One last thing a developer should do when upgrading a software application is to drastically change the user interface (UI). Users' purpose of using software is not just to use it, but to get things done. Unless you make their lives easier, they will hate the change, and even go back to old versions.
Sadly, Windows 8 made the mistake. To be short, I cannot find the place to restart the PC, nor can I find the Program menu after clicking Start button. Why would I use an OS that does not give me quick access to all my installed applications?
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| I cannot find anywhere to power off the computer. And if there is a Desktop icon (bottom left), why do I need this strange "welcome screen"? |
The new UI isn't making life easier. For example, Windows 8 puts soooooo many buttons around the Windows Explorer (the window you use to manage files). The space to view files is squeezed. And those buttons are very stupidly designed, like the one introduced in Micro$oft Office 2007. Too many stuff, too many layers. Are we flying a jet plane?
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| Too many buttons. Too long to find useful ones. |
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| So, there is another Control Panel for More settings? And the "S" in "More settings" isn't capitalized as other options? |
In conclusion, Micro$oft really doesn't know how to design good GUIs, but to confuse and frustrate users.
4 comments:
Well, if you do have touch screen, you will like Windows 8. :0)
If you have touch screen, you will like windows 8.
~_~
No. If I have a touch screen it is still sucks....
Try working with a complex spread sheet using a touch screen instead of a mouse and let me know how you get on.
Windows 8 is a disaster an it would be simple for MS to accommodate their users by dropping the 7 or XP UIs in as an option.
It's complete contempt for their customers...particularly business customers and long time Microsoft customers to make them carry the pain for their second rate tablet OS that no one wants...and I don't want an IPAD either thanks..
I have no idea why the commenter above indicates that it's great with a touch screen (twice) and can only assume it is some bizarre Microsoft marketing exercise in wasting money and insulting their customers further,
I like this article. What Microsoft developers have done is NOT an improvement but just moving things around and make them look like a cool new user interface. It's just clowning around and offering utter rubbish to end-users and worse because it's making navigation more complicated and taking more steps.
And the whole idea of being a programmer is to make life easier for the user not harder!
Talking about "Too many stuff, too many layers. Are we flying a jet plane?" that you wrote, you are completely right to say that flying a jet plane is highly complex compared to using the computer.
Yet remarkably even on this former task I was quite surprised when a friend who is a senior flying instructor with an airline told me that now the computer program in the cockpit is able to take over his job completely.
Computer programming has eased the work-life of such a complex job. Yet if you were to tell Microsoft people that Windows is just not user friendly, they would tell you hey you are not using a toaster. Good for them.
So here comes Apple with its almost idiot-proof navigation and everyone is buying its products.
And touch is mostly icon-based, a simple concept that Windows 8 developers could not even grasp.
Anyway Microsoft management seems to think big-picture wise it must be lagging behind in catching up with the tablet wave ... NO, Microsoft came up with the tablet before Apple remember?
The real problem with Microsoft is that has not been improving the end-user experience but just tweaking the surface and adding more layers of complexity. Precisely opposite of what it takes to win the hearts of users.
Microsoft product strategists should remember the old and true saying: The devil is in the details.
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