way this is turning into an argument which I'm not interesting in doing. If I contradicted myself, so be it.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#63

Post by higherpurpose » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 7:55 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #15

darklajid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. No, it wasn't. It isn't. (I liked the improvements in 8.1 but that blanket statement from you is false)

> No, it wasn't. It isn't. Disclaimer: Emphasis on SUBJECTIVE before you indicate my opinion is wrong because you have a different opinion. That's pretty-much what subjective means. I thought HN was smarter than this. Agreed, it's subjective. This is change aversion, not loss aversion. Humans don't like change, even if it is good for them. People don't like Windows 8 UI because it was a change, and they don't like th…

You can't just say "Not it wasn't". You have to elaborate. That's why you got attacked, not because your opinion was "subjective".

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#64

Post by ZenoArrow » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

asyncwords wrote: post #58

ZenoArrow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any differences?

Actually I think he is on the current Windows 10 build. Right now there's a button at the top-right of the start menu that switches it between full-screen and regular mode. This [1] is what it looks like on my system when full screen. It looks much worse in the article however, because the author only has three apps pinned to their start menu, and the three apps are in their 'medium' size rather than wide or large. […

Thanks for the info.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#65

Post by LukasMathis » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #13

izacus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author: He's trying to use Windows 10 as a tablet OS not as a desktop OS and from that perspective they threw away everything that made Windows UX on tablets good to reintroduce all the hideous cluttered desktop patterns. They just basically reinvented an ugly version of Windows 7 while throwing away what made Windows 8 a genuinely good OS on tablets - essentially inst…

I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different. Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new sty…

I specifically point out in the article that it is not just loss aversion, but that there are valid reasons to dislike Windows 8.

I also don't criticize old interfaces because they are old. I specifically point out that the desktop metaphor was created for use cases that are very different from how we use computers nowadays. Desktops are not problematic because they're old, but because what we use desktop PCs for has changed a lot.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#66

Post by Yaa101 » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 8:15 PM UTC

The biggest mistake that Microsoft made was calling it Windows, if they called it Surface instead of only their hardware that way, and kept on selling windows non crippled for the desktop, they probably would have gotten away with it. Nobody cares if they share the same engine under the hood.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#67

Post by LukasMathis » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

Zancarius wrote: post #45

ZenoArrow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even think he's reviewing Windows 10 in its current preview form. Look at the picture he uses to show off the start menu, then compare it to the start menu in any other recent Windows 10 demonstration. Notice any differences?

Not only that, but he's critiquing it from the perspective of a tablet OS. The majority of the intertial pushback Windows 8 suffered was from desktop users who absolutely did not want a mobile-esque interface on their desktop computer . His usability points are good--from a tablet user's perspective--but it completely misses the point of Windows 10, which is to regain trust from desktop and enterprise users. He furth…

Fair points, though I would say two things:

1. Touchscreen computers are in the minority now, but I don't think they'll remain in the minority. Kids are growing up on iPhones, Android phones, and iPads. A computer without a touchscreen will seem increasingly anachronistic to them, so designing against that trend is a backwards-looking strategy.

2. I don't see how the changes Microsoft has made in Windows 10 so far were necessary to make it a better desktop OS. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs. Microsoft could have made the charms features (e.g. search) accessible via the taskbar without removing charms for those who do have touchscreen computers, and can access it easily.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#68

Post by Rusky » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

Zancarius wrote: post #51

Rusky wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm torn between tiled and overlapping windows. A lot of the time I just don't have a big enough screen to go fully tiled, because it forces things to squish when I would rather just keep one partially visible underneath (e.g. a browser window, a text editor, and a terminal). One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windo…

> One thing that makes overlapping windows infinitely nicer for me is a feature in a lot of Linux WMs where window borders "catch" on other windows and the edge of the screen when being moved or resized. That, and having a key to move windows from anywhere, rather than just the titlebar. I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position (above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a fe…

Ah, yes. I should have included focus-follows-mouse, that's pretty crucial to how I work too.

There's actually a registry setting to enable it on Windows, but so many things are so completely unaware of it in their design that it breaks a lot of stuff.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#69

Post by skynetv2 » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 9:18 PM UTC

engendered wrote: post #4

The whole bit on loss aversion (which is a tactic to undermine people's opinions by ascribing them to unproductive emotional reactions, rather than objective evaluations that have people liking Windows 8 less than 7), and then the "I don’t really see anything positive about going back to an interaction design originally devised in 1995", undermine the piece and do make it seem more like a rant than an unbiased evalua…

> Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible.

spot on and I always thought it will work well on a touch screen tablet.So I got a Windows tablet and boy! was I wrong!!

Its terrible on a tablet too.

Re: Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8

#70

Post by ptx » Sat, Jan 31, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

LukasMathis wrote: post #65

engendered wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you entirely missed the viewpoint of the author When people say that someone missed the point on HN, most of the time that means that they want you to read it the way they read it, and ignore those annoying bits that say something different. Only this author not only undermines any disagreement with Windows 8 (just loss aversion), criticizes "old" interfaces (cars had 4 wheels in the 20s....give me my new sty…

I specifically point out in the article that it is not just loss aversion, but that there are valid reasons to dislike Windows 8. I also don't criticize old interfaces because they are old. I specifically point out that the desktop metaphor was created for use cases that are very different from how we use computers nowadays. Desktops are not problematic because they're old, but because what we use desktop PCs for has…

> I specifically point out that the desktop metaphor was created for use cases that are very different from how we use computers nowadays. Desktops are not problematic because they're old, but because what we use desktop PCs for has changed a lot.

Are you referring to the "launching applications and managing files are two different things" part?

Another explanation for the move to applications like iTunes that manage files outside the file manager could be that Microsoft's particular file manager is just terrible and unusable. (As is Apple's modern incarnation of the Finder, in mostly the same way – see Siracusa's explanation[1] for details.)

In OS/2's Workplace Shell, applications and files were just two among many of the kinds of objects you could manipulate. For instance, you could drag a document to a printer to print it, or to the shredder to delete it. You could drag template objects to create new files. You could drag colors to windows to assign that color to the window. (Some of these things are possible in Windows as well, but it's not emphasized and doesn't work as well.)

In BeOS, the Tracker, thanks to its support for arbitrary file metadata, could integrate with a mail or music application and allow you to manage its object hierarchy exactly the same way you managed your other files.

So, in my opinion, the old interface was just a half-assed implementation of a basically good idea. The new idea is to give up, throwing away the simplicity and flexibility of the old design, and reimplement file management in every application.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2003/04/finder/