
Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody - wyclif
http://seldo.tumblr.com/post/9549775746/this-is-genuinely-microsofts-idea-of-a
======
varunsrin
The first problem with the article here is that some of the buttons (Move To,
Copy To) did not exist previously. They are also extensions of existing
functions (Move, Copy) - so concluding that half the UI is covered by buttons
that were not used is an inaccurate assumption.

Secondly, the actions are being moved from the context menu to the ribbon.
Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non
intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus. Each of these is a
'modifier' that power users are used to, but which make the mental model of
file manipulation much harder for beginners to wrap their heads around. They
have to remember to apply these modifiers to see if the functions they want
exist. Moving the functions into a contextually aware ribbon will make life
much easier for these users.

Third, Move, Copy, Delete & Rename occupy the center of the ribbon. These are
the most used commands (by far) and rightfully occupy center stage. Power
users will call it clutter, but it will be extremely helpful for beginners.

[Disclaimer: MSFT Employee, but I do not work on Windows]

~~~
dhimes
_Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non
intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus_

I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have
answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context
menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file
manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting
if in a text document, etc.

Hell, rats in a cage can learn what to push in order to eat, so I would have
thought that people would be able to learn this. Of course, it would help if
they were told somehow and didn't have to discover it.

~~~
cwbrandsma
Work in support sometime. It is EXTREMELY common to find users that really
don't know about right-click. Or that double-click everything. These are not
new users either, they have been using computers for decades.

For new users I might agree that they could figure out a right click because
everything is new. But for users where everything is familiar ("I've always
done it this way"), it gets much harder to break those expected actions.

Second part is about explorer itself. While it might seem like a common
utility (even necessary), I find it very rare for a general user to know about
it (my wife does not, nor my parents, siblings, their friends,...but my wife's
father does). Once they see it, they have no idea what to do. Copy a file?
Really, they have no idea.

~~~
ajross
Do those users use the desktop shell at all though? In my experience with
novice users (across platforms: Mac noobs are no better) is that they only
know enough to launch apps. They never touch the desktop integration at all.

~~~
alextingle
This is only because the Finder/Explorer has been made harder and harder to
use. Apple's OSX Finder is a shocking UI abomination.

Their old MacOS Finder was clear and simple - my wife would spend hours
arranging her work in coloured folders, each of which opened in a window whose
shape and position she had chosen, and was meaningful to her. It was a
powerful tool that enabled her to arrange and group her work.

Now, both Apple and Microsoft compete with each other over how bad they can
make their file system interface. Microsoft wanted to do away with the
filesystem in Longhorn, and Apple have actually done so in iOS.

Is this progress??

~~~
GeneralMaximus
Are you talking about spatial mode? That still exists in Finder. Just hit
Cmd+Opt+T or select "Hide Toolbars" from the View menu.

You're absolutely right. I don't have the citation on me right now, but
spatial mode has been found to be easier to grasp for new users in every
single test ever. The only reason it was dropped was because (1) Windows
Explorer, (2) power users whined about too many open windows and (3) a lot of
people got used to URLs opening in the same window thanks to web browsers, so
people sought to apply the same principles to file browsers.

Spatial mode used to be default on GNOME for a long time. There, too, it was
dropped because of the same reasons.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_file_manager> and
<http://www.bytebot.net/geekdocs/spatial-nautilus.html>

~~~
rahoulb
I don't know about Windows but on the Mac it's not spatial mode (and hasn't
been since OS9) - it's just a poor imitation.

You can easily have two Finder windows open on the same folder, meaning you
lose the immediate recognition that spatial mode gives you. My personal take -
they should have two types of Finder window - a spatial "folder contents"
window and a folder-browser (probably in column-view) that only shows folders
and maybe a preview of the files within.

So you can navigate quickly/enter file-paths in the browser, but to actually
use a folder, you enter spatial mode, so you have the instant recognition of
where you are.

------
krig
I don't understand how there can be so many posts here defending this UI. Is
this a concerted effort by Microsoft to flood hacker news with their
viewpoint? I just don't see how this is a defensible UI, at all.

Seriously, it's overwhelming. The UI is constantly shouting commands at the
user, regardless of what the user is trying to do. UIs like these are exactly
where the problem my parents have with computers come from. They go in with an
idea of what they want to do, let's say they want to find a note they wrote
previously. As soon as they open the window, they are bombarded with commands.
Move! Copy! Save as! Select! Select all! It's a cacophony of nonsense to them.
Copy? Copy what, where? Nothing in there helps them find their note.

Really. "Easy access." What does that button do? I have no idea what might
happen when that's pressed. It sounds a bit dirty, but accepting that it's
probably accessibility related and not an invitation to intimacy, I still
can't figure out what it might do. Ridiculous.

~~~
DanElectrode
The new Windows 8 tile-based interface will be the default way to interact
with your files and applications, Explorer will be only for when you need to
do some advanced file management. Your parents will most likely never have to
use it.

~~~
krig
No one should have to use it.

------
encoderer
I think the point is missed.

It's hard to claim that the context menu is good UI. The fact that so few
people use the menu bar means that it's currently useless and needs to be
reworked. It's not as if they're replacing the context menu with the ribbon,
they're replacing the currently-unused menu bar.

~~~
Triumvark
True, and shortcut key functionality (the commonly used good UI) is
simultaneously expanded.

------
martingordon
Everyone I know loves managing their files, so it's great that Microsoft is
finally improving Windows Explorer!

WRONG!

For the hundreds of nerds complaining that they don't have access to the file
system on their iPads, there are millions of normal people who are delighted
by a computer that they can use rather than manage.

How much longer can Microsoft keep making a 20th century operating system?
What's going to be the great innovation of Windows 9? Yet another reshuffled
toolbar driven by all of their wonderful data?

~~~
Lewisham
I was just thinking this myself. Windows 8 is moving towards a tablet-like
structure, they need to go all the way on this and get rid of the filesystem
for 90% of users.

Open almost any Windows laptop, and you'll see users who basically think of
the hard drive as a file dumping ground. You'll see files stored on the
Desktop, or everything just goes into one big directory. How many
conversations have you had where you ask "Where did you save the file?" and
the reply is "I don't know, just the place that it says when I press save"?

Windows should have had a services infrastructure, where programs explicitly
define an export (how to access files the program has generated) and import
(which files the program can handle). Users don't really think of files by
directory but by type, either Word documents or photos or whatever. The file
system should just be a dialog box which is essentially a search. "Show me
Word documents I edited in the last 5 days." "Show me all my photos that I
took in Hawaii." That's how users think about data.

~~~
super_mario
Mac OS X already has that, but I still would not like to see the filesystem
hidden from me. It's just too valuable idea for it to go away and it takes us
further away from general computing to turning our computers into appliances
owned by our OS vendor.

~~~
archgoon
I think the idea of the parent poster is that there would be no file system
(at least not in the sense of a tree hierarchy of directories), just a large
database with some SQL like language exposed through the GUI.

~~~
shabble
All manner of people have suggested and planned ways of doing this, but as
yet, none of them are really any good.

See: <http://nascent.freeshell.org/programming/TagFS/>
<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/WinFS>

and many more.

~~~
super_mario
Even though Mac OS X filesystem is not a relational database, it does support
a query language that allows you to search for built in or user defined
attributes and their values.

This search functionality is available system wide (Spotlight search box),
from any file open dialog or from the command line. For example things like
this are possible:

Find me all pictures I tool this year and where I used flash, and aperture f4:

kind:image fnumber:4 date:"this year" flash:1

You type this in either spotlight or search box on open file dialog. You can
do the same from the command line

mdfind -interpret "kind:image fnumber:4 date:"this year" flash:1"

The nice thing about the mdfind command is that you can restrict the search to
a directory of your choice only.

Some people pay good money for photo organizers on Mac OS X, not knowing they
already have this functionality built in. And finding what attributes are
available is not that hard either:

mdimport -X

prints the entire metadata schema.

------
crenshaw
This is an odd article, because Microsoft addresses exactly the point this
person is arguing against.

MS says, "Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are
available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands."

And have this picture, [http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-
filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit...](http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-
filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-
weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8400.Figure-7-_2D00_-Command-use-with-
Command-bar_5F00_2.png)

The takeaway from the data isn't that you should focus on people using context
menus, because all commands haven't been available in other places. But they
used their data and said, "there are the most common desired actions" coupled
with their own design sense that said, "if we moved them to the ribbon they'd
be easier to use".

To me that makes a great deal of sense.

I feel like this person, Seldo, who wrote this blog post attacked MS without
either reading the full MS post or not understanding it. Statements like, "But
the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by
buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own
research" (which she bolded) simply aren't in the data MS presented. It's as
if she misunderstood the distinction between location and action.

And later she says, "Again, this is Microsoft’s own research, cited in the
same post: nobody — almost literally 0% of users — uses the menu bar, and only
10% of users use the command bar." Again she seems to not understand that the
most common actions were only available from the context menus.

------
kingofspain
Everything I had to explain to my ex-boss about dealing with files is there in
one click. I could hide it if I wanted and have my usual experience. I really
don't see the problem.

I actually think that overall this a big improvement. Minimalism can go screw
itself when it costs me hours of free labour :)

------
eddieplan9
This reminds me of this famous quote:

 _The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have
absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a
big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't
bring much culture into their products._

~~~
hackinthebochs
The problem with this idea is that for the majority of users "taste" is the
last thing on their mind. Functionality and ease of use are the only things
that matter. Having common functions up front in your face is in fact easier
to use than having them hidden away.

It takes a certain level of skill using a system before you're capable of
appreciating higher level constructs such as "beauty". As an analogy, we all
have seen poor coders whose code is poorly formatted, sloppy looking, and just
plain _ugly_. But when you ask them they're just not capable of noticing this.
Its that their minds have not elevated past the details to see the big
picture. It's the same way with most computer users.

------
krschultz
The concept of the ribbon - tabs with buttons grouped by function - has a lot
of advantages in theory. Obviously you can have bigger buttons which is always
a good thing, and you allow each button to have sub-buttons which actually
works out really well. I personally think Microsoft is on the right track from
a high level perspective.

The problem comes in the implementation. The graphic design is just horrible.
Where is the grid? Where is the white space? What the _hell_ is that round
button that replaces the file menu? The title bar just looks awful.

If they could clean it up graphically I really think it could be just as nice
as anything on Mac OS X. Ask yourself this, if Apple had come out with the
buttons on tabs in the exact same groupings but done it in a gorgeous way, who
would be complaining about it? We'd all be heralding it.

~~~
kaishin
I think the ribbon concept is inherently flawed because no human brain can
remember such an overwhelming amount of information (what command in which
function group in which tab).

~~~
whatusername
And your suggestion is?

How is the ribbon any different to a hierarchial menu bar? (See the Gnome
drop-down menu or the iOS Settings Menu).

~~~
kaishin
The problem has more to do with the excessive number of available commands. My
suggestion is to cut the clutter and avoid hierarchical UI elements
altogether, regardless of their nature.

~~~
dpark
So we're limited to either only exposing a dozen operations or somehow shoving
200 operations into a flat UI? This seems to be rather unrealistic.

~~~
kaishin
A dozen operations may be more than enough for 80% of users. Designing for the
remaining 20% is a common UI design mistake.

~~~
dpark
So basically the rest of the operations simply cannot exist? I guess you'll
never burn another disk, or create a new folder for that matter.

------
codingsolo
This is a grossly-skewed assessment of the interface. Wouldn't the under
utilization of features warrant an analysis WHY they are not being used?
Wouldn't there also be a UX overhaul to make those
features/commands/buttons/menus more approachable? The data and infographics
would only be relevant if they were based upon the Win8 redesign.

------
DevX101
Before power users criticize the UI, keep in mind the recent study that 90% of
computer users didn't know to use CTRL-F to search a document. Things that may
be intuitive to you, may not be so to most other users.

Maybe MS did extensive usability testing, maybe they didn't. But that CTRL-F
study was so surprising to me that I don't trust my instinct when it comes to
judging the effectiveness of a user interface for hundreds of millions of
people

------
sp332
In Windows 7, the menu bar is hidden by default, that's why no one uses it.
Also, "no one uses" those other commands only because no one knows they exist
now. The whole point to the new UI is to change things to be better.

~~~
hernan7
Yes, instead of the menu bar they have this weird bar with "Organize", "New
Folder", and "Burn". Not sure why "Burn" on every single explorer window;
maybe they think all users are Napster fiends or something...

~~~
iaskwhy
Here's an image from the Microsoft article for those who don't know what it
looks like in Windows 7: [http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver-bl...](http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-
file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-
weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/6443.Figure-4-_2D00_-Win7-Explorer_5F00_thumb.png)

Small nitpick: "Burn" doesn't show if you click on the main options of the
left tree ("Favorites", "Libraries", etc).

I find it interesting because it clearly shows something changed on the last
couple of years, we still remember how important burning something was, right?

------
Mavrik
Em, if the author would actually fact-check, he'd know that most of those
buttons dont't exist yet, so they'd hardly have more than 0% usage.

------
devth
This prototype is a failure of both design and usability. It's an offense and
a joke against anyone who expects to be able to interact with a machine in an
efficient and intelligent manner.

\- It's ugly as hell

\- A beginner is bombarded with way too many things to click on

\- An expert is annoyed by useless buttons and waste of space

Sure, you can turn it off, but who wants to configure and reconfigure UI
preferences for the rest of their lives (sidenote: reminds me of eclipse)?
Sensible defaults, please.

Contrast this with Apple, whose designs often define what good design and
usability means. In their apps:

\- The appearance is simple, well-designed, elegant

\- The only actions present are those deemed most necessary to the user

\- Tons of functionality is hidden under shortcut keys, modifier clicks and
context menus for expert users (after years on OS X, I still discover hidden
elegance as a result of their zealous attention to detail)

~~~
aik
Just one question:

Are these two statements different or restating the same thing with a
different perception:

>> after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance

and something like:

"It takes me years to find some features because they're so well hidden, and
perhaps unintuitive."

~~~
devth
Not at all. The things discovered are unessential to getting things done. It's
usually just a nicer way or more of a "wow, I can't believe they thought of
this crazy edge case".

A few examples: [http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-
os-...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-x-hidden-
features-or-nice-tips-tricks)

------
alanfalcon
Reminds me of this video, which I was told was actually created by Microsoft
as a self-parody, though I don't have any supporting evidence.

"Microsoft Designs the iPod Package:"
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A>

~~~
jdp23
Yes, this video was done by an internal group at Microsoft.

~~~
huhtenberg
How do you know?

~~~
jdp23
I knew one of the people behind it.

------
icarus_drowning
I'm not sure why, but I've never really gotten used to the ribbon. Especially
in Office 2010 , I find it incredibly difficult to navigate and, frankly,
hugely annoying. To see it brought to something like explorer is horrifying,
especially considering the large amount of vertical space it takes up.

Shouldn't there be more intuitive ways of doing these things? Why is there a
need for a move button or copy (one or the other) when you have drag and drop?
I know it is very much in vogue to abstract the file system away from the
user, and it strikes me that this is exactly the opposite, and just might be
just a little over engineered.

------
anigbrowl
The writer of this blog uses a picture of the Golden Gate bridge as the
background image on the page. As someone who lives near the bridge, I can
affirm that at any given time, more than 50% of the bridge is empty; that is,
less than half of the bridge's surface is covered by cars or pedestrians.
Clearly this is a complete waste of resources, and we should just get rid of
the empty half.

Also, what is up with those suspension towers and all those cables? Does
anyone actually cross the bridge at those great heights? I say cut them up and
stick them underneath as support piers, so that they're not obstructing the
view or (more likely) sticking out of a fog bank and creating a hazard to
passing aircraft.

~~~
chetan51
Civil engineering is very different from UI design.

~~~
anigbrowl
Well, i wouldn't want you to overthink it...but they're not so far apart.

Games have the best UI; ideally a game will only show you the bare minimum of
information required, and make the play experience as smooth and intuitive as
possible. But games also have very narrowly defined win/loss conditions, and
even in sandbox games (like _Grand Theft Auto_ ) success means that that
players in the middle of the normal distribution are able to complete the game
and interested enough to spend time doing so.

For creative or productivity software, the definition of success is open-
ended, because while designers can anticipate the kind of tasks/problems users
will want to perform/solve, the end product of their labors is fundamentally
unknowable, rather than waiting within the software to be discovered by the
diligent user (player). Sure, Michaelangelo used to say that the statue
already existed within the block of marble and his job was simply to reveal
it, but you should probably see that as an early example of successful
branding rather than a design document. A game is like a theme park ride
insofar as the riders may change but their interaction with the ride is highly
constrained. An application is more like a civil engineering task insofar as
it has to bear a substantial amount of traffic, but its job is to facilitate
rather than fulfill. You want those things available on the toolbar, even
though many of them may not see regular use, because it's the easiest way to
signal the availability of such functionality. The relative utility
distribution of toolbar buttons or menu items follows Benford's law just like
everything else.

~~~
jhdavids8
If your ridiculously large intellect can stop applauding itself for one
second, I hope you can find time to read this.

That was probably the largest amount of psychobabble condensed into 2
paragraphs I've ever seen. Seriously, your first point was extremely over-
simplified and you were called out on it, rightfully. I could make your first
argument about anything. Watch: "Only 50% of people went out to eat this
weekend. Clearly, we should get rid of 50% of restaurants." or "Only 50% of
cars are driven on any given day. Clearly, we should just git rid of 50% of
the cars."

Your first point was a miss, and chetan called you out on it. Then, you insult
his intelligence and go into a psychobabble rant about little to nothing that
applies. Jesus dude, come down a peg or two.

~~~
anigbrowl
My first post was a _joke_ , to emphasize how silly I thought the UX critique
was. Complaining that software and civil engineering are not the same is so
obvious as to be trite.

I stand by my point above, though. Call it psychobabble if you like, but I
like my metaphors. Shoot me.

~~~
jhdavids8
I completely realize that. My point was to show how easy it was to make that
critique with such an over-simplification, which was chetan's point as well.

------
Ironballs
What people often miss in Ribbon UIs is that they are in fact _very_ much for
the power user. Here are a couple of reasons why:

 _Every_ button or command on the Ribbon can be accessed via polymorphic
hotkeys. Every command can be accessed as a chain of key presses. There is
_zero_ need for mouse usage -- even in PowerPoint.

This is huge. This was not doable in previous versions of Office! There were
some commands you could not access via anything else than the menu, and to
those of us that are vim users, you know how bad that can be! I do a lot of
PowerPoint presentations and besides designing arrows or shapes I have no need
for a mouse. And PowerPoint is a WYSIWYG editor!

The other reason is that you can _hide_ the Ribbon. See the screenshots? That
chevron symbol (^) means that you can essentially auto-hide the Ribbon and
bring it back, while still retaining its usability via hotkeys.

I'm by no means an all-guns-blazing MSFT fanboy, but I need Office at work,
and instead of jumping on the silly bandwagon of bashing all that is Ribbon, I
found my inner vim user and learnt to god damn _power use the hell out of it_.

To those that actually need Office daily, I recommend opening it and pressing
Alt. Let the funny stuff unfold.

------
epaga
This makes me wonder how often I fall into the same trap when designing UIs.

"Not enough people are using this feature" can lead you to think "Let's make
that feature's UI more prominent" instead of what it (normally) should: "Let's
scrap that feature". Simplicity, minimalism, and elegance seem to be
completely elusive to Microsoft, even with their brand new developments.

------
psychotik
The best way to 'fix' Windows Explorer is to focus on improving usability of
the OS such that Windows Explorer isn't something average users needs to use.
Focusing on improving it is focusing on the wrong problem, IMO.

Having said that, I think the author of the post seems to ignore the fact that
Microsoft's research shows that not many use the menu bar currently (because
currently, the menu bar is hidden by default). By adding the ribbon, I assume
their goal is to improve that statistic, and in turn make it easier for users.

------
siromega
The simple answer is that MS had to add all those buttons in the ribbon to
make the UI more touch friendly. You cant right click on a tablet with your
finger.

~~~
wisty
I can't believe this wasn't upvoted more.

Moving to this design is a step in the right direction. They need to do more -
like ax the filesystem altogether (rendering this step meaningless), but
that's another story.

------
voxmatt
This post didn't even need words, just that progression of screenshots.
Windows 7 feels almost like a nice breeze and them, wham, that Windows 8
monstrosity. Functional, data-driven arguments will never convince me that a
user's first reaction to that window will be anything other than confusion.

------
mc32
The UI, is apparently customizable. From the Team Blog:

"We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism
by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that
the ribbon:

-Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today.

-Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for.

-Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP."

~~~
qq66
The rule of any customizable feature is that the vast majority of the users
will stick with the defaults. So the defaults have to be optimized.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'd love to see some stats on this. I wonder just what percentage of users
never changes a default UI.

~~~
kaishin
My parents definitely won't.

~~~
jarek
Well, that's at _least_ 2.8741 × 10^(-8) percent of users!

~~~
kaishin
What's your logic behind this number? Do you think Microsoft made all those
billions selling crappy software to geeks like us?

~~~
pavel_lishin
I'd wager it's 2 / CURRENT_EARTH_POP / 100.

------
abhimishra
This post seems to miss the point - obviously some of the commands that were
less-visible or non-existent earlier would not show up on the telemetry data,
but can still be important to surface in a redesign of the UI.

The newly-added buttons on the ribbon are there to address the most-requested
features (by actual customers) as well as some of the missing features users
most-often go to third-party plug-ins for, per the actual blog post from the
Windows 8 Engineering Blog.

As for whether the UI is stream-lined or not - while simplification has its
place, it is not always a good thing. The OSX Finder is surprisingly devoid of
things even basic users can find useful - in many cases it isn't easy to find
the appropriate menu option or shortcut to perform these actions - personally
I think it goes too far by way of simplification.

It is good to make computers easy-to-understand - but by attempting to remove
the learning curve COMPLETELY you can also damage the productivity a computer
can provide. The sweetspot, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

------
strmpnk
While I haven't used this UI and I think it's bulky and ugly, there is one
important thing to note that I think people miss on first pass.

Typical use based on their research has used the context menu. On Windows that
is typically a right click (IIRC). Now Windows 8 has claimed to moving towards
more touch capable user interface. I'd imagine anything that is directly
touchable with common controls being larger targets is a huge improvement from
right-click simulation. These controls, while ugly, I could see as an
improvement to usability in those scenarios.

Additionally, I haven't seen any effective file management interfaces for
touch devices yet. Most of them shun the filesystem in favor of flattened
document collections, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out on
upcoming tablet devices. Personally, I was looking forward to stepping away
from filesystems and lessening their role in my regular interactions, but time
will tell where valuable experiences will be spent, so I'd say we wait and see
for this one.

------
frou_dh
It's the stuff at the top left of the screenshot that puts it over the edge.
They couldn't resist having just one more menu, so there it is partially
crammed in to the title bar.

------
fmavituna
Article is ignoring a big thing, features such as "Copy Path" is almost hidden
in Win 7/Vista unless you know where they are.

In 7 you have to "Shift + Right Click" to see "Copy as Path" in the context
menu. Now how many users (even power users) actually know about this? So many
of my friends were really pleased to find this out when I showed them.

There are lots of other features such as you can actually copy a file and when
you try to paste it to a "File Open Dialog" 7 will automatically paste the
path of the file, so that's why "Copy Path" was quite hidden, because for
common usage it's just easier to do copy & paste.

We have to understand that just like everyone know what is Ctrl + C all power
users eventually gets rid of menu bars and just uses hotkeys. New Ribbon
interface (with hide/customise features) provides a nice infrastructure for
that while not punishing the normal users.

------
pinaceae
The ribbon discussion reminds a lot of the iPad one - all the IT "geniuses"
simply don't get it.

Hate the ribbon. Hate the iPad.

But for the majority of users, those are massive improvements in UI.

Right-Click, Double-Click, ... arcane commands only people like and love that
are good at memorizing actions. And if those memorized actions are gone, the
rage begins. You need to be anal to love the old Office UI or the command
line. Do you remember the hate the old Office UI got in the past from the very
people who now praise it?

Personally, I think the ribbon UI was the ballsiest move that MS did in a
decade. It showed real guts, real vision. In Office 2010, they improved upon
it, making Excel, Powerpoint and Word actually more usable. Exposing new
functions and teaching me about them, from within the UI.

------
AllenKids
I generally like ribbon in Office and think MSFT has some great ideas here,
like moving the info pan to better fit the wide screen reality.

But at this stage it looks so very very bad, and remind me the open office
mouse with 30 buttons.

------
BonsaiDen
Dunno... but I get the feeling that everyone thinks that computers should be
easier, and nobody should have to learn anything in order to use the. Uh,
what?

We're living in a world where digital technology more and more becomes the
dominant driving force of our society. We already lost the ability to change
hardware to a - relatively small - group of people (yes, considering the
amount of people using the stuff, the group _is_ tiny).

So what now? Make sure there's only an elitist circle of high paid,
influential "technology gods" left? While I definitely consider my self as a
geek, I would not like such a society at all. It can be the target of humanity
that ordinary people get even "dumber" than they're now.

Sorry, but I think people should strife for new knowledge, they should keep
their spirit of discovery. By simplyfing the whole world around them, at least
in my eyes, it becomes harder and harder for kids to figure out all these
things on their own. And once all the knowledge is locked away from them, the
elitist will choose who gets insight into the then "magical" workings of the
world.

Yeah, maybe my picture of the future has a little bit of a dark taint, but
well that's what you get when even your colleagues, which are the same age as
yourself, are light years behind in terms of thirst for knowledge.

------
jasongullickson
Usability of this (and anything, really) would improve dramatically if in each
system there were one correct way (based on selection by scientific usability
testing) to initiate each task.

The "helpfulness" of providing "n" ways of doing the same thing is an illusion
and only undermines the ability for users to establish a shared context which
can be used to make user actions more automatic for the experienced and easier
to teach to the inexperienced.

------
greendot
I have to help "stupid users" in both the PC and the Mac world. There are
"stupid users" everywhere and not more on one side or the other. I look
forward to this new Windows Explorer. You would be amazed at the things
regular people just do not know. MS is putting that all up front, in their
face. They see it, they know where and what the commands are. It matches what
their version of Office looks like. They will probably be able to figure it
out instead of calling me to go show them how to do something, that as a nerd,
deem "easy".

Plus, I agree with the other users. Our viewpoint is skewed. We are top tier
users. We're not the ones that need disclaimers on the side of our hair-dryer
that says, "Do not user while bathing."

------
zobzu
I'm probably the only one to think that it's good that MS keeps buttons that
are less used. Cause you see less used does not mean NOT used. Sure cut&paste
is going to be like 80% of the use, but when you make a new dir you're going
to have that working and in front of you.

Here's the key sentence,take note:

It's not how OFTEN you use it that matters most but how USEFUL it is.

Browser makers, please take note when you remove 99% of the UI. Thanks.

Beside I know most "noobs" look for these functions in menus and will love the
buttons. Even on OSX many just don't know how to move/copy. They can do it in
iPhoto or iMovie, but when it comes to the finder they're lost.

------
contextfree
Between this and the last post about the copy dialogs with their graphs etc.,
I wonder if they are making a conscious decision to focus the traditional
desktop UI more on "power use cases" (not necessarily "power users"). It's
telling that the PM prominently talks up Copy as Path and batch file scripting
in the video. It makes a certain amount of sense - for casual use there's the
relatively minimalist, design-y immersive UI, so the people working on the
desktop UI feel free to focus on the remaining use cases and move in the
opposite direction.

------
mmuro
_They use this to show that “the commands that make up 84% of what users do in
Explorer are now in one tab”. But the more important thing is that the
remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use,
ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research._

This hits the nail on the head when discussing the UI decisions made. If
Microsoft had included the top 10 commands in an organized manner, plus a few
more from their data, it'd probably be fine.

~~~
elehack
There's a huge difference between _have never used_ and _will never use_.
Microsoft's data is about past usage; the article makes an unjustified
extrapolation from that to future message. This extrapolation is particularly
relevant when discussing a feature that largely serves to improve
discoverability - if the features make sense together, putting them together
and making them visible may help users get more out of the software.

It would be interesting to find out how many people say "I never knew the file
manager could do _that_ " when they fire up Windows 8, even when the feature
has been there since NT4.

------
runjake
Seems like I've been defending Windows Phone on here so much lately, maybe
it's time to balance it out.

I think this is hideous crap UI design. Fortunately, it can be shut off (at
least in the leaked betas).

I'm not aware of anything good that's come out of Microsoft and usability
tests. Apple didn't seem to use them and it turned out well for them.

Microsoft, go with the Windows Phone paradigm, full force. It is your
(successful) future.

------
antonyme
While the Ribbon UI was intended to simplify complex UI, these screenshots
suggest it may not. Take for example the "Explorer in Windows 8" image. The
visual hierarchy is very confusing. The ribbon appears to have 5 pages - but
File is bold and special for some reason (it invokes a huge popup menu?). But
the focus of the entire app is on Files - so what conceptually would not go
under File, except for Folder operations? Furthermore, above this special File
menu there are three super special (and somewhat inscrutable) icons. But
aren't these just shortcuts for File operations? Why don't they just live
under File menu? For that matter, why have toolbar buttons been hoisted into
the title bar itself?

The current tab appears to be the Home tab, based on the highlight. But this
has nothing to do with your "Home" directory - it is merely the "default" page
for the most common operations. These operations are used to manage your files
- the names of two other tabs in this hierarchy. What would the user expect to
find there?

The layout of the Home tab is visually confusing. There is no grid or use of
whitespace to guide the eye, and it presents a non-uniform 2-dimensional array
of controls of different sizes. At least the old toolbars being 1-dimensional
meant the user could easily remember approximately how far along the toolbar
to look for the icon - now the user must scan a far more complex terrain to
find what they're looking for.

There are two different sizes _and_ layouts for action icons. So Copy and
Paste are large icons with text below, while Cut is a small icon with text to
the right. Why? Presumably it is less frequently used, but the inconsistency
is visually jarring and non-obvious to the user.

While some buttons cause immediate actions, others have a small down-arrow
next to them, suggesting they will probably pop up a menu instead. This
introduces another variation to the two button types, giving a third type. But
some have a default action when clicking on the button itself (a fourth type),
and only reveal a menu when clicking on the arrow - yet there is no visual
indication of which behaviour a button has. (This is apparent in IE and Office
also.)

A user may wonder what is the difference between clicking on the dark blue
File toolbar tab, versus clicking on the menu button in the very top of the
titlebar, versus pressing Alt to reveal the hitherto hidden menubar?

While the Manage ribbon tab appears at the same hierarchy level as Home, Share
and View, it has a brightly coloured tab _above_ it labelled "Library Tools".
Vertical lines suggest it is superior to the Manage item; yet presumably it is
also higher than Home, given its placement and urgent red/orange background?
What is the difference between pressing Manage and selecting Library Tools?

A user not trained in the intricacies of the Office Ribbon UI will IMHO be
utterly baffled by the complexity exposed in this UI and the inconsistencies
therein.

While it is laudable that Microsoft is attempting to refresh the design of
this venerable component of Windows, this work seems to be little more than a
reshuffling of features and shortcuts, rather than a rethinking of file
management.

------
jdp23
I just showed this to a Mac user who responded "Streamlined! Intuitive! Look
at all that stuff, why would I use that?"

~~~
mikeryan
I'm a heavy Mac user, but Finder is and has always been one of OS X's pain
points and its gotten worse in Lion. Until I changed it when I opened a Finder
window it defaults to a list of "All My Files" which is useless (the first 20
or so items are __init__.py)

~~~
igorgue
You're a programmer, use the terminal.

Also most "normal" users do not have a single __init__.py I like the new
Finder but I rarely use it... ack FTW!

------
rradu
On a related and more positive note: Microsoft also released a preview of
changes they're making to the actual copy/paste process. And it's kind of
cool.

[http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-
win8-win...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-
win8-windows-8,13287.html)

------
systems
Well, in general I agree with the comments saying that the review missed the
point about reworking the Tool/Menu bar so that people start to use it more

I still think, it's too crowded, and will benefit from a mode selection (i.e.
Advanced with all these button, Basic with only the most used ones and Custom
)

------
eliben
Although I'm (very very) far from being a MS fan-boy, I find an inherent flaw
in such reviews written by programmers/hackers/power users. What they all miss
is the real target audience for Windows - i.e. my Grandpa.

~~~
danssig
What is your Grandpa doing with a desktop? Get him an iPad, it's all he'll
ever need.

~~~
eliben
Well, he has it since before the iPad. And isn't iPad kinda hard on old
people? (shaky hands, etc.)

~~~
danssig
Actually I keep hearing that their great for the same reasons kids like them:
easy concepts to grasp, unlike a mouse for example.

------
blackrabbit
The concept might be to increase their usage...

------
mariusmg
If you're not using keyboard shortcuts for file operations, you're doing it
very wrong. Hide the ribon UI and problem solved.

------
code_duck
There's really no question... the screenshot he has provided is heinous. Talk
about being out of ideas 20 years ago...

------
pixcavator
BTW, is "officially" the new "literally"?

~~~
anonymoushn
I'm not sure. I haven't yet seen any companies that officially eat dog food.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s>

------
leeoniya
explorer is progressively getting bloated and nasty; there's no 'power user'
version and now way to bring back useful features which have existed before.

i've been using Classic Shell to keep my sanity on W7 and the 'Super Bar' is
big step back in productivity for me.

my search for seamless Explorer replacements continues...

------
marze
They entered that realm long ago.

------
agilemanic
haha this made me laugh. would like to hear an official statement from the MS
Design department

------
pointyhat
Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather
critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably
going to get voted down for this.

I'm a proponent of the Ribbon UI and I fucking hate toolbars in OS X.

I use Outlook, Word, Excel and Windows Live Mail extensively. All of which
have the ribbon UI. It turns out that for the sake of actually getting stuff
done, this is incredibly useful. I genuiely hardly ever need to use the
context menu because what I need is there "in my face" and "obvious". While
this fits newbie usage patterns perfectly, it also helps us power users who
don't always switch back to the keyboard shortcuts (mouse already in hand) and
don't want to jump through several hoops (like faffing with context menus) to
get stuff done.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell the toolbar
buttons do when I'm using Finder or Mail on OS-X (Snow Leopard and Lion). The
icons are crap, there are no visual cues and I always end up dropping to a
terminal to get stuff done because I simply can't be arsed to figure it out or
piss around with right clicking or the awful keyboard shortcut system on OS X.
I don't think people usually get that far with OS X without getting "shiny I
paid $2000 so it must be good Apple mental block" as I call it.

I'm fed up of so-called self-proclaimed experts chucking out blog posts
criticising user interfaces while masturbating over Apple's efforts.
Microsoft's UI allows you to get shit done and get it done quickly. So it
might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it works and works well for those
of us with shit in our eyes.

Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having
(like Apple do).

~~~
neutronicus
I love the ribbon. It briefly brought me back to Word from LaTeX. I am by no
means a Word power user, but I found it 2007 much easier to use than 2003.

(I also have a Mac and prefer it to Windows, but I interact with it mainly
through the terminal, the browser, and emacs - and I can't be arsed to learn
powershell or whatever in order to do the same thing on Windows)

~~~
ams6110
I hate the ribbon. It was the final push for me to abandon Word and learn
LaTeX. Really.

I also use the shell for almost all file system manipulation, on OS X and on
Windows (via Cygwin) so I know that puts me in a small minority of users.

------
skeptical
Microsoft UIs current state is, in general, cluttered and broken. I agree with
this blogger, and my reaction was similar when I red the original post on
msdn.

Having been absent from microsoft office (or any office like application for
that mater) for many years, I recently got to use recent versions of microsoft
products such as Word, Outlook, etc. The ribbons were a big facepalm, I didn't
know such bad things exist, a few co-workers of mine said that they find them
practical. I spent an average of 20-40 seconds each time I needed to click one
of those buttons, even after many months of usage.

The buttons are jammed together in a rectangular area in ridiculous amounts.
Some ribbons have close to 20 buttons, this will never be intuitive, it's just
not visually easy to identify the buttons. Also, often a button is on the
other site, all the away across the window in a far far away ribbon.

I never managed to use any microsoft OS after XP. Did the users really need
other MS OS after XP? Quite frankly, I cannot find sinigle advantage of using
vista or seven.

PS: The screenshots have something of a 1998 charm, I think it's that
overlayed info. mspaint?

~~~
Maascamp
That's because, as you stated in your post, you haven't used them.

On a side note, the quality of comments has gone down while the know-it-all
undertones have sky rocketed.

------
georgieporgie
With regards to Microsoft's usage statistics, _and_ the counter-argument, I
can't help but think of this: [http://motherjones.com/kevin-
drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-w...](http://motherjones.com/kevin-
drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world)

Simple usage statistics aren't especially valuable if you don't look at the
overall picture as to _why_ features are used (e.g. who would cut and paste if
they understood how to move?). I'm not sure if either side is properly
analyzing the available information.

~~~
mirkules
Actually, copy/paste makes a lot of sense. Having to frequently copy or move
files from one place to another, I got used to ctrl-c or -x a file, then go to
a different directory, and ctrl-v. The appeal, I think, is that I don't have
to use the mouse (which employs a time-costly drag operation).

Dragging files into directories is also cognitively expensive - e.g. you have
to make certain that you are dragging exactly into the right folder which can
be about 15 pixels high, depending on what view you're using. It requires
hand-eye coordination which becomes unnecessary with simple copy/paste
operations.

BUT, for beginner users, I agree: users have a hard time grasping the concept
of a copy/paste buffer anyway, and with files it gets abstracted one more
level. For more advanced users, they use keyboard shortcuts, so the buttons
don't really need to be there.

------
mkramlich
I felt they entered that realm a while back. One of the reasons I switched to
Mac.

------
lhnn
Yes, let's get rid of advanced features, because a lot of people don't use
them.

------
hackermom
Someone should open a can of Apple HID on their asses.

------
jhawk28
Most people I work with detest the ribbon interface.

------
planetjoe
I'm getting off-point here, but did anyone else get annoyed that the MS blog
post used bar charts when they should use pie charts to compare relative
percentages?

~~~
sid0
[http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-
considered-h...](http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered-
harmful)

~~~
planetjoe
Point well taken. I can't seriously argue against Tufte or actual research,
but I still like pie charts for some things.

------
kirillzubovsky
Maybe this is an ingenius plan by Microsoft employees to revamp the company
from inside out (or outside in?). But seriously, the kool-aid drinking types
are probably really flustered by your post, as they think the ginormous waste
of screen space is the best thing ever invented. _sad_

------
zachallia
They missed april fools day by a few months

------
VaedaStrike
Oh the myopic mind has no bound. Well...except where it has to have bounds to
be considered myopic...

Do you expect an UI designed for someone that's never heard of HN and who is
unaware that you can copy and paste pieces of text SHOULD seem attractive to a
technohipster blogger?

So many times HN seems like the next incarnation of the Library of Alexandria
and then posts like this make it seem like a bunch of silly stupid cyber
bullies stuck in myspace and high school WHILE guffawing at the teacher's
assignment for the day.

Microsoft is often times silly, stupid, evil, whacked out. But don't go
projecting myopic mamby-pamby "critique" like you knew something.

Love them or hate them or think they're falling off of the face of the earth
Microsoft gets enough right to still pull in the pennies, a tad bit more than
I think this poor chap manages with his blog.

