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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

#71

Post by sid0 »

martingordon wrote: post #64
sid0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?

I'm not saying you don't need a filesystem. There are other ways to interact with data besides a file browser. On the iPad, I can use the official Photos app (or any of the other photo apps) to get my photos where they need to go, whether that's a phone, computer, website or printer. I don't read my email by going into the "My Emails" folder on my C:\ drive, I access my email through a UI specifically made for access…

And what happens if there's a file type the OS doesn't support? In my case that often happens with mkv files.

How do I tell iTunes (or any other music player) to import some of the music on my USB drive? iTunes doesn't even allow you to do that with iPods...

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

#72

Post by serge2k »

dhimes wrote: post #60
51Cards wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command. I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely h…

Then why are the ipad and iphone taking off? It's really hard to learn to do things on those devices. It's cumbersome to turn off wifi and bluetooth to save battery. The control location makes no sense in the settings menu (to my mind, anyway). I was a HUGE Apple fan for the early Macs. I totally get what you are saying. But we LOST in the workplace. It was just too slow for the other folks in the office to use (of c…

Probably because people think it looks fun and are wiling to put in the few minutes it takes to not a be completely useless with the device.

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

#73

Post by dhimes »

tjogin wrote: post #40
dhimes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting…

Invisible actions are harder to discover than visible ones, not that illogical really, and one of the key ways in which the Mac is more user friendly as it depends on context menus to a lesser degree.

While I agree with all of your points, keep in mind that when 'civilians' were just getting to use computers (being forced to at work, etc.), Mac lost in favor of the IBM-compatibles (what people started calling 'pc's). There are a lot of reasons for this, to be sure, but difficulty of using the PC was not something that carried much weight in the argument (I was there for the arguments, and I was a mac man).

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

#74

Post by sunchild »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #24
rickmb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it will be extremely helpful for beginners Methinks that kind of summarizes the issue: Microsoft doesn't seem to realize it's not 1995 anymore. "Beginners" are no longer a big market, and people are more comfortable with "discovering" software interfaces, as proven by the success of web apps, Apple, etcetera.

Most "normals" I interact with are beginners every time they use the computer . They are not comfortable discovering anything. I can teach them something and be confident in them forgetting it by the next time I talk to them. Things like moving files around directories is black magic to them. Directories are black magic to them. The problem I see with this solution is two-fold: 1. The people who understand this stuff…

File systems and file browsers are just never going to be easy for users to understand. That's why Apple is slowly but surely hiding them entirely from "beginners"/"people who don't care to learn how to use their tools".

Microsoft's solution is more akin to the way animal researchers teach apes to recognize arbitrary symbols. It's a subtle and pernicious form of vendor "lock in", because when you try to move those users away from their comfort zone in Outlook or Windows Explorer, they feel lost.

Personally, I think Microsoft and "people who can't be bothered to learn their tools" deserve each other.

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

#75

Post by mmuro »

_They use this to show that “the commands that make up 84% of what users do in Explorer are now in one tab”. But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research._

This hits the nail on the head when discussing the UI decisions made. If Microsoft had included the top 10 commands in an organized manner, plus a few more from their data, it'd probably be fine.

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

#76

Post by 51Cards »

dhimes wrote: post #60
51Cards wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command. I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely h…

Then why are the ipad and iphone taking off? It's really hard to learn to do things on those devices. It's cumbersome to turn off wifi and bluetooth to save battery. The control location makes no sense in the settings menu (to my mind, anyway). I was a HUGE Apple fan for the early Macs. I totally get what you are saying. But we LOST in the workplace. It was just too slow for the other folks in the office to use (of c…

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 have also had the good fortune to work with a lot of 'artistic types' over the years as well, and in turn I watched how they use a UI. In my experience they just don't use much more than what is presented before them option wise.

Trust me, I agree that this new ribbon is very cluttered and contains too much visual noise, but in turn I don't mind exposing things visually to the end user. I hate MS Office with the ribbon, but I deal with people all the time who love it. Just let me turn it off :)

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

#77

Post by raster_blaster »

varunsrin wrote: post #9

The first problem with the article here is that some of the buttons (Move To, Copy To) did not exist previously. They are also extensions of existing functions (Move, Copy) - so concluding that half the UI is covered by buttons that were not used is an inaccurate assumption. Secondly, the actions are being moved from the context menu to the ribbon. Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non…

Move To and Copy To have existed since at least XP: http://i.imgur.com/NsPGD.png

But they had to be put there by the user. :)

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

#78

Post by jasongullickson »

Usability of this (and anything, really) would improve dramatically if in each system there were one correct way (based on selection by scientific usability testing) to initiate each task.

The "helpfulness" of providing "n" ways of doing the same thing is an illusion and only undermines the ability for users to establish a shared context which can be used to make user actions more automatic for the experienced and easier to teach to the inexperienced.

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

#79

Post by varunsrin »

sunchild wrote: post #66
51Cards wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but people don't WANT to learn things like this. My mother doesn't want to remember what mouse button to click or that CTRL or ALT is a modifier on this command. I would argue that THIS is what made Apple's OS hang on all those years it was in the severe minority. There is a segment of the population that wants only one mouse button to click, not 3, not 3 plus CTRL or ALT or etc. Apple did end up having to rely h…

This doesn't explain the "invert selection" button. I'm pretty sure that one is indefensible.

Yeah, while I think that select all & select none are pretty important ribbon items (most people never learn CTRL+A or Shift+Clicking), select inversion feels like a power user option to me.

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

#80

Post by voxmatt »

This post didn't even need words, just that progression of screenshots. Windows 7 feels almost like a nice breeze and them, wham, that Windows 8 monstrosity. Functional, data-driven arguments will never convince me that a user's first reaction to that window will be anything other than confusion.
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