Windows 10: Re-Crappifying Windows 8
ignorethecode.net
ignorethecode.net
Not a fan of Windows8. The 10 preview I played with was an absolute step in the right direction.
I don't think this is true. With a mouse, you can easily make very precise small movements, so a tiny button positioned right next to where you already have the mouse cursor (perhaps, for example, over another tiny button) is very easy to reach. A tiny button farther away is much harder to hit because you make larger and less precise movements to get there from where you were. The size of the target is not as important as its proximity to the cursor's current position.
On a touch screen, with no relative movement, the situation is pretty much the opposite: If you have tiny touch targets right next to each other, it's very hard to hit the right one, and you can't see if the cursor is positioned correctly before you click. If they're farther apart, it's easier to hit the right one, or at least harder to hit the wrong one. (And obviously larger targets are better.)
The whole Windows 8 thing is embarrasingly make-believe.
http://bgr.com/2014/02/04/windows-8-adoption-analysis/ http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/300073591/windows-8-...
With Ballmer gone, Windows 10 can return to the familiar Windows 7 look and feel for enterprise desktop purchasers - so hopes Microsoft.
When the iPad and iPhone first dominated their respective markets, Ubuntu was first to respond because Linux evolves faster than Microsoft. The Unity Desktop was the canary in the coal mine with respect to how desktop users would react at the software vendor's natural desire for UI convergence.
Notably, Steve Jobs and Apple, maintained two UIs, one: MAC OS for the desktop and laptops, and two: iOS for touch/mobile. Apple routinely mocked Microsoft, and ignored Ubuntu as non-competitive.
Desktop and Laptop, e.g. keyboard and mouse, multi-monitor, are better for content creation, such as writing software.
Mobile - touch and voice and camera - are better for content consumption, messaging and always-with-you intelligent services, e.g. navigation.
Tim Cook at Apple famously said Windows 8 was converging a ‘Toaster and a Refrigerator’.
I really don't care about Windows as I am a Docker application developer, and routinely use Ubuntu Unity which I grown accustomed to. Good luck Microsoft on Windows 10.
However what I dread most are the vendors and their crapware bundeling programs. Uch.
Hierarchical start menus are also useful, for that matter.
I'm increasingly convinced that overlapping Windows are not particularly useful (they are better than one-thing-maximized-is-the-only-option), but tiled windows are very useful.
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.
edit: And focus-follows-mouse/x-mouse.
I also like the feature of using the scroll wheel to change window position (above/below), especially if I'm browsing and have a few related windows open on a desktop. I didn't realize how much I missed the feature until I tried Plasma 5 on KDE briefly (it has it, too, but it didn't migrate my configuration).
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.
Edit: To me Metro tablet size without desktop or iOS with tiling would be the best.
Very few people on a tablet want to touch-type code for eight hours a day. Very few people on a desktop want to hold their hands in the air tapping their expensive monitors for eight hours a day.
What Microsoft needs to do is produce a clean "OS base" (kernel, drivers) used by both, and then produce two separate products: Windows Office (for desktops) and Windows Metro (for touch devices.) They should have never tried to merge the UIs together.
I get that the author is probably upset with the changes coming in Windows 10 given his nearly exclusive use of a Surface (it's understandable--and also ironic that early on in the post, he mentions that "learning is uncomfortable"), but he's also forgetting that his favored use case is probably in the minority. How many Surface users are there versus enterprise/business/desktop users?
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.
I'm not completely sure I agree. But as with most things in technology, reflecting on past design changes or evolution isn't always a good marker for what's in store for the future. For one thing, I can foresee typical desk positions as a contributing factor to shoulder strain when using a touch-style monitor for prolonged periods being a problem. Would it be useful for some things? Sure, but I don't see it as completely practical when the user essentially has to reach up and press the monitor all day for various tasks (industrial use cases might be worth researching here since so many of them rely on touch interfaces or similar, particularly in high tech factories, but most of these workers are not only standing but the buttons are quite large).
Remember, the same kids you mentioned who are growing up with touch devices have also been exposed, generally, to pointing devices in parallel for much of their lives. The mouse, as a pointing device, is going to take a ground breaking technological leap to kill--touch alone isn't going to accomplish this because the precision simply isn't there.
Realistically, I don't see it as backwards: I see it as practical.
> 2. Removing charms, for example, did nothing for desktop PCs.
(Disclaimer: I never used Windows 8 precisely because of these decisions. Likewise, I'm a Linux user. That probably tells you everything you need to know.)
Charms annoyed the hell out of me; rather, the fullscreen application of them annoyed the hell out of me. For one, defaulting to a fullscreen UI on a desktop absolutely breaks workflow for most people (myself included), it's visually jarring, and making something scroll horizontally in a desktop environment is not only inconsistent with the default behavior of most applications (also designed for a desktop environment) but it's almost painfully awkward to use with a mouse. I commend Microsoft for trying something new, but their current decisions to make Windows 10 more like a 7-8 hybrid are suggestive of a deeper truth: There's no business sense in alienating a substantial majority of your install base by imposing a UI that's both painful and intrusive to use for most desktop users.
To say nothing of the various hotspots enabled by default that were clearly intended to be used with swipe gestures. You could argue it's annoyance bred by lack of interest in learning a new UI (it's not), but when that same UI is intended for something that primarily uses touch interaction, shoehorning it into an environment where the primary interaction is through a pointing device, you're left with a disaster. Hence Windows 10, which I don't find all that bad.
Also, I should note that while tablet mode in Windows 10 still retains some of the smaller, more difficult-to-activate-via-touch items in the start screen, we're still discussing a preview version of an OS that isn't expected to be released until October. I expect that they'll further improve tablet mode for touch users.
Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. The charm bar, the weird interactions, the gigantic click points that completely undermined the benefit of a highly precise mouse. It was a step backwards as Microsoft tried to force touch metaphors and designs on a mouse world. Now this user is complaining that they're forcing mouse metaphors on his tablet.
Not a chance. IMO, not only was the the best Windows from a technical perspective, I quite liked the interface. I use Linux mostly for philosophical and technical reasons (much easier to program in Linux), but Windows 8 has great UI.
They dumbed down the desktop from a customization perspective and it was most annoying, and that's before the removal of the Start menu and addition of hotcorners and other Metro/Modern features.
[1] See Types for a tool that brings this feature back: http://izt.name/apps/types/
[2] OldNewExplorer for a regular toolbar: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/170375-oldnewexplorer-make-y...
This usability expert disagrees, and explains his position in detail: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usab...
I like the fact that the Start Screen makes full use of my 27" 2560 x 1440 LCD. With the Windows 7-style Start Menu all of your shortcuts are shoved into a tiny corner of the screen.
In other words, it's both modal and it wastes real screen estate.
The Windows 7-style Start Menu is modal too in the sense that you can't interact with the desktop at the same time you are interacting with the Start Menu.
The other thing I don't particularly like about the Start Menu is that shortcuts and folders with long names get cut off due to the width of the menu itself.
Screens are a bit like RAM in my opinion. There to be used.
Huh? If you define it that way then everything is modal because you can only ever interact with one window at a given time (one mouse, one keyboard, etc.)
If I open it, start typing, and switch to a different window, then it loses all of its state, and has to restart from scratch if I go back to it.
Totally unusable without it.
As for "undermining people's opinions": while I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who genuinely gave Windows 8 a chance, and found it severely wanting, I think it's fair to say that there are at least as many who never did, and just joined in on the bashing. Personally, I've seen a number of people who made jokes about Windows 8, but changed their opinions once they actually saw it on my Surface. It's a bit like Windows Vista, which people suddenly quite liked, once it was renamed to Windows 7 :-)
The actual point of the loss aversion thing, though, was to point out how Microsoft failed when it introduced Windows 8. I write this blog for designers, and learning from other people's mistakes is one reason why I write it. Loss aversion is an important concept in design; a conclusion to draw from this is that design changes should occur gradually, and not be forced upon people with a single, sweeping change.
I am writing this on a recently purchased Windows 7 Lenovo x220 convertible tablet with a Wacom stylus and a multi-touch screen. (Primarily to use it as a poor man's Cintiq.) With only a few specific failings, Windows 7 seems to be a great OS for such a device. One of the big failings is requiring the user to keep precise track of window focus. The other one is rejection of finger input in contexts where everything but the stylus should be ignored except certain specific exceptions. I've used an AutoHotKey script to compensate for the latter. Other than these (very glaring) few points and others, I think Windows 7 does a very good job of capitalizing on the strengths of the input devices and form factor. I can transition between laptop/workstation, touch-tablet, and Wacom stylus type inputs to best suit the particular context I am working in with reasonable rapidity. As a workman's toolbox, this thing is pretty awesome!
Comparing this to the mess that's Windows 8, it's clear that Microsoft lost a cohesive overall vision for how everything should work together. It's also clear from the glaring problems that they never quite had a cohesive overall vision firmly guiding the whole product in the first place.
A consumer-oriented tablet and a kitchen-sink/swiss-army knife device for coders/creatives are two very different kinds of devices. It's just not clear thinking to try and mix the two. (OS X seems to be facing a similar dilemma.)
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.
Isn't "liking" Windows 8 less than Windows 7 an emotional reaction?
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.
They just basically reinvented an ugly version of Windows 7 while throwing away what made Windows 8 a genuinely good OS on tablets - essentially instead of separating the desktop and tablet experience they went back to pushing desktop UI on tablet users.
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 style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop.
Not once do they mention the obvious solution -- that Microsoft should have gone separate directions on the desktop and the tablet -- but instead hold this as a cowardly backtrack.
Hmm, you're commenting from entirely desktop machine perspective. He's talking only about tablet use perspective. I would say those are totally different viewpoints and more importantly, usage patterns?
>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 style 3 wheel car), they specifically hold up its advantages on the desktop.
I think saying that those interface elements are objectively bad on tablets is not far from truth, so again, see my first point.
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.
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.
No, it wasn't. It isn't.
(I liked the improvements in 8.1 but that blanket statement from you is false)
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 that they are changing it back. The Windows 8 interface was scientifically superior[1] to the old one: people just didn't like the change. The Windows 10 one is closer to the older interface, people just don't like it because it's change.
The big interaction areas (including the infinite one at the bottom left for the start menu) provided good mouse control. People would have found the keyboard control far superior if they had taken the 10 minutes to learn it, instead of complaining.
Something is not "objectively terrible" if at least one person like it and, including myself, I know people who like the Win8 interface. I haven't tried Win10 yet but I'll probably like the interface because Microsoft are terrific at interface design.
The only thing that Microsoft get wrong is that people don't like their cheese being moved. The Windows 7 interface was good, the Windows 8 interface was good and so will be the Windows 10.
The very reason that people praise Apple interface design is because they keep feeding you the same junk over and over again and you all love it, the innovation there is that innovation is avoided in order to not rile up change aversion.
No, people don't like the Windows 8 UI because it's terrible on the desktop. Comparatively, the classic Windows UI is terrible on touch-screen devices. Even combining both interfaces on one OS isn't terrible. But in Windows 8 they both bleed into each other in a way that is not good. Windows 10 combines them even more but I'll reserve judgement until I've tried it.
I hate that too. Disabled it. That's my opinion of the feature. However, that in addition to:
> charms bar
(Which I never use) is technically good UX design. Corners are super easy to position your mouse in. 100 out of 100 times you try and put your mouse cursor into the corner you will achieve that without fail. Both corner gestures (really hate them) and charms bar use that extensively.
> Wifi setup panel, login screen
Never had a problem with these, they do the job just fine. Just different. The Wifi panel is actually great UX because the process of setting up Wifi does not bounce all over the screen (as it did previously).
> start screen
Fitt's Law, look it up. If you don't like using the mouse you don't even have click anyway. WINKEY -> N -> O -> T, oh, notepad is up, ENTER. Done. Windows 8 taught me to let go of my mouse.
I have 2 24" monitors, 3840x1080 pixels. The corners are actually pretty far from where ever my mouse is right now, and not all that easy to hit on purpose. Accidentally, all the time. With a touchpad it's even worse -- they were always being activated when I didn't want them to be. And there is literally nothing in that bar I need to use.
> The Wifi panel is actually great UX because the process of setting up Wifi does not bounce all over the screen (as it did previously).
It's an overlay which means it floats over your work while you're waiting for the Wifi connection to fail. It's just entirely unnecessary UI which doesn't fit in with anything else on the desktop.
> Fitt's Law, look it up.
Fitt's law is frankly bullshit these days. I have way too many pixels for it to make sense and I've had 20+ years of using a mouse.
There is the whole whole screen start menu thing, but I wasn't a big start menu user in Windows 7, and I barely notice. I don't find Metro to be very useful for me, and I don't go there often, but it doesn't really bleed into the desktop so whatever.
That is your opinion, as I said:
subjective
Your opinion is not the only correct one, although it is the more typical reaction to change. Any alternative change would have likely caused this exact same fallout.
I use Windows 8.1 on the desktop every day - since Windows 8 was released - and I honestly can't understand why people have such huge problems with it unless it is just about change.
I had my first impressions of it in a VM when it was RTM. At that time I did think it was pretty ugly and I got really frustrated (i.e., I was cussing up a storm) trying to figure out how to shut it down properly via the UI - in the RTM release I believe the only way to do that was to use the Charms bar, and I had to Google to figure that out. I also did not have any particular fondness for the Metro apps.
Sometime later I made it the primary OS on my laptop - which, as I purchased it in 2006, is non-touch. I use an external mouse instead of a touchpad because I hate touchpads, full-stop. And I'd say that in my opinion, Windows 8 is definitely the best Windows for desktop. The one major complaint I had, about shutdowns, was resolved by having a power button on the Start Screen, and additionally adding a context menu to the Start button on the taskbar that gives you quick access to shutdown options.
Almost everything in Windows 8 works the same. For example, I see frequent complaints about how terrible the Start Screen is for desktop users. I don't think it's very pretty, but it works almost exactly the same as the old start menu. The primary difference is that it takes up the full screen, which I don't think is too terribly a big deal since the Start Menu goes away if you take away focus anyway. Opening applications works the same way as it has since Vista: hit winkey, type the first few letters of the application, hit enter. Alternatively, click on the start button, click on the application (if pinned) or click on All Programs to scroll through all your applications. This is moderately improved in Win 8 since you can change what your programs are sorted by, unlike Win 7 (for example: Most Used, Most Recently installed, etc.)
I am not a big fan of the Metro apps, but they do now show up on the taskbar, they do have a titlebar with a close and minimize button, and you can sort-of resize them. The only one I use is Weather. By default (and maybe this has changed since I installed it), Windows does have Metro apps set to open your pictures, etc. The default app setting is easy to change, though I can't imagine many new users expecting or wanting the new Metro apps. The only one I had to change was changing images to open in Windows Photo Viewer; the rest was "fixed" by installing my usual apps (VLC, Firefox, etc.)
Other than that, there are plenty of desktop-centric improvements. Multi-monitor support is much better. There is a fantastic context menu on the Start button with quick access to various administrative functions. Various things throughout the desktop OS get slight improvements; the file copy dialog is better, task manager is better, Windows Explorer is better. For the most part, the average desktop user is almost never even going to see the Metro interface. And I have never, ever touched the Charms bar, ever since that virtual machine. It's totally unnecessary for a desktop workflow. Which I suppose could be a complaint in itself.
The only real regression I see is that the Windows 8 file search kind of blows. It works as well as Windows 7 if you know what you're looking for - hit Windows key, type part of the file name, hit enter - but for any kind of advanced search you have to open up Windows Explorer and do it from there. The Start Screen is also missing the recently-opened files list on the Windows 7 start menu - you have to pin to the taskbar to get the same effect.
Can you go into more exactly why it's terrible on desktop? Is it just you think tiles waste space, the clash between Metro/desktop is kind of jarring, that kind of thing?
I also use Windows 8.1 everyday, I'm typing this message on it.
> Almost everything in Windows 8 works the same. For example, I see frequent complaints about how terrible the Start Screen is for desktop users. I don't think it's very pretty, but it works almost exactly the same as the old start menu.
My father-in-law somehow figured out he could launch applications by going into Program Files folder in explorer and running programs from there. He did that because he could not figure out how to find stuff on the start screen. I was impressed with his ingenuity; I just replaced the start screen with ClassicShell. I don't have any metro apps, I have 2 24" monitors, so the start screen is ridiculous.
> Other than that, there are plenty of desktop-centric improvements.
I agree. Those could have all been in Windows 7.1 though.
> For the most part, the average desktop user is almost never even going to see the Metro interface.
Except for the charms bar, hot corners, the Wifi setup panel, the login screen, the start screen, the associated app selector, the metro apps with associations to common file types, etc.
Never heard about this one before, thanks for the tip!
That I can completely agree with. The tutorial that they introduced helps, but I think something (not sure what) would have helped.
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 just needed to learn it, people don't like their cheese being moved.
Coach your post in the disclaimer, but 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.
See, we can both do that. Fun.
However in my case I'm supported by this very development, where Microsoft is essentially backtracking based upon enormous customer resistance and a backlash.
The author seems to consider that a mistake and likes the Windows 8 way better. So do I. This is all subjective, just like your statements are. You just claim to speak for everyone/state facts. That's still wrong, ignoring that childish retort.
> See, we can both do that. Fun.
Which immediately disproves your original assertion that the Windows 8 on the desktop was objectively terrible. That was just, like, your opinion, man.