As has been made abundantly
clear by now, Windows 8 is not a success for Microsoft. Or to quote Paul Thurrott of the influential Supersite for Windowsblog, "Windows 8 is a disaster in
every sense of the word."
This really should surprise no one. Microsoft
did an almost obscene level of user testing as it was developing Windows 8
- 1.24 billion hours of testing across 190 countries, Microsoft said.
And throughout all that, users, as well as influential Windows bloggers, told
the company repeatedly that they didn't like the new touch-screen interface.
The question is, what is Microsoft's new CEO
going to do about it? We are hoping the answer is "scrap it and try
again," and not "dig in and insist the world learn to love Windows
8."
But a long post on
Reddit from a person claiming to be on the
Windows 8 design team might be a worrisome sign.
Remember, Windows 8 has two personalities. It
has a "desktop" side, which is basically a version of Windows 7. It
also has the Windows 8 side designed for a touch screens.
When you buy a new Windows 8 PC, the default is
to boot to the Windows 8 side. At first, you couldn't turn that part off and
choose to use the Windows 7 side exclusively. Now, with Windows 8.1, you can,
but the setting that lets you boot to Windows 7 is kind
of hard to find.
This person says the reason Microsoft
"forced" Windows 8 on people by default was because the company
thought it was easier to use for the average PC user:
Metro is a content consumption space. It is
designed for casual users who only want to check Facebook, view some photos,
and maybe post a selfie to Instagram. It's designed for your computer
illiterate little sister, for grandpas who don't know how to use that computer
dofangle thingy, and for mom who just wants to look up apple pie recipes. It's
simple, clear, and does one thing (and only one thing) relatively easily.
... So we forced it upon them. We drove them to it with goads in their
sides.
The problem is that Windows 8 isn't easy to
use, particularly for casual users. It has commands and features tucked into
all sorts of confusing spots. For instance, sometimes a flick up while in
Internet Explorer brings up a list of open tabs. Other times that same gesture
brings up a list of frequently used websites.
The self-described Microsoft designer
recognizes that Windows 8 isn't perfect for average users. But this person
thinks Microsoft is sticking with the basic plan.
Right now we still have a lot of work to do on
making Metro seem tasty for those casual users, and that's going to divert our
attention for a while. But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making
the desktop more advanced.
In April, Microsoft will host its annual
developers conference, Build, and we hope to hear more details about Windows 9.
We're hoping that Windows 9 is to Windows 8 what Windows 7 was to Vista: a
seriously big fix.
Here's the full post
from Reddit:
UX designer for Microsoft here.
I want to talk about why we chose Metro as the
default instead of the desktop, and why this is good in the long run -
especially for power users.
...but not in the way you might think.
At this point you're probably expecting me to
say that it's designed for keyboard execution, or some thing about improved
time trials for launching programs, or some other way of me trying to convince
you that Metro is actually useful. I've talked about those in the past
extensively on reddit, but for this discussion let's throw that all out the
window. For this discussion, assume that Metro is shit for power users (even if
you don't believe it to be).
Now that we're on common ground, let's dive
into the rabbit hole. Metro is a content consumption space. It is designed for
casual users who only want to check facebook, view some photos, and maybe post
a selfie to instagram. It's designed for your computer illiterate little
sister, for grandpas who don't know how to use that computer dofangle thingy,
and for mom who just wants to look up apple pie recipes. It's simple, clear,
and does one thing (and only one thing) relatively easily. That is what Metro
is. It is the antithesis of a power user. A power user is a content creator.
They have multiple things open on multiple monitors - sometimes with multiple
virtual machines with their own nested levels of complexity.
"But wait," you're thinking,
"You said Metro is good for power users, yet now you're saying it's the
worst for them, what gives?"
Before Windows 8 and Metro came along, power
users and casual users - the content creators and the content consumers - had
to share the same space. It was like a rented tuxedo coat - something that
somewhat fit a wide variety of people. It wasn't tailored, because any
aggressive tailoring would make it fit one person great, but would have others
pulling at the buttons. Whatever feature we wanted to add into Windows, it had
to be something that was simple enough for casual users to not get confused
with, but also not dumbed down enough to be useless to power users. Many, MANY
features got cut because of this.
A great example is multiple desktops. This has
been something that power users have been asking for for over a decade now. OSX
has it, Linux has it, even OS/2 Warp has it. But Windows doesn't. The reason
for this is because every time we try and add it to the desktop, we run user
tests; and every time we find that the casual users - a much larger part of our
demographic than Apple's or Linux's - get confused by it. So the proposal gets
cut and power users suffer.
Our hands were bound, and our users were annoyed
with their rented jackets. So what did we do? We separated the users into two
groups. Casual and Power. We made two separate playgrounds for them. All the
casual users would have their own new and shiny place to look at pictures of
cats - Metro. The power users would then have free reign over their native
domain - the desktop.
So why make Metro the default? And why was
there no way to boot to desktop in Windows 8.0?
The short answer is because casual users don't
go exploring. If we made desktop the default as it has always been, and
included a nice little start menu that felt like home, the casual users would
never have migrated to their land of milk and honey. They would still
occupy the desktop just as they always had, and we would have been stuck in square
one. So we forced it upon them. We drove them to it with goads in their sides. In
8.1, we softened the points on the goads by giving users an option to boot
directly to desktop.
Now that the casual users are aware of their
new pasture, we can start tailoring. It will be a while before the power users
start seeing the benefits of this (that's why I said they'd benefit in the long
run). Right now we still have a lot of work to do on making Metro seem tasty
for those casual users, and that's going to divert our attention for a while.
But once it's purring along smoothly, we'll start making the desktop more
advanced. We'll add things that we couldn't before. Things will be faster, more
advanced, and craftier than they have in the past - and that's why Metro is
good for power users.
