Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Anonymous
   Unregistered

   Can the Windows 8 operating system be saved? In all seriousness, Microsoft should be asking itself this question.
   WiliWindowsIf Microsoft radically reworks Windows 8, this doesn't have to be its fate.

   The numbers don't lie. Windows 8's market acceptance is continuing to fall behind Microsoft's last desktop operating system failure, Vista. Asus, which had been a big Windows 8 booster, is now reporting poor sales and Samsung has decided not to bother with launching a Windows 8 tablet in the lucrative German market.

   Simply chopping prices drastically for Windows 8 and Office 2013 for mini-tablets isn't going to cut it. Neither Windows 8 nor its close relatives, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8, even appear on NetApplication's mobile and tablet usage reports for February 2013. Nor, do I think discount prices on Windows 8 for PCs would help much. There are also lots of cheap Windows 8 PCs and they're not selling well.

   So what can Microsoft do to give Windows 8 a shot? Here are my proposals.
   1) Dump Metro

   The Windows 8 main interface is officially called "Microsoft Design Language" -- but whatever its name, it is a failure on the desktop. Hard-core Windows fans will insist that it's not that hard to learn. My response is why should anyone have to learn something new to do the same old things? Metro, like other half-baked "innovative" interfaces, such as Linux's GNOME 3.x, is a solution in search of a problem.

   Repeat after me Microsoft user interface designers: "The desktop is not the same thing as a tablet or a smartphone." Metro may work on the latter two, but it has no place on the former.
   2) Bring back the Windows 7 Aero interface

   Unlike Vista or Windows 8, people loved Windows 7. Why? While Aero was different from the XP interface it was still familiar enough for users to be comfortable with, while at the same time, it incorporated improvements. The Windows 8's Windows Explorer desktop just doesn't cut it.

   While it doesn't have the radical changes of Metro, it's different enough to be annoying and, like Metro, it doesn't really add any improvements to the user experience. Why do you think programs like Stardock's Star8, which gives users a Start menu again, are so popular? I'll give you a hint, it's not because they love the old interface, it's because people are more comfortable with the Aero style desktop.
   3) One desktop

   So, long as we're at it. Let's make this new-model Windows 8 Aero desktop the one-and-only interface. I mean, seriously, why do we need two interfaces for one operating system? Is there some reason why we need to have the Internet Explorer (IE) 10 navigation bar on the Metro interface and on top in the desktop model?

   It's not just the looks though. Different applications work differently. For example, IE 10 comes with Adobe Flash built in. So you'd think you'd be able to see the same sites with IE no matter where you started it, wouldn't you? Wrong!

   It turns out that IE 10, if you started IE 10 from Metro, will only show Flash if its site is on Microsoft's Compatibility View (CV) list. The same Flash-enabled Web pages, however, will show up just fine if you started IE 10 from the desktop mode! Does Microsoft want to confuse the heck out of its users or what?

   To quote IDC analyst Bob O'Donnell, "There were certain decisions that Microsoft made that were in retrospect flawed. Notably not allowing people to boot into desktop mode and taking away the start button. Those two things have come up consistently."

   It's not like this is surprising news. Back when Windows 8 was brand new, interface guru Jakob Nielsen, said that having two desktop available on one device was "a prescription for usability problems." That was not only because users have to remember where to go for which features, but because switching between two interfaces was more trouble than it was worth.

   Exactly! To sum up, give us one interface and give it to us now!
   4) Fix Windows' marketing.

   Repeat after me. Windows 8 is not Windows RT. Surface Pro is not Surface RT. Techie people already know that. You know who doesn't know that? Ordinary people. If I had a dime for every time I heard from my non-geeky friends about how Windows RT or Surface RT can't run their desktop apps, I'd be a rich man.

   Windows RT, and Microsoft's hardware platform of choice for it, the Surface RT, is a limited subset of Windows. You can't run "normal" Windows applications on RT. You can only run some Metro apps on it. You can't use RT in Windows-centric businesses that rely on Active Directory.

   RT, in short, is not really Windows. Give the operating system another name, paste another label on the Surface RT. Stop confusing your users!
   5) Improve Windows 8 native apps

   It's not like we expect Office 2013 for free on every Windows 8 PC, but have you really looked at Windows 8's native apps. There's Mail which doesn't support POP (Post Office Protocol) or threaded messaging. The photo app doesn't include basic editing tools. And if Dropbox can automatically sync everything in a folder from my PC to the cloud and vice-versa, why can't the SkyDrive app do the same thing?

   Microsoft does seem to be working on improving Windows 8's native apps. And we might see some of them as soon as this month.

   While that would be nice, it won't be enough. Microsoft must fundamentally change and improve Windows 8's look and feel -- or watch Windows 8's market share continue to lag.

   I have no love for Windows, but there actually is a lot to like in Windows 8. Microsoft's promises of better security may be hollow as ever, but Windows 8 is faster and more stable than Windows 7.

   Two out of those three should have made Windows 8 the next "go to" Windows upgrade. If Microsoft swallows its pride and gives users a single, old-style interface that they can actually enjoy and use, Windows 8 may yet prove a winner.

   If they don't? Well, they'd better plan on making Windows 7 easily available again -- until they can get Windows Blue out the door, because they're not going to be selling a lot of Windows 8.

   Related Stories:

   Five reasons why Windows 8 has failed
   Windows 8's desktop share grows to 2.6 percent in February
   Analyst: Windows 8 hardware 'overpriced' and offers 'no clear benefit in switching from iOS or Android'
   Was Sinofsky fired for Microsoft's sins?
   Five Reasons why Windows 8 will be dead on arrival

   article plus limks

   Posted 11 years ago #
2. 

   Anonymous
   Unregistered

   Must Read: Will 90 percent of users always hate Windows 8?

   Topic: Windows 8

   Will 90 percent of users always hate Windows 8?

   Summary: Windows 8 doesn't exactly seem to be setting the world alight. Perhaps the requirement that indifferent users have to sit down and learn their way around something new is causing problems...
   Matt Baxter-Reynolds

   By Matt Baxter-Reynolds for Post-PC Developments | March 11, 2013 -- 10:04 GMT (03:04 PDT)
   Grumpy Cat and Windows 8In this artist's impression, internet sensation Grumpy Cat is illustrating how a typical user may feel about Windows 8.

   It came and went without me noticing, but I've been using Windows 8 as a full-time operating system for over year now. I installed the Consumer Preview on February 29th 2012, and I've stuck with Windows 8 ever since.

   I have been pretty positive about Windows 8 since about the time the penny dropped and I realised what Microsoft was doing: the PC market is going away, and Microsoft had to produce a product that straddles the PC and post-PC transition.

   For me, Windows 8 does a good job at being a desktop operating system. I use it every day and it's robust, solid, fully-featured and capable. At a kids party last weekend one of the dads asked me if he should downgrade his new Windows 8 laptop to Windows 7 — I didn't even hesitate before saying "keep Windows 8."

   But something happened to me this week that has made me wonder whether actually Windows 8 is actually a total miss-hit for 90 percent of consumers.
   Metro-style

   What happened was that a good friend of mine directed me to a book she had been reading called Simple and Usable by Giles Colborn. She pointed me to a section in the book where Colborn breaks down the following:

   A tiny percentage (say one percent) of users are experts, with a high tolerance for learning.
   A few more (say nine percent) of users are willing adopters — they have an expectation that the product will meet their needs, and some (albeit low) tolerance for learning.
   The remaining 90 percent of users just use technology to get a job done and have no tolerance for learning at all. These are mainstreamers.

   This method, by the way, explains Apple quite precisely. Apple's products don't do much, but what they do do requires no cognitive load or expectation of understanding drawing from prior experience whatsoever. For example, my son who at nine months of age would happily flick around the photo app on my iPad. Nine months!

   That realisation made my heart sink as I realised the mistake that I'd been making with Windows 8: I actually cared about trying to make it work and did, although that wasn't an entirely deliberate and conscious process. Although Colborn doesn't put it exactly like this, 90 percent of the people (particular consumers) who will sit down in front of Windows 8 most likely will not care a jot about learning how it works or about any of the history and thought that's gone into making what's technically a very clever product.
   Guilt

   I met with the CEO of an IT support company last week who I asked about uptake of Windows 8 and he, perhaps surprisingly, told me he was happily rolling out Windows 8 to his customers. I mentioned that I was surprised — he replied with "of course, we just install this 'yadda-yadda' app that puts the Start button back." (I can't remember the name of the app he used, but my ZDNet colleague David Gewirtz talks much more on this topic in his piece "How to make Windows 8 seem normal".) He then went on to describe how his staff trains the end users to blast through the Start screen as quickly a possible and just pretend they're using "Windows 7.5."

   Now that the penny has dropped re the 90 percent, I now understand the wisdom of this move. Personally, I think this strategy within the IT company was not intentional. What I think happened was one of their staff didn't like Windows 8, tinkered, found a Start button replacement and whacked it in their build process. The upshot — whether inadvertent or deliberate — is that they have managed to stop their customers from being jammed into a 1+9 percent "willing to learn" slot, leaving them happy to float into the 90 percent "don't care" slot. Windows 8 to them just looks like Windows 7, ergo they don't have to learn anything new. Their expectations — i.e. "this just needs to work, thanks" — have been met. By the inclusion of a $5 utility. On an operating system that cost billions of dollars to develop and market. That's insane.

   I've met a good number of that IT support company's customers — trust me, those users really do fit into the 90 percent "don't care" slot.

   There's another category of people that fit into the 90 percent. They're not really "don't care" types, they're more "they shouldn't have to care." My dad is an older gentlemen (sorry, dad!), and in November he needed to replace his aging Vista laptop. I suggested he get a Windows 8 laptop, which he did. He bought a Dell. No touchscreen, but otherwise decent specs.

   It arrived, but I forgot about it for a couple of months until he had a problem whereupon I popped round to fix it. I asked him how he found Windows 8. His reply was: "I hate it." This in and of itself was not entirely unexpected. But what happened next left me feeling profoundly guilty. I watched him try and do simple tasks and saw him again and again just floored by Windows 8's odd usability modes. He showed me how double-clicking a photo in his mail software (a normal desktop app) would open up the Metro-style photo viewer. Blam! His whole machine is taken over. Just a picture in the middle of a gray ocean with no clue, nothing to click. Taskbar gone. A close button? No. He was used to clicking on the taskbar to switch apps, used to clicking the close button to dismiss things when it got out of hand. (He'd never used Alt+Tab.) What's he supposed to do at this point, learn Alt+F4 to close a Metro-style app or the utterly undiscoverable mouse-based gesture of dragging a Metro-style container to the floor?

   You could ask the question "why didn't he learn the new way of working." The simple answer to this, I think, was that he didn't know he was supposed to learn. All he saw was something basically and painfully broken. Moreover, as I implied above, why should he have to learn? He's got better things to do. All that's happened to him is that Microsoft and I have colluded to take away a computer that worked and replace it with one that doesn't. That, dear reader, is where my guilt came from.

   I changed all his file associations so that it won't open Metro-style apps. He seems happier.
   Conclusion

   When I think about technology, I like to think that I consider it with empathy for the 90 percent who don't care or shouldn't care. What's happened with Windows 8 is that my underlying technologist instincts have been fooled — I've gotten too close. It started to work for me, and from the perspective I gained, I neglected to think that it wouldn't work for other people.

   Microsoft is an enterprise software company. As it tries to move into one that serves the computing market it needs to appreciate one problem: enterprises impose a solution on its users, providing a good business case can be constructed for its procurement. Consumers choose solutions that they think will work for them, and it needs to work for 90 percent of them without any heartache. Microsoft's engineers are building products for themselves — you see this in Windows 8, Windows Phone, Surface, and Windows RT. That's fine, if you're in the 1+9 percent of people who like to play and fiddle. If you're in the 90 percent "normal" bucket, it's quite a bumpy ride. There has to be virtually no expectation that a product that irritates and upsets 90 percent of its potential market will sell. Market numbers are early for all of these products, but early out of the gate they seem to be bearing this out.

   With my technologist hat on, we should all be aspiring to build post-PC devices and software for for the 90 percent. And it's not just because the 10x increase in market size is attractive, it's because of this: technology is boring, but being a human is interesting. It's also much, much harder, and therefore much more rewarding, to build products for mainstreamers.

   Regardless, I now find myself in the ridiculous situation of thinking that, actually, the only way to deal with Windows 8 in the consumer market is to install one of these stupid Start menu replacements.

   It's one less thing that people have to learn.

   article

   Posted 11 years ago #
3. 

   Inas
   Member

   Thanks, GooGoo.

   Posted 11 years ago #
4. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   One comment --- Aero is NOT a Window's 7 interface - It's Vista!

   Posted 11 years ago #

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