Windows 8.1 is scheduled to bring the Start button back to the Windows 8 desktop. However, it will not include the Start menu. Instead, it’ll simply transport the user out of the desktop and back into the Metro Start screen environment. This is a mistake.
I realize that there lots of people out there who like the Start screen metaphor. And we can argue whether the Start screen is a more productive environment than the traditional desktop until the end of time. However, what isn’t debatable is that such a radical departure from 20 years of training is very expensive and disruptive.
Not everyone, in fact, I would argue not even most people are particularly familiar with using computers even today. They have some expertise with some piece of software but in terms of navigating the operating system itself, their understanding is remarkably fragile. I run into this every day when I deal with enterprise customers (who, I might add, represent a significant percentage of the 5+ million Start8 users out there).
I don’t think most technically savvy people realize just how reliant on documentation the average user is. Whether that be a computer book, a website, or even the training manual for the support people who are trying to help walk through people updating their cable modem or the streaming video service or access their online banking account, people rely on existing documentation. And that documentation – those 20 years of accumulated knowledge – has real value. This is value that Microsoft is discarding for purposes that make little sense.
I personally have no issue with the Start screen or Metro. I find Metro (even the Windows 8.1 iteration) to be wholly inferior to the desktop for trying to get work done but it’s not something that can’t be improved on with a few more iterations. What I do object to is forcing users to completely switch paradigms where the new one offers no tangible benefit to the bulk of the existing user base. The user base should be gradually migrated over to the Start screen/Metro/ModernUI environment based on the intrinsic advantages it delivers (which, right now, are not very apparent to the non-touch user).
As much of a boon Microsoft’s design choices have been to our business this past year, our first concern has to be for the health of the overall ecosystem. Start8 and ModernMix are products we’ve created to make Windows 8 more usable for our customers. But they are features that should have been part of the OS from day 1. They should never had to be made. Microsoft should realize that the immense popularity of these programs indicates that people want these features and should have made them part of Windows 8.1.
I would agree with that statement. Though it isn't exclusive to Enterprise customers. I'd argue that home users and enterprise users are pretty much one and the same in terms of technical expertise of Windows and Office. My background is IT support/Technical consultant for what it is worth.
That lack of expertise is also why the impact of Windows 8's "dramatic" changes are completely overblown IMHO. I would even argue against Windows 8 being easier to adopt and document than the old Start Menu which is/was not only convoluted but incredibly tricky for novice users to find the way around even when guided. The desktop clutter is gone, and program accessibility is much better under the Metro Start, or it can be set up to be. For the technical adept it should be even more of a welcomed change, given the combination of the metro start and keyboard shortcuts for easy access to most relevant support features.
The cynic in me would argue that you are hurting the ecosystem more so than you are helping it, because you maintain status quo with the Start8 app. Now I fully understand the business aspect of it because $$$$. But it is only helping cement the old ways instead of making it easier for people to transition to the new way of using Windows. There's very little doubt that Windows 8 is going to change going forward, and I sincerely doubt MS is going to go back to the archaic Start Menu in future versions of Windows.
Seing that they are said to spend about 1.5 Billion $ on it, that is somewhat hard to believe.
According the the latest news, they are at least bringing back parts of it.... doubtless due to enormous pressure put onto them.
Are they? Or is rather Microsoft the guilty party? Who decided, for reasons unknown, that the desktop computer needs a phone like interface?
I am the customer.... it is
MY money.
And if you are incapable of delivering a product that I like - for whatever reason, you dont get my money.
The most basic law of our system.
And as such I find this attitude, that the customer HAVE to learn something new, downright insulting.
If you want me, to learn something new, because you changed something without visible need, well then you better give me some damm good reasons to do so. I had the Windows 8 Developer Preview Version and I disliked the new interface. So....
Why
should
I?
Either you create reasons that convince me/enough other people that your product is worthy of my money and effort.... or you dont.
In which case your sell less and less, until you go bankrupt.
And your competitors take your market share.
As for 90 % of the computer using populace, the GUI is the operating sytem, that would have been a lot smarter indeed.
It might have also avoid the disaster Windows 8 has become. Because early feedback would have told them that people dont want a computer os work that way.
I still dont see why - although doubtless of - I should bother with said learning curve.
Not soon and not quick, thats for sure.
On the other hand, not to many years ago, had you told anyone that Internet Explorer would have less than 90 % marketshare, people would have laughed you off..... but that was before the arrival of Firefox and the others.
And funnily enough... you know what was the reason for Firefox success? Not that it was better or not from MS, although that did of course help.
It was a success, because you could use it quite similar to Internet Explorer. Back then its interface was not much different, so even a novice computer user, did find his way arround. Even one who used IE all his life.
Dont undestand tabbed browsing? Doesnt matter, you can open new Windows with Firefox, too. And there are many such examples.
Linux breaktrough on the Desktop was and is hindered by certain factors:
But many thing changed over the past few years. The Linux desktop is up to todays usuabilty standards and the breaktrough of smartphones and tablets have shifted a significant part of purchasing power into the mobile market... where Windows is nothing.
People expect that their computer works the same way as the last one.... people dont expect that their new smartphone acts like Windows. And so they have a lot higher tolerance for learning new ways, there.
BTW,
Android? It is linux.... with a marketshare of nearly 70 % on the smartphone market in 2012.
IOS? Based on OSX--- which is based on Linux, too.
Windows so far could hold its ground on the Desktop because there was little reason for the average user to make a switch.
Most computer users, leaving gamers aside, use their PC for writing, web browsing, music listening and the occasional movie.
That is all stuff, you can do easily on a cheap tablet with low end hardware. Or an aged desktop PC. Now you can of course install Linux on that old desktop machine, but why would you, as long Windows - who is installed already - gets the job done.
Linux might do the job, too, quite good actually nowadays, but that is not enough to convince people to switch.
It is not enough to easily convince them to upgrade, too.
Do you really think Microsoft increased support for XP to 2014 by free choice? I dont think so, but their install base was still so large that they could not afford to drop it earlier.
But now we have Windows 8... an OS with a significantly changed GUI.... a GUI so heavily changed, that it is now actually more difficult to learn Windows 8 then to learn the - Windows 7 based - Linux desktop of many distributions.
That leaves pretty much only the gamers as the remaining sole market share group of modern Windows.
But even there, Windows is not what is was a few years ago.
The modern consoles eat away a significantly amount of the market share and now Valve, yes those people who invented Steam, intends to bring a Desktop Linux based gaming console on the market, currently called Steam Box.
That means that the usual driver issues plagueing Linux are a non issue there while the open architecture and upgradability makes it an interesting platform to develop for.
As there are - for reasons well beyond my understanding - a ton of Steam Fans out there, that will likely be enough to ingnite initial interest in it.
However, when developers develop for the Steambox... a more or less modified desktop linux, it is probably very little effort to make that Steam Box Game run on the Linux Desktop itself.
And that has to be Microsofts darkest nightmare, the mobile market lost, and now an attack on the remaining high performance segment.
I think that Microsoft has seen the dark clouds approaching, and so they are desperatly trying to get a reasonable foothold in the mobile devices market, it certainly would explain Windows 8 GUI.
If Microsoft continues to allienate large percentages of its desktop user base, it ecosystem may face a significant shrink rather soon.
Which is not a problem... for anyone but Microsoft of course.
Software developers can move, not much of a trouble for them, they always go where the change of making money is highest.
ARESIV - great post. One thing I would add is that almost everyone I know has a tablet and they all run Android. Microsoft seems to be failing in that market as well.
That'd only have pith and meaning if you knew more than 3 people....
Actually I do know more than three people. Why do you feel the need to poke fun at my expense?
Kona...it's just a mild 'dig' at how sampled opinions cannot be relied upon to genuinely show a trend.
I've used the anecdote several times about the 3 'scientists' on the train to Scotland determining [initially] that all sheep in Scotland must be black....
Statistic sampling is a flawed science and cannot be a basis for actual truth....
I ordered a new gamer-PC and actually paid extra to get Windows 7. Also bought a new lap-top a few months ago and got Windows8 and it frustrates me so much, it's giving me stress symtoms. What are they thinking? Guess Start8 is what my Laptop needs.
Please make games for other operative systems in the future, I will never go for Windows again, after Win7 is obsolete sometime in the future.
star dock saved my day when I upgraded to 8 a great big thank you star dock realistically I go to the modern ui tiles just to check it out the odd time getting back the desktop and star menu was a dream -THANKS AGAIN STARDOCK AND KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK .
I am still to understand why anyone would opt to use dumbed down aps over real desktop aps.
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