Things you just don't get

[ethanm]

Booooo progress! Booooo learning curves!

 

[patrickBOOTH]

This is America, land of accept everything and if you don't you're a bigot.

Damn, now even I'm starting to sound like why...

 

[Piobaire]



Booooo progress! Booooo learning curves!

I could be wrong but it would seem he's indicating that this is not progress and quite possibly regression in terms of usability. That is how I currently feel about Windows 8 even though I am embracing it and not using the shell work arounds on my Surface.

 

[ethanm]

^From what I understand Windows 8 issues are deeper than just interface.

Everybody always complains about UI changes at first and then they learn it and are fine. Icons replacing buttons with text has been happening for a long time now.

 

[MrG]

I generally accept changes pretty well, bit I still think gmail tabs are stupid.

 

[otc]

Nah, some of the google changes are ****.
Google probably grew too big--they had a handful of really really good UI designers who have now either retired with their $$$, left for a smaller firm, or are too overworked.

For example...on android, you cannot search in the new Hangouts app. That's right, they actively removed the feature that they are most famous for. Previously, the SMS app had search, the Google Talk app had search, but when they merged them together...nada.

The new google maps is slower, and I constantly feel like the floating box is covering something...it expands/contracts constantly based on what you are doing which covers up part of the map. Instead of being a sidebar, there is a good half-inch of map to the left of it which just gives a feeling of missing something.

Windows 8 was bad too...MS recognizes that and is bringing back a form of start menu in windows 9 and will have a way for "apps" to run in their own windows like normal programs can.

 

[ethanm]

Disclaimer: I enjoy trolling AY.

Sorry. not sorry.

 

[Harold falcon]

Windows 8 is terrible. Designed for children.

 

[Gibonius]

Google seems to release new versions that are completely crippled, then fix them very quickly. They released a version of Google Maps on Android that was completely missing the Navigation function. It'd give you directly, but only from overhead. It took about two days for it to get fixed. I have no idea how they missed something that fundamental.

 

[zarathustra]



I could be wrong but it would seem he's indicating that this is not progress and quite possibly regression in terms of usability. That is how I currently feel about Windows 8 even though I am embracing it and not using the shell work arounds on my Surface.

Just got the new Surface Pro 3. I have had Windows 8 since they released it to developers.

Yes, its different. But not sure why there is hate for it --- particularly after 8.1.

 

[otc]

Also...the ribbon is a weird one.

I think it is a big boon for beginner users. Significantly easier to discover and use the advanced features of word and excel with the ribbon.

For intermediate/infrequent users (or people using addons), it sucks. You are used to menus (ignoring the fact that you also probably have prior excel experience) and now this one set of programs has a completely different interface. If you learn the most common keyboard shortcuts, but rely on the ribbon for more infrequent tasks...you get screwed. One of my least favorite things about the ribbon is that it reacts to your keyboard shortcuts--so if I have the ribbon set to show some buttons I don't use often (or where its faster to click than do shortcuts) and then I use a shortcut to do something like paste-special, the ribbon jumps back to the Home tab. I don't want to see the home tab, I want to be able to click on the button or toolbar I had brought up before.
The worst is if you have some 3rd party or addon toolbar and are alternating between some basic formatting or cut/paste stuff and using those tools...every time you make a basic adjustment, you have to click back to the toolbar (which is usually on the far right end of the window) and then click through the toolbar's buttons (which usually start on the far left side of the window).

For advanced users...whatever. Learn the new shortcuts and move on with your life. The improvements in 2007/2010 over 2003 are completely worth it, and you can just hide the ribbon and pretend its not there. There's a learning curve, but you are a professional--if you don't do it now, you will just have to do it later when your old shortcuts get depreciated or your clients refuse to cater to your 11 year old software.

 

[brokencycle]

The even more weird thing about Windows 8 is that they copied the interface for Server 2012. Why would they use an interface designed for tablets and touch screens for a server OS?

 

[Biscotti]

....

 

[Joffrey]

I used google drive extensively for a grad school class. It could be a real pain to use for complex documents that need to be shared among multiple users.

 

[razl]



The even more weird thing about Windows 8 is that they copied the interface for Server 2012. Why would they use an interface designed for tablets and touch screens for a server OS?

No joke, the first time I remoted into a server with a Metro UI and wanted to log off - you know, [windows] button > "log off" - I literally had to google how to do it. Oh, it's the [windows] button > click the little person+name icon in the upper right, and there's a logoff option.

There is no way somebody looks at that screen and has any visual indicator that the "person" icon in the upper right has any functionality whatsoever. You literally have to be told/fumble-find it. It's 105% non-intuitive, like 90%of the rest of the UI.

That said, now that I'm used to it, I'm not so against it - but the "you have to learn a whole new paradigm" thing is frustrating. I mentioned to some gamers that the Win8 UI should have shipped like a lot of games do - with a "walk through" tutorial at startup that shows a user how/where the most important things are/have-changed. To just drop a Win7 user into Metro and expect them to love it was a stupifying decision.