Walt Mossberg's Windows 8 Review
allthingsd.com
allthingsd.com
From the Jargon File:
"Gorilla Arm: The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s. It seems the designers of all those spiffy touch-menu systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small motions. After more than a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized — the operator looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels like one afterwards. This is now considered a classic cautionary tale to human-factors designers; “Remember the gorilla arm!” is shorthand for “How is this going to fly in real use?”.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla_arm#.22Gorilla_arm.22
The only input scheme that would be an enhancement to mouse/trackpad and keyboard is something akin to Leap Motion: https://leapmotion.com/
My second experience is with the Asus eeePad Transformer. It's great to randomly touch the screen when using a mouse would take a few seconds extra but in the long run you'd end up using the keyboard/mouse subconsciously since your arm starts hurting.
This isn't an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard with no mouse pointer support.
The Surface keyboards even have a trackpad and they've released keyboards and mice that take gestures.
http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive...
"It describes untrained movements, not movements that are executed after months or years of practice"
That was exactly my intuition looking at those graphs. There's no way I'm going to be as fast reaching an icon in the upper right corner of the screen after heaving clicked start as I am reaching the top item in the start menu, after some training.
Furthermore, if you don't consider a trained state, this model seems simplistic to me. If you account for the ability to actually find an entry, top items in the list should be faster to click than middle ones - and I doubt a 2D grid is going to be as fast to find something on, until the training effect kicks in.
But you are right, as far as I remember the search results take over the screen and appear from top to bottom. But I fear you cannot really cater for people who click a button, then start typing and then click again – all of which would be done on the keyboard instead of constantly switching.
Or maybe they need it for gathering thoughts. The time required to switch input devices may come close to the time required to formulate in one's head what is it actually what one is looking for. But that is pretty much speculation ;-)
So I would say, if you are worried that it'll destroy your Windows experience as you know it, don't. It's still there. Really still there, with some minor improvements (e.g. task menu). If I didn't get this for free, I would have felt cheated (as in, this is just an UI skin over my existing Windows 7). What I miss the most is the start menu, and I guess I'll download some start-menu app to replace that.
I don't use my laptop as a tablet so I can't comment on the Metro interface, other than that it's fluid (like the Windows Phone). I don't see there is any chance I'd buy the Surface RT though... The App Store is very limiting at this point. But then, I am not their RT audience.
Most ubuntu users had a similar transition, when they moved from gnome to unity. It isn't that bad; or even at all.
(Classic shell still has the search feature. But often I launch apps before remembering their name - I'm a big user of apropos to recall commands. I remember locations. May be a difference in cognitive style.)
It's not because you upgraded from Windows 7; a vanilla Windows 8 installation has the same desktop too.
In particular if you use the Windows 7 Start menu with the keyboard - typing in a name to search for it - that works much the same in the Windows 8 start screen. Some useful keyboard shortcuts:
* Windows+W to go directly to the Settings
* Windows+F to go directly to Files in the new start screen
* Windows+X to get a quick popup menu of power user tools
* Windows+I to open a panel of quick settings
If you want something more like the Windows 7 Start menu, try Start8:
http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
I've been trying it out a bit and am not sure whether I prefer it or the Metro start screen. I very much like the lack of animation in Start8 - that was the main thing I missed from Windows 7.
One other subtle thing I miss from Windows 7 is that shortcuts to apps like Notepad will start multiple instances of the app. For some unfathomable reason, the Windows 8 start screen always goes to the first instance of the app if you try to start Notepad or the like multiple times. That would be OK but I can't find any way to override it and easily start multiple instances. Start8 brings back the old behavior here.
You can do that by right clicking the icon on the bottom taskbar and click the app to start. It did drive me crazy until I figured this out.
Middle click does work on my Windows 8 start screen; it always launches a new instance.
It doesn't do anything on my Windows 7 machine's start menu, though. But that's no problem because left click does what I want.
Testing a bit more... Now I see! In Windows 7, middle click works on the taskbar but not in the Start menu. In Windows 8, it works on both.
I can't be alone in this feeling, although I do feel a bit like the old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn..
I really can't stand this environment and
>never have to see the Metro interface
This is a total exaggeration. When you boot up, Metro. Want to go to start and launch a program (like 99% of the general public would do)? Metro. Certain PC settings not available on the control panel? Metro. Accidentally click on the corners of the screen? Metro.
My main gripe is that the computer boots into Metro with desktop as an option instead of the inverse.
Desktop mode might be there for now, but how comfortable should a user remain when everything that gives the system value for them just got marked "legacy"
I for one am moving away from windows as much as i can
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, etc.
This is like saying you're going to sell your Toyota because Toyota just released a car that you don't like.
Why all the drama? Just stick to Windows 7, which will be supported for years to come.
You have even more space on your taskbar to put your 20 to 30 windows now that the start button is gone and you can have a separate task bar per monitor. I seriously don't understand how the so called blocky touch interface changes anything about managing 20 to 30 windows.
Some things I like:
- Transitions between windows are super fast and smooth.
- Style is clean and lightweight. A distinctive approach.
Things that made me uncomfortable:
- No Start button (although you can download 3rd party programs to bring it back)
- Trying to have two windows next to one another felt much harder to accomplish. Using Snap! just felt way more complicated than what'd you normally do in Windows/OSX.
- Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient. It's a cool concept but the variety of boxes just makes it hard to interpret information quickly. It reminds me of iGoogle. I just don't need all that information at once.
- Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it right, like remembering which corner does what when your mouse moves there. I've never found those type of mouse gestures intuitive.
But I should note that I've spent decades learning one paradigm so this could very well work with a younger generation that isn't as married to a UI concept.
"Start-up screen is kind of overwhelming and inefficient". The new start screen is basically a launcher + notification. You can always turn live tiles off and get a static screen.
"Some of the features are hidden and require a lot of exploring to get it right" Win+C to show the charms bar, win+shift+. to dock/undock app to right side. No need to even move the mouse.
Isn't this exactly the same as in windows 7? Hit start button and start typing? The only real difference is that the start menu is now full screen and the small icons have been replaced with constantly updating "tiles".
I'd rather I had the choice of a traditional start menu, but then you always have the option of booting direct to desktop and pinning the common apps to the taskbar. So not really sure what the fuss is about.
The new tablets don't have Outlook? Do they do mail and can they hook to exchange?
While the contrast between those two modes (Metro vs. Desktop) is kind of jarring, the utility of having both interfaces available at all time is a major boon that no current tablet or tradional laptop can match.
The point here is that you can substitute one Windows 8 device for both your tablet and your desktop, without sacrificing either. This is something I look forward to and I am willing to pay the usability price for. That said, I don't see tablets being powerful enough for my kind of work just yet. But they will get there, eventually.
However outside of email I generally only use a text editor and a large portion of the Adobe suite. At best, for me, it looks like the new Metro interface will be little more than a novelty. At worst it will be a hindrance.
Never thought I'd say it; But after 13 years with Windows, I'm switching to Mac