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Windows 8 Designer Explains Why It Annoys You

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday February 19 2014, @04:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-had-one-job-ONE-JOB dept.
stmuk writes:

"BGR reflects on recent comments by a Metro designer. 'Metro is a content consumption space,' Microsoft UX designer Jacob Miller explains, '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.'"

 
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  • (Score: 1) by wjwlsn on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:51PM

    by wjwlsn (171) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:51PM (#2983) Homepage Journal

    I actually like the Metro UI ... on my tablet. The swiping gestures may not be intuitively obvious at first, but once you learn them (easy), interaction becomes extremely fluid. The Start screen is very flexible; you can have as many tiles as you want, change tile sizes, move things around, group things as you see fit, turn live tiles on/off, etc. Getting to the rest of your apps is easy, and finding what you want isn't that difficult at all. Running apps full-screen is pretty standard on tablets, but Metro gives you the flexibility to split your screen easily and run them side-by-side (useful!).

    Then, on top of all that, or rather behind it, you have a traditional desktop interface available. It's definitely not optimal for smaller touchscreens, but it works and it gives you a lot of flexibility and power if you're willing to make it work for you. Hell, I run a desktop R/C plane flight simulator on mine; I plug the controller into the USB port and have some fun crashing gliders, quadcopters, and powered planes into the various landscapes.

    Now, I am not the target audience described by the article. I'm a command line junkie that ran a two-line BBS under Desqview, first installed Linux from floppies (MCC distribution), programmed on a Cray and a Connection Machine, administered two OpenVMS Alpha workstations in the control room of a nuclear power plant, and have used nearly every major version of M$ Windows since 3.0. I specifically chose a Windows 8.1 tablet because of its interface and its flexibility.

    Mind you, I run desktop-only on my Windows 8 laptop. I say use what makes sense for the device and how you intend to use it.

    --
    I am a traveler of both time and space. Duh.