
A "real" user proves Windows 8 fails on the desktop - ukdm
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/a-real-user-proves-windows-8-fails-on-the-desktop-20120312/
======
ugh
Windows 8 is leaky. Tablet paradigms leak into mouse and keyboard interfaces.
It extremely confusing. There is no clean cut, no mode switch.

I understand the abstract principle behind it, but that does not help.

Two examples I noticed when fooling around with it. Nothing major, but they
illustrate the problem very well. This is using a default and clean install of
the consumer preview:

So you boot it up and are presented with a big image that displays the time
and nothing else. Clicking just makes the image hop, you actually have to
swipe upwards (with the mouse!) to be allowed to log in.

You see this PDF in the Explorer and double click it. A Metro app launches and
removes all UI elements you just saw and are used to. There is no way to close
it on screen, nowhere to click to get out of it. You have to know about the
hot corners or keyboard shortcuts to get out of it. Even then: It’s a jarring
transition between two completely different UI paradigms. That is no fun even
if you know how to get out of it, even if you know that it’s supposed to be
that way.

All of this would be fine if normal Windows apps were on their way out. If we
all were to ditch our mice. If the Desktop were only there for compatibility
reasons, to run those old apps no one is going to use in a year or two anyway.
Only, even Microsoft doesn’t seem to be on that path. It looks like Office
will not be a Metro app, for example.

I don’t want to see Windows 8 fail. Metro is incredibly cool for tablets and
phones. (Windows 7 also was incredibly great – for Windows – as a desktop OS.
It works really well.) It’s really awesome! But I’m not sure about the Metro
and old Windows UI hodgepodge. I just can’t convince myself that touch
interfaces work well with the mouse. It’s just not fun to swipe with a mouse.
And interfaces which are fun to use with swipes and taps are not necessarily
fun to use with a mouse. (The reverse is obviously also true.) All the Metro
apps seem like incredibly cool tablet apps. I can see that I would have a lot
of fun with them on my iPad. The Store is also cool and very well integrated.
But with a mouse? In such a leaky environment? Where the mouse user is
confronted with touch interfaces over and over?

What Microsoft is doing is incredibly brave. That alone deserves recognition.
But I really can’t see it succeeding. Maybe I’m wrong.

~~~
sounds
Serious question: if Microsoft is convinced of the "Post-PC" meme, so Metro is
the future — and the Start Menu is in the trash — then office work should be
done on an iPad.

So what's the disconnect?

I'll give my opinion at the bottom. You've pointed at the leaky tablet
paradigm, but let's just assume Office takes a year to catch up to Windows.
That's historically been the case.

"Normal" windows apps should be phased out rapidly and Metro everywhere should
become the new Windows UI.

Since when has real office productivity needed a Tablet UI? It seems obvious
to me that the iPad (and iPhone) are for casual use or travel. It may be
productive to review sales figures, or tweak the wording in the presentation,
while on the plane. Anything more requires a keyboard in my opinion.

The physical difference between the iPad and a keyboard is the primary reason
I think office workers will hate Metro. Second to that I see them hating Metro
because they just want to "get stuff done." Metro lacks the streamlining that
the old apps have taken years to achieve. Instead of being able to add a
formula with one click, you have to learn a whole new set of interface tricks.

Microsoft wants a quick success. So Metro will probably get ditched for
something new by 2016, regardless of its core merits. (Obligatory: I'm biased:
I think there is a niche for PC's and a separate niche for iPads. I see no
Post-PC world, only an admission that Dell's profit margins will never return
to 1990's levels.)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
_I see no Post-PC world, only an admission that Dell's profit margins will
never return to 1990's levels.)_

The "Post PC" world doesn't remotely mean PCs will disappear. We've been in
the "Post Mainframe" world for 30+ years, yet Big Blue still makes a lot of
money on super computers.

When people talk about "Post PC", they are referring to where the majority of
dollars will be spent and how the _average_ person will interact with
computers. We are still learning how to make that interaction really effective
for producing content, so we haven't completely left the PC world, but within
a couple years, we will be there.

One other thing that will be a hallmark of this transition will be ubiquity of
computing. In the PC world, there were one or two general-purpose computers in
a home. In the Post PC, there will be dozens. And even more special-purpose
devices.

Up to today, Post PC products have been mostly used for consumption. This is a
side effect of two things: most computers are used for consumption and, as I
mentioned earlier, the interactions for creation are still a work in progress.
But progress is happening. I've used my iPad to author business presentations
from scratch, to do mockups for my web product and to author blog posts.

There are a lot of advantage to having a device that works more naturally with
my creative energies. If I'm relaxing on the couch, I can continue to do so.
The laptop forces me into a different mindset.

But, yes, PCs will certainly continue to be around and useful for a good
number of people.

~~~
jacquesm
The only thing that changed the crazy sales of PCs to something a bit more
normal is that a four year old PC is now still fast enough to do most of the
stuff that you could do with one you bought today.

And it will remain that way until applications will be able to make more
effective use of multiple cores.

~~~
ghshephard
When I'm in the office (75-80% of my year), i'm a heavy user of Windows. I
cycle between five core apps (Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint, Outlook+Lookout,
VMware/VirtualBox) working on RFPs, Technical Architectures, Transition
Documents, Reference Designs, etc...

My "travel system" has changed three times in the last 9 years (Macbook Pro,
Macbook Pro, MacBook Air) - but my productivity desktop has remained the same
- a Dell Precision 650 running windows XP. I'm _already_ looking forward to my
fourth laptop (picking up a 2012 thunderbolt MacBookAir - local backups over a
thunderbolt connection to a high-speed NAS will make local backups both more
likely to happen as well as more painless) On the flip side- my circa Q1 2004
productivity desktop _still_ does pretty much everything I need of it - I
don't have any real incentive to request a new machine, or upgrade off of
Windows XP.

I'm picking up a new iPad on Friday, but I don't really see how Windows
8/Metro is going to be a useful replacement for my fairly optimized Windows XP
experience. Eventually the Precision 650 is going to break - and I'll probably
upgrade to Windows 7 + whatever dell desktop will last me another 10 years,
but I agree 100% with the parent - Mobile/Tablets/Laptops still have 2.5-3.5
year lifespan, desktops have moved into the 4-6 year rotation in the
enterprise (And, in my case, even longer)

As the world becomes more mobile, and desktops continue to extend their life,
we'll see even more transition of leadership (and profit) to those vendors who
focus on the "Mobile Experience" - that's what's driving Microsoft to Metro -
not because they believe it will enhance our desktop experience (it really,
really won't) - but because it's where the market is moving.

------
run4yourlives
I don't understand the thinking here: are they abandoning business users?

People use their computers in very different ways, and while a user may have a
windows PC at work and an iPad at home, that doesn't mean they want to "do
work" on the iPad. In many cases they actually hate the idea.

Secondly, I get the feeling that many windows users are still 100% windows
because _that's what they know_. Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to
re-learn the OS at every release. I can't help but think this is what makes
more and more think, "well, if I have to learn a new OS I should try out those
apples/Linux that everyone loves to talk about". That can't be good from a
Microsoft pov.

~~~
dpark
> _Microsoft seems insistant on forcing users to re-learn the OS at every
> release._

When has Microsoft made this kind of switch before? Last time I recall this
significant of a jump was 3.1 to 95.

Disclaimer: Microsoft employee

~~~
run4yourlives
You're not asking non-power users how they feel, are you?

2000 to XP was a big change. So much so that many people reverted to "Classic"
mode as soon as they could do so.

XP to Vista wasn't even accepted by most users. I have no idea how many old XP
users went to OSX like I did, but I would posit that the number is not zero.

Vista/XP to 7 was also a decent sized change, as I learn anytime I've
attempted to verbally explain where a particular setting is and realize that
it could be called anything. Unlike Vista, this has nothing to do with the
quality of the OS, as Windows 7 is very good. However I can't help thinking
that at least some users have gone OSX from this change as well.

~~~
dpark
> _2000 to XP was a big change. So much so that many people reverted to
> "Classic" mode as soon as they could do so._

"Classic" mode only changed the way the OS looked. It had nothing to do with
the functionality, and certainly didn't change whether the user had to "re-
learn" the OS.

> _XP to Vista wasn't even accepted by most users._

How did users have to "re-learn", though? Vista was certainly not adopted at
the rate that Microsoft had hoped, but whether users accept the product is a
different question from whether they have to "re-learn the OS".

> _Vista/XP to 7 was also a decent sized change, as I learn anytime I've
> attempted to verbally explain where a particular setting is and realize that
> it could be called anything._

They did move some settings (can't recall if this was actually Vista or 7). I
would hardly say that this required re-learning the OS, though. I will admit
that one of the first things I always do is switch the Control Panel to "Large
Icons" rather than "Category".

P.S. Disclaimer: MSFT employee

~~~
tuple
Disclaimer: former MCSE who quit administering windows altogether.

A minor aesthetic change which requires a minor intuitive leap for the power
user is a major change for most home users. Sure, the steering wheel is on the
other side of the car, but thats minor. Except that now the user has to learn
how to drive on the other side of the road.

I loaded up windows 7 to look. Where's add/remove software? Wait, that changed
and I need to set the control panel to classic to see it. Uh, where's classic
mode at. Turns out you select the drop down box to Large/Small Icons for it to
change the icon selection entirely. What? I spent a while longer searching for
where to install OS components (IIS, etc). Minor irritants to me. Major
headaches for my Father, Sister, Brother, etc. Even moreso when they call the
family tech who can't figure what the hell they're talking about.

I change to the interface IS a change to the OS as far as all by %1 of users
are concerned.

~~~
microkid
When you click Start and see a textbox which is labeled search, do you not
think, what if I type "add remove". Google has taught me this, so when I see
search I expect to enter keywords or search criteria and that expected results
are returned.

Guess what it works.

Classic what? Click what? Where's what?

Just search for it.

Implying the rest just seems archaic, especially from a user perspective.

~~~
run4yourlives
_Just search for it._

Have you used an OS prior to Windows 7 and/or OSX?

Search on windows actually working is a huge step forward. Many users have
simply not adapted to this actually being something worth trying.

~~~
uxp
I'm one of those people. I switched to OS X somewhere around XP SP3. Have
never used Vista on any of my own machines, and only run Win7 on a VM to get
access to IE 8 and 9.

Search on Windows is horribly broken. One of the first "shortcuts" I learned
on OS X was Cmd+Space and typing out the application I wanted to run.
Spotlight immediately brought up what I wanted. Windows never did that for me,
or spent 45 seconds or more with a spinning hourglass to return a document
that happened to be named similar to a program I wanted. I don't care if it
works better now, they've set a precedent in my mind that it is broken,
because it was broken for the ~15 years I used their OSes.

------
brudgers
If someone had filmed me using trying to figure out how to eject a floppy disk
from a Mac as a first time user, the results would have been similar - but the
video would have been significantly longer.

Using a new operating system takes some getting used to. But first time use
isn't the relevant metric for an activity which one will do for years and in
which one engages for productivity.

The metrics should match the expected learning curve - i.e. F16's are not
designed for toddlers.

~~~
bunderbunder
The thing is, _this isn't a first-time user_. The guy in that video is a
Windows user. The expected learning curve should be short and shallow, because
he should theoretically be dealing with incremental changes and not a
completely alien system.

But he's sitting down at a new version of Windows and using it as if it were
his first time using an alien OS. In other words, the metrics are completely
at odds with what should be the expected learning curve.

~~~
brudgers
What criteria are you using to determine an appropriate expected learning
curve?

Is an operating system upgrade supposed to be like transitioning from a 2008
BMW 3 series to a 2011 BMW 3 series?

Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW
3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan where the brake, accelerator, and
steering wheel remain the same, but all the other controls, the
instrumentation, and cabin layout are different?

Any change has a learning curve which can feel steep at first. I've personally
experienced it when changing browsers among IE, firefox, chrome, and Opera
(never mind mobile versions) even though they all pretty much work the same
way.

And my father makes the same face when he has new email from someone he
doesn't know.

~~~
bunderbunder
_Or is it o.k. for the learning curve to be like transitioning from a 2008 BMW
3 series to a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan_

Bad analogy. You go on to point out why:

 _where the brake, accelerator, and steering wheel remain the same_

~~~
brudgers
i.e. mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

If you've made such a transition, you will find you have to adjust to the
headlamp controls moving from the right side stalk to the left side on the
console and being replaced on the right side stalk with the wiper control
which is on the left side stalk in the other car.

Seat controls, speed control, radio adjustments, door lock operations, etc.
all also change.

Not to mention that you can't get a Grand Caravan with a clutch and no
sensible person would get a slush bucket in a 3 series.

------
peter_l_downs
One user's review doesn't "prove" anything. All it shows is that Windows 8
fails for that user, at that time.

James Randi's lecture [1] on proving a negative (in this case, "windows 8
doesn't work for users") is highly relevant and poignant.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI>

EDIT: fixed link formatting

~~~
Jach
My opinion on Randi went down, of course you can prove negative statements.
(Edit: In fact, here's a PDF:
[http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales...](http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf)
But the most obvious instance is that anything you prove true you can also
prove is not false.) Anyway, it is important to note that "prove" in this
English, not mathematical, context really means "suggests", if you want to be
technical and pedantic. It suggests that other users who share similar traits
to the person in the video will also experience difficulties.

~~~
peter_l_downs
From that PDF:

> However, it would be a grievous mistake to insist that someone prove all >
> the premises of any argument they might give. [...] > So why is it that
> people insist that you can’t prove a negative? I think it > is the result of
> two things. (1) an acknowledgement that induction is not > bulletproof,
> airtight, and infallible, and (2) a desperate desire to keep > believing
> whatever one believes, even if all the evidence is against it.

You can prove negative statements within a set of assumptions. But, as even
this author acknowledges, it is impossible to absolutely prove anything in all
cases, and I think that is what Randi basis his argument on: that nothing can
be absolutely proved false in all cases.

Disclaimer: I'm not an epistemologist, nor a philosopher, nor an experienced
logician. I may have misread this PDF and/or Randi's speech.

~~~
Jach
I actually believe it's primarily a third reason the author didn't mention:
(3) not understanding what a "proof" is and what it means to "prove"
something. Of course it ties into the 2nd reason in that many people aren't
motivated to learn what a proof actually is.

The "impossible to absolutely prove" phrase has a misuse of "prove". A proof
is absolute. A proof is either valid or invalid judged solely on whether it
follows the rules of the predicate calculus (or the rules of some other proof-
framework you're using which is likely using the predicate calculus or an
extension behind the scenes anyway). A proof's conclusions are "true" if and
only if they are true. ( <http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth> )

It is true (so far as we know, we might be wrong in the end) that we can't be
absolutely certain that something is false, but it's the same case for being
absolutely certain that something is true. (Here "absolutely certain" means
"no admittance to even the possibility of being incorrect".) This is more
generally identified as the problem of induction, but it's more of a law than
a problem. One can guess from the name it has to do with inductive arguments
that rely on guessing+evidence rather than deductive proofs that rely on
accepting premises (which may be true or false) and a proof framework like the
predicate calculus.

Edit: Have a Feynman video on UFOs. :)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLaRXYai19A> When he says "I can't prove it's
impossible", the interpretation you should take is "I can't produce a set of
premises we can all agree with that leads to a deductive proof that UFOs are
impossible."

------
TheCapn
I'm doing a coding competition on Saturday and my team has decided on a
Windows Desktop app using the provided APIs so I naturally had to get my
laptop running Windows. Since I already use my valid Win7 key on my desktop I
dropped on a VirtualBox installation over my linux and put in the Win8
Consumer preview.

Holy hell.

The start button was the first thing> I landed my self on the desktop (because
fuck Metro) and quickly realized I have no idea how I can actually do
anything. Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries as they were
being nabbed by my Linux OS so I was S.O.L. there but it should not be this
frustrating to actually use an OS to install Visual Studio + Libraries + FF.

At this point I'm willing to axe that Virtual OS and just dual boot with a
Win7 copy that sits on the "you have 30 days to activate" B.S. before axing it
next Monday.

The thing is that Microsoft is going the way of thinking "the average user no
longer requires a desktop." I tend to agree, the content creators - whether
they're programmers or artists - are the ones who require a fully operational
OS. Those who simply consume the content are well off with smart devices which
Metro was designed for. But these two worlds are DIFFERENT. I _need_ the
ability to dig through the internals of my OS. I _need_ the ability to work
with my system registry, services, administrative options and everything else
mixed in. When a seasoned user suddenly struggles to accomplish tasks that are
second nature you've IMMEDIATELY lost a sale.

~~~
grannyg00se
"Virtual Box wasn't capturing my Windows Key entries"

What the hell is a Windows key? Why would an OS be built to expect a special
OS specific key?

To be honest, I know what a windows key is, but I haven't used a windows key
keyboard in my lifetime.

I can get to my Windows 7 start menu by clicking on it, and failing that,
CTRL-ESC will work. If there's nothing to click on, and I'm now forced to
CTRL-ESC all the time, I can live with it, but it's definitely not something I
would call an improvement.

I know there's a familiarization burden with every new major release, but I'm
hearing about an awful lot of extremely inconvenient sounding issues with this
one.

I wonder how hard it would've been to include an OS-wide "tablet mode" /
"desktop mode" toggle.

~~~
gaius
It's called the Meta key in other OS's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_key>

The old joke: Escape Meta Alt Control Shift

~~~
lloeki
Actually it's called the Super key[0], as Meta is more like Alt, Esc, Control
or Command, depending on the platform/context.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button)>

~~~
gaius
No, the Windows key sets MOD4, same as the Meta key did/does on the original
MIT keyboards.

~~~
sukuriant
Yet in linux when I assign things to [Windows] + letter, it says [Super] +
letter.

Super + L is my friend for locking the screen

~~~
gaius
That is merely your distro trying to be cute. Ubuntu?

~~~
lloeki
That has nothing to do with Ubuntu: run _xev_ , press windows/command keys,
see output. By default xorg binds the keys to Super_{L,R}.

Besides, Open any terminal emulator and Alt/Option either behaves as Meta by
default or has the option to do so, e.g. Terminal.app).

For all current practical purposes and in most default cases Alt behaves as
either Alt or Meta depending on the context and Super as Super. Even emacs
folks (maybe the biggest piece of software in use today relying the most
heavily on Meta) agree on that [0].

Meta really does not exist anymore and all mappings one can come up with
(whether they are using Alt or Super) are merely fallbacks.

[0] <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MetaKeyProblems>

------
cf0ed2aa-bdf5
I seriously have no idea what Microsoft thought when they decided to abandon
the start button.

They trained their users for nearly two decades to use the start menu and
abandon it for a weird hybrid between desktop OS and tablet OS which ends up
being neither. It's actually rather sad.

I am definitely going to skip this version of Windows and hope that Microsoft
will come to its senses and realize that you can either have a Tablet/Mobile
interface or a desktop interface but not both.

~~~
bunderbunder
Luckily, Microsoft has a pattern of releasing an OS that tries out new ideas
but is kind of janky, followed shortly after by a more polished one that
brings it all together: Windows Vista & Windows 7, Windows 2000 & Windows XP,
Windows 95 & Windows 98, Windows ME & Windows 98. . .

~~~
drv
Windows Me was released in 2000, after Windows 98, but I agree with your
premise in general.

~~~
bunderbunder
_Windows Me was released in 2000, after Windows 98_

That's why it's funny.

~~~
pessimizer
Accidentally downvoted you when I meant to upvote you. Damn touchscreens...

------
JVIDEL
Win8 is the result of higher ups at MSFT getting caught in trends instead of
being able to tell which strategy works and which doesn't, as they should.

Tablets are a bad business, read _tablets_ not the iPad. The iPad's sales and
huge profits are a Black Swan in a lake full of regular White Swan tablets
making no money and carving a hole in OEMs quarterly results, so at the end
some are actually considering leaving the nascent tablet market. That's
because the majority of people still prefers to pay $500 for a very functional
and feature-loaded laptop than paying that same amount (or more) for a barely
competitive tablet.

That vast majority uses Windows, and now MSFT instead of taking a page from
Apple and using WP7 for tablets they are giving the finger to all the Windows
users that keep their company going (almost every other division is
hemorrhaging money or barely breaking even) by forcing them into the
limitations of a tablet UI.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Limitations are both a curse and a blessing. One of the brilliant things for
new users about Windows 8 is they heavily encourage use of the Metro design
language, ensuring consistency in application interfaces.

~~~
JVIDEL
For 99% of the people out there UI consistency is a non-issue, they care more
about being able to do-X/run-X than having every app look the same.

------
achy
I think apple was smart with the way they went mobile, in that they didn't
really try to carry over any of their exiting OSX UI. Often it is 10x harder
to unlearn habits than to form new ones. If I'm presented with something that
is 'exactly like before except for a bunch of glaring omissions and additions'
it will feel like the uncanny valley and getting used to things will be much
harder. Apple went for the 'Everything that you do in iOS is new but
seamlessly intuitive' route which lends a reasonable learning curve and more
importantly no steep 'unlearning' curve.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
This is very true and applies in a lot of ways e.g. Building an application to
try to take customers away from an incumbent.

I've tried to use Gimp and LibreOffice, but they both are close enough to
Photoshop and MS Office that I can't ever learn their "dialects", which are
very close to the originals', but not quite. Instead, I constantly feel like
I'm fighting them.

When I moved to Pages instead, I was forced to learn a whole new language, and
so that's what happens. No _remapping_ , just mapping.

------
cgranade
I get that moving forward means breaking existing paradigms. I'm happy that MS
is trying Metro (not so happy with the horribly anti-user policies surrounding
Metro, but I digress), and don't mind that it's a change. That said, they need
to leave some kind of path for existing users to map concepts onto the new UI.
A great example of this, I think, is in Gnome Shell, where the "Activities"
hotcorner is clearly labelled, and fills the same UI role as the
"Applications" menu in previous versions of Gnome. A user moving from Gnome 2
would likely try to click Activities, and while they may be surprised at the
overlay that results, would still find all their applications in one place
there. From the looks of it, Windows 8 provides no such path for users to
attach existing intuition to. Change is fine, but it has to be done well.

------
hetman
To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty
straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with
Windows. I'm sure anyone that is actually told how it works will have little
trouble with it. I'm not sure why an OS has to retain a 20 year old UI
paradigm if a nicer method appears to replace it.

People seem to hate change, even for the better. This reminds me of a
recurring theme in the Linux world where any Windows originated UI feature
seems to follow the pattern:

1) Users complain loudly about not copying useless Windows features.

2) UI features get copied from Windows with a 5 year delay once they become
the expected norm.

3) 10 years later the community staunchly opposes the removal of features. The
ones which were once "unnecessary Windows stuff".

~~~
masklinn
> To be honest the "edge of screen" interaction paradigm seems pretty
> straightforward if not simpler than the traditional way to interact with
> Windows.

However it's mystery meat: it provides no clue as to what is active and what
is not (in fact, it provides no activable element at all). There's a reason
why WP7 mandates (if not requires) side-arrows or that a bit of next screen's
content be visible on the edges of the current screen: it hints that there is
_something_ there, it's a very nice clue (even with that, the most frequent
criticism of WP7 is that it's hard to know what is active and what is not).

Completely hidden "edge of screen" elements are very nice but only work if you
_know_ they're there already. What do you do when you don't? You're boggled,
and either you try hunting the interface for active areas (looking for pointer
changes, old-school adventure games style) or you give up and go back to
something you can use at a glance.

~~~
dpark
> _Completely hidden "edge of screen" elements are very nice but only work if
> you know they're there already. What do you do when you don't? You're
> boggled, and either you try hunting the interface for active areas (looking
> for pointer changes, old-school adventure games style) or you give up and go
> back to something you can use at a glance._

Is this really how we expect to progress as an industry? Basically make no
meaningful changes so that we never expect our users to learn anything new? Do
we have that little faith in our users?

How obvious is it to a new iOS user that they need to press an icon on the
Home screen until the icons go wiggly in order to re-arrange them? I'd argue
that this is pretty non-obvious, yet every iOS user has learned this action,
despite there being no "active areas" that reveal this behavior.

Disclaimer: Microsoft employee

~~~
SoftwareMaven
You don't prohibit change. You make affordances. What people are complaining
about isn't the new interaction paradigm, it is how hard it is to figure out
that paradigm.

The iOS example is valid, but not as valid as you think. You could happily use
you iOS device _forever_ without learning that (especially now that Apple put
the same functionality in the settings app, probably because it _wasn't_
discoverable). The same is not true in Windows 8.

Given you have to know a gesture _just to get logged in_ , you can't even
_start_ using it without knowing the magic incantations.

I think it's great MS is experimenting. They have had he same metaphors since
1995. But you have to be very careful when you change 15 year old metaphors,
and I don't think MS has been careful enough. I hope I'm wrong, because that
will mean users are getting more savvy, which can only be good for making more
interesting apps. But my experience has taught me to never rely on users being
more savvy.

~~~
dpark
> _What people are complaining about isn't the new interaction paradigm, it is
> how hard it is to figure out that paradigm._

People always complain about change. Always. That's not to say that there
couldn't be improvements to the W8 interactions, but it's good to remember
that a lot of complaints are really about the fact that something has changed,
and not how that thing has changed. Look at the hate Facebook gets every time
they change, and then notice that despite all the complaints, everyone is
still using Facebook, and that the next time Facebook makes a change, those
people loudly demand that Facebook revert to the version they complained so
much about last time.

I am certain that the Windows team is listening to the feedback they are
getting. The removal of the Start button was due to that feedback. People
complained that it was confusing and misleading that the old start button did
something so different. Whether that was the appropriate reaction is obviously
something that not everyone agrees with.

> _especially now that Apple put the same functionality in the settings app,
> probably because it wasn't discoverable_

Out of curiosity, where? I looked and couldn't find it there.

> _Given you have to know a gesture just to get logged in, you can't even
> start using it without knowing the magic incantations._

I feel like this is kind of a ridiculous claim. The login screen "swipe" is
extremely discoverable. It's so understandable that Apple stole it (bounce and
all) to use for exposing the camera functionality from the lock screen in iOS.

On top of that, any key will invoke the "reveal", as will the scroll wheel.

> _But you have to be very careful when you change 15 year old metaphors, and
> I don't think MS has been careful enough._

I agree. I think the Windows team realizes that they have to change, though,
or they will get passed by.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Settings | General | Storage

Click on an app, and you have the option to delete it.

~~~
dpark
Oh, I was actually talking about rearranging, not deleting. The scenario that
the storage page supports is actually much different from the ones that the
"wiggly icons" supports. Wiggly icons are for deleting apps the user doesn't
want and rearranging the icons according to preference. The storage page is
for reclaiming storage. The behavior is similar, but the root user desire is
somewhat different, which is why it's in a separate place with different
information provided.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
You can rearrange icons in iTunes. The "wiggly" interface us completely
redundant. I agree it is not discoverable; I've had to show each of my kids.
It just isn't a comparable example.

I would put the original MacOS eject behavior as much closer. _That_ was
horrible.

~~~
dpark
Hmm, I think of the iTunes interface as an affordance for the awkwardness of
the wiggly icon interface, rather that its discoverability. But I suppose it
is more discoverable as well.

The old MacOS eject behavior was indeed horrible. It was a miderable design. I
can't understand how anyone ever thought "throw the floppy away" was a
reasonable abstraction for "eject".

------
doodyhead
I wonder how the experience would have went if he hadn't set the desktop up
for him initially. For many new users, I imagine they would be starting with
Windows 8 from scratch on a new PC or a fresh install, which surely provides a
guided tour and lots of hints and tips.

I still agree that excluding the Start button seems like a bad idea. Many
novice users don't ever think of using the keyboard for navigation and it's
clear from the video that switching back to Metro with the mouse is non-
obvious.

~~~
digitallimit
How do you switch back with the mouse?

~~~
bradford
click the lower left corner.

It's functionally similar to pressing the old start button. though there's
clearly some guesswork involved, since no start button is present.

~~~
el_devo
You can also click the lower right corner, then click the windows flag on the
menu that pops out.

This has exactly the same problem as the above method.

------
Skywing
I do feel bad for users like the one in the video. I feel bad because I know
that my father is going to be that person in the video, too. By the time
Windows 8 reaches my father's computer, he'll be in his late 50s. He gets
around Windows 7 just fine, but he does not stray away from his familiar
things. He knows where the browser is and he knows how to tinker around in the
control panel to change certain settings. The moment something does not do
what he expects, though, he's pretty lost. Especially lost if he can't easily
find an explanation as to what's happening, on Google. I have used Windows 8
already, and I can say that if what my father has to use is what I used of it,
then he's in for a rough trip. He'll learn it, but sadly it'll take much
longer than it will for me, for example.

------
JacobAldridge
I'm remind of the original Windows 95 ads (with Start Me Up by the Rolling
Stones). At the time, the Start Button was new and (iirc) the ads focused on
the Start Button and the (obvious now) fact that it 'started' the user's
experience.

Not having seen Windows 8, I don't know what UI has replaced the Start Button.
I hope that before I use Windows 8 I do get some of those basics from
somewhere (unlike my iPhone, which required far too much Googling to make
work. Perhaps I'm showing my age).

Edit: Start me up original Windows 95 ad -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VPFKnBYOSI>

------
drucken
Comments from the IRC chat in the background says it all: "If Joe can't figure
it out, Windows 8 will be the new Vista" :)

------
LocalPCGuy
My biggest beef with Metro wasn't the lack of the Start Menu, although that
was up there. Rather, it was that the Touch events that make it useful are NOT
emulated with a mouse (at least, I couldn't figure out how to make them work.)

What should be simple things, like being able to just click the desktop
ANYWHERE, and drag it back and forth to more it horizontally (like you can do
with a finger/touch) doesn't work. You have to go to the bottom of the screen
and use the scroll bar.

Swipe-In events from the top/sides/bottom of the screen don't work, ruining
much of the default "usability" (if you call it that) of new apps like
IE10(Metro version) or even the default desktop Metro UI functionality and
charms.

The mouse is definitely a second-class citizen in Metro, and it shouldn't be.
If Microsoft would just make the touch controls work with a mouse, that would
eliminate probably 70% of my problems with Metro. Put the Start Menu back, and
I'm left with just vague uneasiness cause something is changing.

~~~
contextfree
You can scroll with the wheel or by pushing against the sides of the screen,
as well as the scrollbar (which btw makes it easier to jump to another part of
the page than it would be with touch).

"swipe-in from top/bottom" = right-click, and "swipe from sides" = swing
around the corners.

In general the design philosophy for mouse in Win8 is that it shouldn't be
used to imitate the touch controls, but rather it should have its own
independent set of controls for the same actions, that better fit the mouse.

------
bungle
Maybe MS thinks that the computer in a future is actually your phone. Then you
have different accesories for it. At office you have display, keyboard and
mouse. The phone automatically senses their presense and atarts to wirelesly
communicate with them, i.e. bringing metroless desktop to those peripheals.
Then you might have tablet like dummy screen that communicates wirelessly with
the phone bringing metrolook to the screen. And you could also use the phone
as is with metro. It could easily hook to your home entertainment too. Yes,
this is fuuristic, and it is not going to happen soon.

------
mckoss
If I didn't know better, I'd interpret MS's actions as trying to drive desktop
computer users to Mac and Linux; kind of like their redesign of Office
(ribbon) driving people to Google Apps.

MS doesn't seem to be "protecting" it's market share anymore; it seems to want
be seen as an innovator, rather than make its current users happy (which seems
a very odd philosophy for a company with 90% market share).

The only way I can understand this is to believe that MS is consciously
"ignoring" internal usability data in order to push forward an innovation
agenda.

~~~
ttt_
Yes, Microsoft is fond of alienating its user base, it amazes me how often
they do that.

I don't plan on using Windows 8, but if I did, I'd probably be alienated just
as much as since until now I haven't really used a single touch device.

Also, if the users are going to have to simulate touch gestures with a mouse,
I foresee an increse in RSI for the next generation.

------
shahar2k
an easy way to look at the way window 8 seems to treat the desktop is to look
at the way windows 7 and previous treat the command line.

There are still many commandline apps, even many important parts of windows
require the command line to operate, however microsoft hasnt exactly put a
great deal of development time into advancing commandline UI technology (and
there are many companies who HAVE done just that)

plainly speaking it seems they are relegating the desktop to be the "next
commandline" another relic, however the transition fails to address the fact
that at it's current state, metro is not able to replace the desktop for
anything but the most basic applications.

another problem mentioned elsewhere ("windows 8 is leaky") can also be
explained another way - tablets have touchscreens but no easy way to use a
mouse / keyboard, desktops have mouse / keyboard but generally no easy way to
use a touchscreen, so using one interaction method pretty much precludes the
other and trying to make an interface which works with both creates a mushy
middling kind of experience which combines good and BAD things from both
methods.we see this when trying to use a mouse with metro apps as well as when
trying to use touch with desktop ones.

I'm treating windows 8 as another vista for now (and I used vista for many
years) it's usable, full of new ideas, but lacking in that final polish where
all the new pieces and old pieces meet.

------
dgregd
Users want desktops and tables. They have different UI and that's OK. You
operate cars, trucks and excavators in a similar way but not exactly the same
way.

MS wants to translate its power from desktop monopoly to tablet market. And
therefore they play against users.

It seems that MS Windows team is too powerful to let smaller teams cannibalize
Windows market share. "Innovators Dilemma" case?

Personally I would import only tablet features which make sense for desktop
OS. For example app sandbox and market, standard app upgrade api,
notifications.

------
btb
I had similar problems with the windows 8 server beta. Tried installing it in
a vm to check it out. And I was unable to figure out how to do anything at all
with it. No windows explorer, or command prompt available. I dont even get the
metro skin, it just popped up the server configuration manager. I spent 10
mins googling if there was a way to get the start button back to no
avail(since most posts were about the consumer preview). I guess I will try
again once the final version is out.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Wow, I had no idea they did this same UI overhaul to their Server product. I'd
like to hear the business case for that drastic product change.

------
michaelfeathers
I heard a long time ago that the Start button actually came from usability
testing that MS did in retirement homes. If this is true, it makes the video
even more poignant.

~~~
rhplus
The original Start button had an animated prompt to help users out the first
time they loaded Windows 95. I wouldn't be surprised if Windows 8 ships with
similar hinting.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxwAlqCCmk>

------
yaix
I am pretty sure it's the mouse that will valish, and your office PC will have
a touch screen as well. I have done it quite a few times already, touching the
screen of my netbook, only to realize that its not my smartphone. In 5 year,
every computer sold will have a touch screen, be it a tablet, phone or a PC.

People who want to continue using the mouse will continue using W7 for the
next 10 years, like they did with XP before.

~~~
marknutter
Hold your arm out in front of you for 5 minutes.

~~~
yaix
Why would you have your finger pressed to the screen for 5 minutes?

Asuming that the number of notebook style PCs continues to rise, your fingers,
when on the keyboard are actually pretty close to the screen, often closer
than they are to the mouse. So you would just move your have foreward some 10
or 20 cm and every once in a while.

To touch on a cell in Excel or mark a couple of words in a text processor.
Maybe use two fingers when in Photoshop or AutoCAD. Well, for the later maybe
a mouse is necessary, but that's what W7 will be around for for quite a while.

~~~
marknutter
The point is, having to stick your arm out to touch the screen over and over
or for an extended period of time is an ergonomic nightmare.

~~~
yaix
Do you have any studies to base than on? Because I believe the opposite.

The mouse is a nightmare: First you have to find it on your desk or whereever
you happen to work. Then, you have to focus on the screen and try to find that
tiny little arrow. Finally, you have to coordinate movement of the mouse and
arrow to click somewhere.

We are very used to it now, but it's a nightmare anyhow.

I don't even start about the trackpad!

How much easier to just stick your finger out, you don't even need to divert
your eye's attention from the screen. Its natural. It fast. And your and fall
instantly back onto the keyboard.

~~~
arcdrag
Where exactly are you moving your mouse that you need to take your eyes off
the screen in order to find it?

Anyway, point & click scenarios can be argued. Click and drag scenarios are
where touchscreens fail entirely in their current implementations. At least on
my tablet, it requires me to long press, drag, long press again, and press
copy. Minimum of 5 seconds with some practice to copy some text. With a mouse
and a left hand on my home keys, I can copy text in under a second.

~~~
yaix
Give it some time, touch is only a few years old. Dragging definitely needs to
be improved, no question.

I don't need to take the eyes of the screen, but maybe I am not the everage
user. If you take a look at how less tech oriented people use a PC, a touch
interface would definitely be a plus, though. Its like stylus against finger.

~~~
mhitza
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-THdG5gVTw>

------
csomar
A "real" user is not the average user. It can be a lot below the average.
Another thing to mention is that despite the changes being huge (but not
really that huge), the learning curve is smaller that switching to the Mac or
Linux for example.

You may figure out how to quickly launch the browser and a couple of apps on
the Mac, but you'll need months to get used to it and know the few times per
month used functionality.

------
cabirum
This is all wrong.

His dad would never install the Consumer Preview himself. He did not know it
exists. He did not read blog posts about it, articles, interviews, etc.

CP was released for developers and users who are interested in seeing what the
new Windows looks like. They are already familiar with it and know how it
works.

Obviously, after installing the final release there will be a tutorial
explaining all the new features, problem solved.

------
nsns
This has also been the case with Win95, many users had trouble using the
mouse, trying to raise it in the air in order to raise the cursor on the
screen etc.

While I'm not sure about Metro's usefulness for laptops and desktops, I do
think that the real test for the cancellation of the start button is whether
the learning curve is short, and the change, once you've mastered it, is
perceived as an improvement.

------
techblock
I saw this. Really does show that for many people Windows 8 might be extremely
cumbersome. I think this is Microsoft's hail mary.

------
primigenus
This is a terrible video because the guy keeps pointing things out to his dad.
If you want to get some objective data about how people respond to this, you
let them figure it out by themselves and you let them start from scratch: turn
on the computer and go from there.

So until someone does that on a reasonable scale (say, 5 people), there's
nothing to see here.

~~~
ConnorWGarvey
I love the scattered Mac peripherals and the totally flippant attitude.
Completely impartial.

------
molecularbutter
Microsoft needs to break Windows 8 Metro away from the desktop and make it
tablet only, why is this so hard for them to see?

~~~
Achshar
because android isn't going anywhere with it's ridiculous fragmentation. and
Microsoft wont be going either if they want their app store to be a success.

------
mkup
It reminds me old good times when we started "vi" editor in fullscreen
terminal and asked newbies to close the program.

~~~
underwater
At least "vi" gives some feedback. "ed" is far worse.

~~~
mdkess
?

------
mrhyperpenguin
I have the HP TouchSmart tm2t (a touchscreen laptop) and the touchscreen
controls make Windows 8 easy and actually enjoyable to use.

I don't know what Microsoft is trying to do with Windows 8. I know they
intended to make touch a first class citizen but it seems like they've
forgotten about the mouse and keyboard.

------
AJ007
I called out Microsoft on this here and on /. when the first previews came
out. It made no sense. I remote in to Windows machines on my iPad. Its very
difficult to use and I understand that.

Now Microsoft wants to have its cake and eat it too, look Windows is a tablet
and desktop! It can do both! No, that means it fails at both as the common
user is exposed to a sub-par experience no matter which device they are using.

This reminds me a lot of Windows Media Center. I don't know if it was XP of
Vista that came with bundled versions of it, but it left the user thinking,
"What the F is this?"

Microsoft is in serious trouble, and they know it. They refuse to take
seriously the things that are most vital to their long term survival as a
company selling consumer products. Apple's version of a half-assed product
release is Apple TV -- "just a hobby"; compare that to Microsoft's expansive
portfolio of half-assed products, Apple TV looks like a polished, finished
product (and it is.)

If Steve Jobs was still alive and ran Microsoft, one would imagine that
everyone responsible for Windows Metro would be fired.

------
mdkess
There seems to be a serious fear of change. Should we converge on some
adequate solution and stop moving? Regardless of whether Windows 8 has a good
user interface or not, it should be judged against the effectiveness of the
change, not just because it is different.

------
RexRollman
I've been playing with Windows 8 and it to be a horrible UI experience,
although I do like the changes made to Explorer and it's theme. I really hope
Microsoft makes a way to run Explorer directly on login, even if it is hidden
away somewhere.

------
rplnt
I never understood why they removed the "start" button in the later releases.
I was used to using the "win" key so I didn't really care. Only after few
weeks I found out that it is possible to open metro using the mouse.

------
conradfr
It's ok, you always have to skip one version of Windows out of two. It will
all be figured it out in Windows 9.

What's funny is that they put Windows in phones and it didn't work, so now now
they try to put Windows Phone in pcs.

------
dhughes
I think MS should make a Windows: Bifocals.

My dad does the same thing, bifocal eyeglasses and a belly make for some weird
contortions when trying to view a monitor.

------
BCounsell
how did we ever manage to transition from MS-DOS to Windows in the first
place? I tried Windows 3.1 for the first time yesterday and I could not for
the life of me figure out how to get to the command line. I don't see how I
can be productive after the first 30 seconds. WINDOWS FAIL!

------
lucb1e
You'd think Microsoft has an entire panel of USER beta testers, not just
bughunters. Seems not.

~~~
Splines
MSFT does (IMO) rigorous usability testing, but I'm not so sure the
organization is agile enough to take that feedback into account.

------
bayleo
I'm more interested in what is going on w/ those Thinkgeek LED clocks lining
his shelf.

------
puppybeard
Don't consumer operating systems always offer a virtual tour of how to use
them?

~~~
WiseWeasel
The difference is you actually have to sit through it this time.

~~~
puppybeard
Yeah, if I installed Windows 8, I'd probably take the time the time to learn
how the new things work. Just because something is new, doesn't mean it's bad.

What I don't like is how consumption-oriented Metro is. It doesn't matter how
slick it is, I don't want to be bombarded with notifications when I sit down
at my pc. But of course, I can avoid it entirely, which I probably will.
Windows 7 should do me for the next five years, easy.

------
funkah
Well, from that standpoint why should Windows ever change? MS shoulda just
stuck to shipping security updates for Windows 95, apparently.

~~~
bunderbunder
Change can be incremental.

Compare OS X 10.0 to the current version - there's a whole lot that has
changed, and the user experience is massively superior. And they managed to
get there through a series of 7 incremental releases where the single most
jarring change was swapping the semantics of the "scroll" gesture. Stuff has
come, stuff has gone, but they _never once_ did it in a way that left existing
users at a loss for how to interact with the new version.

Heck, skip the tiny increments. I'd go so far as to suggest that if a Mac user
were to time-travel forward from 1984, they would be less confused by the
current version of OS X than Windows 7 users seem to be by Windows 8.

~~~
jff
Your time-traveling Mac user would probably be pretty surprised that it took
until 2001 to get real multi-tasking and memory protection, and that the only
way to do that was to switch to the Dread UNIX :)

------
shingen
First of all, Microsoft screwed up in removing the start button. It was
completely unnecessary to remove it, and they added no value in doing so. They
could have just as easily had the start button pop out the appropriate side
navigation, and then let users optionally decide which approach to keep.

Second, I'm sure there will be tutorials built into Windows 8 for people that
want to learn how to use Metro and any of the other changes. Some of the
comments here seem to ignore that. It doesn't excuse the stupidity of removing
the start button of course.

~~~
jakejake
I wouldn't be totally surprised if MS internally has argued endlessly about
removing the start button. That's a huge move on their part. I wouldn't be
surprised if this consumer preview is partly an experiment to see how people
react.

I feel like I'm pretty open to changes in software, I'm a habitual upgrader.
But ditching the start menu really throws me for a loop. Having to leave my
working screen and go to another screen just to launch a new app is super
annoying. It could be that tablets are the future, but most of us are still
using an actual computer so it sucks to have functionality reduced down to a
tablet when you are working at a desktop.

------
user2459
The 'you figure it out' test doesn't work across the board. It works for
common tasks but when you're introducing a new paradigm obviously it needs to
be taught. All the new paradigms on windows 8 can be taught in less than a 10
word sentence. This kind of citizen's journalism is unscientific, a waste of
time and of no value to microsoft.

------
wavephorm
Warning mobile users: OnSwipe site, cashed my iPad browser immediately.

------
emehrkay
This is actually painful. I'll make the OS X comparison -- OS X provides an
icon to lunch the ipad-like icon view that I am certain he would have
attempted to click on

edit: ...the start button as seen in earlier builds, is that icon on windows 8

