Hacker News Reader

Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

"doesn't change its logo and completely redevelop its entire web presence so that for the first time ever its entire product line-up is consistent unless it has really, really carefully thought through its plans"

Maybe it should have thought through those plans before deciding to rebrand everything based on an unproven user-interface design?

View on HN

Everyone loves to rail on Metro but there are a ton of HCI reasons that its the superior interface and most people I know who've actually given it a fair shot (average users mostly) like it.

It's an odd decision to force onto people, but when most people actually use it, it's a pretty good interface and you realize the Start menu was actually less efficient in many regards.

People spent their entire computer lives relying on the Start Button and Taskbar. I spent a good amount of mine learning how to use it with the most efficiency and incorporated it into my daily workflow.

Then all of a sudden, in one single new version of Windows, it's all gone. Now 90% of people who have used this brand are completely lost. I gave it a fair shot and had to Google everything I did. I had trouble even getting to an internet browser.

Maybe an interface without a start menu is superior, but at the very least Windows 8 should have been a hybrid version which came with the Start button and taskbar enabled by default and a "new" way to remove the start button and taskbar.

Having to move my mouse in a certain corner of the screen to access a backend "metro" area (which is the only way to actually get to program or files now) is NOT good UI design.

It is not a superior interface for anything that isn't a small tablet or a phone. I'm in front of the big monitor and just to select another program boom the whole darned screen chnages the color, evrything I look at disappears just to present met "metro." That UI is good for the phone, awful for big screens. Whoever decided that it doesn't matter should be publicly humiliated. Ditto for those that claim that it's better for all cases.

Can you please explain how can you consider it superior to make everything you work with disappear, no matter how big the screen you work with is, just to start another program? I'm not interested for the screen sizes of the phones, but 21 inches and above. Then do the same discussion for all non-touch monitors and touch dependencies.

Metro existed before Windows 8 on the Windows phones. There's no good UI reason to make all big screen desktops behave like small screen phones. It was a pure political decision and they deserve every bad voice there is.

My girlfriend wants to watch a video on Netflix and have the PDF viewer open to read knitting patterns while she watches.

Oops, can't do that! The PDF viewer is fullscreen-only.

Set the default PDF viewer to Chrome, it renders well enough and is pretty quick. Also make sure to set most media default viewers to alternatives, like images, videos, and anything else that could trigger the default metro viewers.

Is that definitely right? Most metro apps should snap to 1/3 or 2/3 width allowing two apps side-by-side.

Edit: OK, so apparently you can[1] snap the default pdf viewer, but I can see it's not going to be a very nice experience having either a video or the pdf viewer occupying 1/3rd of the screen.

[1] http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/17670-how-snap-pd...

Maybe neither of us are privy to Microsoft's innermost strategic decision-making processes, so neither are qualified to comment on whether they've thought this through?

That said, I would argue it is more efficient to expect that one of the world's largest companies would think very carefully about its options before making such a huge leap.

One more thing: remember that Microsoft is not gambling on the current Windows 8 UI paradigm itself. Not exactly. Microsoft is gambling on the general style: clean, clear typography matched with bold blocked colour and clear, simple iconography.

Take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx.

Granted it's not perfect, there are still hiccups - the search magnifying glass for instance. I expect those hiccups to be ironed out soon enough though. Regardless, what Microsoft is effectively doing is staking its claim on a visual style, which it clearly thinks will be prime real estate over the next decade. I think it'll pay off handsomely. At the very least they've wiped the slate clean and laid a foundation that will be much easier to tweak in future.

My first impression that Microsoft perhaps hadn't thought the whole Windows 8 UI through was actually gained at a Microsoft conference. A chap sitting in front of me was attempting to use the Windows 8 tiled interface on a laptop balanced on his lap - he reached out to do something, touching the screen and managing to knock the laptop off his lap onto the floor.

I like a lot of Microsoft products (Excel, Windows 7, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Dynamics AX) - so I'm not a Microsoft hater by any means but I do wonder about their judgement in this particular area.

Like I said in another comment, I'd never argue that Windows 8 right now is worth using. For most people it doesn't offer compelling improvements. Where I differ from most people is that I see a lot of promise in the future Windows 8 hints at, and I have a lot of trust in the ability of Microsoft to continually improve its processes, recognise its errors, and produce better and better products. That after all was the lesson of Vista for me - Microsoft is responsive to defects in its operations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com