Comment by cooldeal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cooldeal | Hacker News Reader

I wish Apple was the one that came up with Metro and not Microsoft. If it did, then many tech pundits with high readership like Gruber, Siegler et. al. would be posting endless analysis of how Apple shook up the UI paradigm to make a great new UI instead of going with the same old icons, toolbars and docks and how everyone else is copying them with sparse UI. That would've led tech minded folks to give Metro more credit than all this upvoted noise with link bait headlines on the tech blogs with flimsy analysis of only about how it sucks and nothing about the good parts like "content over chrome" or "authentically digital". I think Metro is in some ways becoming victim of tech partisanship, you can absolutely love your iPad, have an Android tablet with ICS(I do), but still recognize some good UI work being done by Microsoft.

Edit: Something like the following post would've definitely made the HN front page if it was iMetro or even if it was Google that did it with Android. http://www.riagenic.com/archives/487

I feel that the complete lack of distinction between clickable/tappable tiles and non-interactive ones is a very real problem, and not unlike the sort of thing that pundits have skewered Apple for in the past (the overly-ornate skeuomorphic-esque visual designs of Calendar / Contacts / Game Center, for example).

That being said, I think there's definitely some truth there for a lot of the other Metro hatred. More and more modern iOS apps have a flat UI style that isn't unlike Metro, but you don't see people giving them shit for it.

There are no non-interactive tiles in Windows 8 or Windows Phone.

I really think that a very simple gradient or a 1 pixel wide white/black(depending on background) border around the edges of all interactable elements would go a long long way to fixing this issue without breaking up the UI too much, it might even expand it because just having that distinction gives you another "word" in your visual vocabulary.

*edit: Changed "buttons" to "elements"

Buttons do have a border. The tiles on the start screen have not. Mostly because they're all tappable (but probably also because the background provides separation and thus a border on its own). There are no non-interactive parts on that screen.

"I feel that the complete lack of distinction between clickable/tappable tiles and non-interactive ones is a very real problem"

Really? Where is this problem? I know the tiles on my phone can all be tapped, without any exception (WP7).

An example is the "Change PC Settings". Is it a link or just a title? How can you tell? See here: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/windows-8.html

That's not a tile. Also, the first time I saw that text, I knew I could click it. I can't explain how they did it, but somehow being able to click it was just consistent with how everything else works. That's just me though, supposedly this guy tested with 12 people... and yet he conveniently omits the results for this task... oh no wait! "many users in our testing didn't click this command" How much is "many" out of 12?

First time I saw it was with a touchscreen device and I didn't find out that it was touchable until I had googled how to add more users to WinRT device.

Therefore YMMV

EDIT: Negative karma for pointing out an opposite experience with a device?

(wasnt me!)

Our opposite experiences just goes to show that UI qualities are subjective, and until someone releases scientific studies (none of this "many users" crap) that go against Microsoft's own user testing, I don't see why they should ditch their Metro experiment.

I was thinking the same thing. Its not like iOS or Android handle these things any better. I think this is further proof that usability is something of a snake-oil field past a certain point and that all interfaces are learned.

Now everyone is an expert on UI/UX and the overly-reaching and never quite defined "design." Oh well, whatever sells ad impressions I guess.

Heck, at least Metro doesn't fall for the sin of nostalgia based skeuomorphism and other overdone cliches. Not sure how the market will respond to it, but its a decent attempt from Microsoft.

Just FYI, UX goes way beyond affordances. That aside, there's a reason that most of us advocate various methods of testing as part of the process.

Do you have a rebuttal for the flimsy analysis? I realise it's far less time consuming to just insinuate bias and move on, but if it's that flimsy it shouldn't take you long.

If I'm not mistaken I've read Gruber complain about Apple's products with bad UI/UX before. I'm not sure Apple doing this would change the outcome of the analysis. I also didn't read the article and hear "bad UI === Microsoft".

Years ago Gruber was a trenchant critic[1]. But he got over it[2].

[1]http://daringfireball.net/2003/05/the_problems_with_click-th... [2]http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion

By your logic people would be posting about how "Apple shook up the UI pardigm" with it's extreme skeumorphism. They're not - it's being almost universally panned. You live in a fantasy world if you believe Apple gets a from the larger tech and design communities.

I am Android user and I've been criticizing Apple's UIs before.

Personally I find the direction of Android Jelly Bean towards a flatter look to be annoying. It makes sense sometimes, but I surely hope it doesn't go overboard, like Metro does.

Did we read the same article? The stuff about lack of visual clues sounds like substantive criticism to me.

The only tech pundits with any readership I can think of who are not hostile to anything Microsoft are Paul Thurrott and Jeff Atwood.

Paul Thurrott's http://winsupersite.com is hellbanned on HN, you can't submit a link to it, I am guessing due to excessive flagging by HN users with good karma.

And any Jeff Atwood's post on Coding Horror that's positive about Windows 8 gets flagged off the front page just like any other article remotely positive about Microsoft. (Even the announcement of Surface Pro pricing was killed, see [1]).

Coding Horror will probably get hellbanned soon on HN if he keeps up with those kind of posts. That's HN and it's partisan audience at work.

Asking PG about the rampant abuse of flagging on HN elicits no response inspite of getting voted up, maybe he didn't see it because it was flagged too! [1]

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4849814

Paul Thurrott's http://winsupersite.com is hellbanned on HN, you can't submit a link to it

FYI: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4867752

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