Windows designer explains why Windows 8 is such a mess

[King Arthur]

Case in point: Ubuntu, Mozilla, Google, Opera, and uTorrent to name some names. All of them (and many others) are infamous for ignoring or even outright defying user wants, requirements, and demands.

You forgot GNOME.
They aren't called "the GUI Nazis" for nothing.

I knew I forgot something!

It's rather sad really. One of those devs I've mentioned, Opera, only recently went down the road of user defiance. Opera as a browser and a software suite was rather well-regarded before they moved to becoming just another Chromium fork and completely alienating their users; that move to Chromium was in my opinion Opera's start of user defiance and resulting irrelevancy today.

More recently there's the debacle of Slashdot Beta, where the Slashdot community unanimously despises the site remake with the passion of a thousand burning suns but is getting it forced upon them by Slashdot management.

I wonder what exactly is driving this push for defiance of loyal user bases, especially in cases where commercial interests aren't playing a key role, it feels like in the last couple years or so a lot of devs simply moved to not caring how illogical their trains of thoughts are nor what users think of their software.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I would think software developers should know what their potential customers want

Not really. The developers hardly ever get in touch with any customer. There are layers of marketing organizations that are supposed to speak to the customers. They do this more or less and develop product objectives from what THEY think should be done. In the meantime the developers - especially the architects - are already 3 steps ahead and are struggeling now to fumble those objectives into their architecture.

It is not such a streamlined process as one may think and there is a lot of infighting between the different camps. The result is usually a horse designed by a committee - which is a donkey if you are lucky or it is a kangaroo

Does this mean, Win8 is a wombat?

More like a platypus.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have a strategy for the future also, and it definitely does not include W8 or 8.1.

That is absolutely no problem. Everybody should do what they like. I am not a big fan of 8.1 either. But I have two 8.1 systems and it is kind of growing on me - especially since it is faster and has a smaller footprint.

On my Asis Transformer that came with only a 30GB disk it uses only half of that disk and the Atom processor performs extremely well with 8.1. I doubt that Windows 7 would do as well.

I had to use Win 8 for about a week back in late November and it also grew on me...like a wart.

 

[lehnerus2000]

I wonder what exactly is driving this push for defiance of loyal user bases, especially in cases where commercial interests aren't playing a key role, it feels like in the last couple years or so a lot of devs simply moved to not caring how illogical their trains of thoughts are nor what users think of their software.

Change for change's sake?

 

[Britton30]

More like a platypus.

Or maybe Pterodactyl?

 

[Dallas 7]

I have a strategy for the future also, and it definitely does not include W8 or 8.1.

That is absolutely no problem. Everybody should do what they like. I am not a big fan of 8.1 either. But I have two 8.1 systems and it is kind of growing on me - especially since it is faster and has a smaller footprint.

On my Asis Transformer that came with only a 30GB disk it uses only half of that disk and the Atom processor performs extremely well with 8.1. I doubt that Windows 7 would do as well.

I had to use Win 8 for about a week back in late November and it also grew on me...like a wart.

:roflmao:

 

[smarteyeball]

I still don't get the continued hate for eight. The vast majority of user complaints are easily rectified by a single free app and having the option to completely ignore the Modern side of it all. It really is that easy. If there was no work around, then the hate would be justified.

Overall it's as good an OS once "adjusted" as 7 is. It's more similar to 7 than 7 was to XP and how many former XP users had little trouble adjusting to 7?

Whilst iOS and OS X share the same core and other frameworks, at least Apple didn't make the mistake of forcing one of the OS X updates to look and try be used exactly like iOS.

With 9 - Hopefully MS have actually listened and not just said they have. By now MS should have been forced to admit that a PC is not a mobile device and vice versa. It really shouldn't take much to make 9 more successful than 8. But 9 and MS "change" of attitude is all just speculation for the moment. I'll reserve judgement until there is something to judge.

 

[sixwheeler2011]

Hi there
actually the whole mobile phone type of OS is showing its limitations with the tile scrolling selection method on the latest set of smart phones / tablets -- if you load several dozen applications it becomes harder and harder to find these without an incessant amount of scrolling --remember also a lot of phones also come "equipped(?)" with a lot of bloatware too adding to the number of apps. Even scrolling 4 or 5 times irritates me beyond measure.

To suggest that this type of interface was in any way shape or form suited to a decent working DESKTOP OS was just PLAIN BONKERS. The people who designed it must have been smoking that funny smelling tobacco that you find in Amsterdam's famous coffee shops.

Windows 8.1 improves the mix a bit but for most people who want more than just simple consumption stuff on their devices then a proper OS like W7 is what's needed. W8.1 redresses the balance a bit especially with custom toolbars where you can design quite a convenient cascading menuing system without adding any 3rd party stuff.

However very few enterprises are bothering with W8/8.1 -- most I know who are upgrading their XP / W2003 systems are basing it on W7 type OS'es.

Maybe Ms will have learned by W9 -- give users the choice -- at install (or even at boot time) choose between "classical desktop" or mobile interface. With large multi screen setups that people have these days running apps in Full screen mode only is absolutely idiotic in most cases.

(example of using cascading (mult-level) menuing via custom toolbar in W8.1).

The idea also that you can create a "Vendor Lock" is also ludicrous -- people will find all sorts of ways around that -- for example many people say buy e-books from amazon and use any number of the "available tools" to de-drm stuff to use on other devices such as tablets or even phones. - I've bought books from amazon - but I happen to like my Sony e-reader better than the kindle --it also had external micro SDHC card. Well with well known tools I convert the book into epub for loading on to the Sony. -Why shouldn't I --I've paid for the book and don't want to carry extra devices around.

Cheers
jimbo

Ec;
"Maybe Ms will have learned by W9 -- give users the choice -- at install (or even at boot time) choose between "classical desktop" or mobile interface. With large multi screen setups that people have these days running apps in Full screen mode only is absolutely idiotic in most cases."

I agree with the whole post, but this got my attention

 

[sixwheeler2011]

Is this guy still with the company? If so it might explain why there is no effort to save themselves from New Coke, doubling down on the worst product rollout disaster in history.

I also didn't want to believe that they would be trying to kill off the desktop which they'd built to perfection in Win7 for a billion customers and which drives the world economy. But Win8 sure comes close to it. Then I got my new copy of Surface Pro at MVP Summit and spent hours trying to find the Desktop - finally I came across it as the background for the Control Panel (also hidden). There it was hiding behind the Control panel, with access to it if you closed the Control Panel itself.

"""This has gotten to the point of ridiculousness, as in the ridicule being heaped on this guys explanations. The plan was nailed here by SIW2 early on: wannabe-Apple app subscription vending (except that they're crApps) eventually with the OS being subscription too. How's that workin out for ya?

Save yourselves! Give all users stuck with the Win8 phone app UPgrade rights to Win7 asap, put Win7 with SP2 (or call it WIn9) on new PC's immediately. Offer Win8 only on touchscreens, or for retail sale. This is how to begin to save yourselves, from ridicule and as a company offering more than Xbox.

""""""

I am still trying to submit my take, but there are some many good points here have-to-follow-to-the-end. LOL

 

[sixwheeler2011]

A software development group rarely listens to the users for the simple reason that the users are usually 5 years behind their strategy and thinking. In my 35 years of operating system development I have rarely seen customer input that was integrated into any development plan.

Now that does not mean that mistakes were not corrected. But when it came to strategy and direction, the customers had really very little influence.

I remember being on a task force where we travelled around the world in small groups during 4 weeks visiting many Fortune 500 companies. We were looking for inputs for our future product strategies - technical and Ts&Cs. The trips were very pleasant because we were often invited to lush dinners - but the inputs we received were very meager. The customers were mostely concerned with their daily problems and brought up a lot of nits and lice. But the impact on what we were doing was quasi nil.

The same happens here. MS has a strategy for the future (at least I hope so) and we are moaning about the start menu and other nits. I don't think that will impress them a lot.

I have to say bang on! Start menu came to mind here, and the dumb Down scenario.....
It took me but a moment to locate the right click option next to Metro icon lower left, to give me the navigation I needed for most of what I use a PC for. and the search function (upgrade?) on Metro
as well. I have to say I would like to see a strategy, geared to Options at boot, or in purchase of any MS/OS
W9 being as has been stated here to clean up or associate fixes (UI/metro) or streamline would be better suited. To make public a little (out of the dark) as in for "power User"

~SIX~

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I still don't get the continued hate for eight. The vast majority of user complaints are easily rectified by a single free app and having the option to completely ignore the Modern side of it all. It really is that easy. If there was no work around, then the hate would be justified...

There are several reasons. For starters, why upgrade if one has to modify the upgrade to get the same functionality one already had? If one has an existing Win 7 desktop and gets a Win 8 laptop, switching between the two OSes will be a nightmare for many, if not most, people. Why upgrade when the upgrade introduces changes that aren't really needed, unnecessarily complicating usage. Why upgrade when the upgrade doesn't significantly improve usage? Why have to deal with workarounds when Win 8's predecessor worked just fine?

When I got my Win 7 notebook 19-20 months ago, I had no trouble transitioning from XP to Win 7. I had expected a huge learning curve and was pleasantly surprised when I found myself actually using the computer pretty much right out of the box. With the exception of the piddle poor photo download wizard and photo viewer (those got ruined), most, if not all the changes from XP and Win 7 were actually improvements. They did not disrupt the work flow patterns I had developed over the years.

Not so with Win 8. I had to be walked through it by someone just to do a couple of simple things on it and never did learn how to find things on it that I could home onto in Win 7 without any trouble. Most of the changes in Win 8 really weren't an improvement; they just appear to be changes for the sake of change. The biggest issue I have with Win 8 is the direction M$ is trying to take, of which Win 8 is just the first step: subscription and cloud computing, more frequent, as in yearly, upgrades (which only increase user confusion and expense and create nightmares for hardware and software developers to keep their wares up to date), and foisting an Apple-like closed system on us.

 

[andrew129260]

I still don't get the continued hate for eight. The vast majority of user complaints are easily rectified by a single free app and having the option to completely ignore the Modern side of it all. It really is that easy. If there was no work around, then the hate would be justified.

Overall it's as good an OS once "adjusted" as 7 is. It's more similar to 7 than 7 was to XP and how many former XP users had little trouble adjusting to 7?

Whilst iOS and OS X share the same core and other frameworks, at least Apple didn't make the mistake of forcing one of the OS X updates to look and try be used exactly like iOS.

With 9 - Hopefully MS have actually listened and not just said they have. By now MS should have been forced to admit that a PC is not a mobile device and vice versa. It really shouldn't take much to make 9 more successful than 8. But 9 and MS "change" of attitude is all just speculation for the moment. I'll reserve judgement until there is something to judge.

Remember average users. They wouldn't know how to find the free app, or how to install it. They just return it cause they cant use it. I have had several people come to my second job (a retail store) and say to me how do I shut my computer down? How do I Close internet explorer? Why is it taking up the whole screen? Where is the desktop? Why can't I close this? Why do I click a picture and it takes me to this giant full screen thing?

Words from actual customers. If that isn't enough reasons, I don't know what is. Microsoft officially made the average user pissed off. That is why.

When I get support calls from people who can't even shut down there machine, that's a problem. When you have an interface without options being in front of you, that's a problem. When things are hidden and you have to do a Google search to find them, that's a problem.

Basically: It's a problem for users.

Win 8 =Great

Windows 8 + bad interface = horrible.

That retail store I work at has never seen so many returns on PC's before. --Not even from Vista.

 

[whs]

Andrew, I think you described the real life situation very well. Not all users are Gurus like us who fiddle with systems all day long.

 

[gregrocker]

Honestly, I'd like to see them be brave.

 

[3Colors]

W8 I think it was just to follow the fashion of the tablets. I tested the interface for a few minutes, and took me all those minutes to figure out to how get to the desktop.

 

[Britton30]

W8 I think it was just to follow the fashion of the tablets. I tested the interface for a few minutes, and took me all those minutes to figure out to how get to the desktop.

Yup that's the issue many of us have with it, it's not for real computers.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there,

Jimbo, please don't beat around the bush, say what you mean.

(I agree with all of your points too.)

Hi there

OK -- to re-phrase it all

1) the MOBILE OS (tiles etc) is showing its limitation even as a "mobile" app on the latest set of smartphones / tablets too -- with lots of apps installed this tile swiping gets tedious and awkward. With a really powerful phone / tablet just imagine finding anything with 100's of apps installed. The OS was fine for up to about 3 pages /screen swipes) --any more swiping to find / run apps then irritation time sets in. !!!

2) A lot of serious creation work requires if not the use of several monitors - certainly at least decent re-sizeable windowing - especially when copying / comparing content from one or more applications / sites. Everything working in full screen windows is just NOT ON.

3) Whatever manufacturers / designers do to "lock in" consumers to a particular product - there are inevitably ways around it - the example I gave was AMAZON - its e-books are cheap and available everywhere - I happen to prefer the SONY e-reader rather than the kindle- so I de-drm the amazon books and convert to e-pub. I'm not "locked in" to the amazon kindle just because I buy e-books from them.

4) W8.1 shows a little "The sinner doth repenteth" part by Ms. With a little bit of work you can turn it into a desktop OS and never have to bother with the metro stuff. Windows 9 should be better in this regard.

Hope that's clearer for you.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Britton30]

LOL! You were very clear Jimbo, I was being sarcastic or facetious, or something.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

LOL! You were very clear Jimbo, I was being sarcastic or facetious, or something.

It's that "or something" that's scary.

 

[Britton30]

I was Espousing Elucidation.