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Did you find Windows 8 intuitive?

Did you find Windows 8 intuitive at first use?

  • Total voters
    57
Archaea

Archaea

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Simple question, Simple poll.

Did you find Windows 8 intuitive at first?
 
At first? No, couldn't figure out how to reboot until I watched a youtube video. I knew about the charms bar before but completely forgot about it when I finally got windows 8 installed.

Going from Metro-settings to control panel was also a pain.
 
I've been using Windows 8 (on an almost daily basis) since the Developer Preview, and still not everything has fully clicked in for me.

That may speak more to my stupidity than to its lack of intuitiveness, but there you go.
 
My brother didn't he has now switched to linux, he doesn't want to have to deal with some silly touch interface, he just wants to get on with designing rockets.
 
Ruffy said:
At first? No, couldn't figure out how to reboot until I watched a youtube video.
Click to expand...
A lot of people say this. It kind of confuses me, since Windows 8 can shut down/reboot the same way it's been done for ~20 years: alt-f4 on the desktop.
 
For most things, yes. However for things like going back and forth from the desktop to metro I had no idea. For navigation I tend to use only the mouse in most cases, so all of the windows key stuff is/was lost on me. Hot corners fix that, but if you didn't know they were there, it's a pain.
 
I had to look a few things up and wrote down a list of keyboard commands, but once that was done it makes sense on why they did some of the stuff they did.

I think your question is worded wrong because nothing is really intuitive at first, but I clicked yes because it was considerably more intuitive than Linux, MacOS, and Windows 95.
 
in·tu·i·tive /intju:itiv/

adjective
1.obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation
syn: nonrational, visceral
2.spontaneously derived from or prompted by a natural tendency • an intuitive revulsion

fa·mil·iar /fʌ'mɪliɜr/ 

adjective
1.well known or easily recognized • a familiar figure • familiar songs • familiar guests
2.within normal everyday experience; common and ordinary; not strange • familiar ordinary objects found in every home • a familiar everyday scene • a familiar excuse • a day like any other filled with familiar duties and experiences

When the subject of the intuitiveness of Windows 8 comes up the matter is really about both of these terms. Pretty much no one has ever used anything as complex as Windows and was completely capable of doing much solely by intuition. Of course with intuition through trial and error many people learn but at that point we then become familiar and familiarity now trumps intuition. One learns that activity and knows how it works, there's no need to "guess" again.

Windows 8.x has a complex UI because of the hybrid design and I've argued that it might be too complex and I do understand the idea of just wanting a "pure" desktop or tablet UI. From that standpoint overall Windows 8.x is both unintuitive and unfamiliar because there's never been an attempt at this scale to do what Windows 8 does. However I have seen elementary school kids pick up one of my Windows 8 tablets and start playing Fruit Ninja without ANY assistance. And if one were to remove all modern apps on a desktop with a keyboard and mouse and only run desktop apps, I think that most people familiar with the Windows desktop would probably be able to deal with it the experience without too much disruption.

The complexity is in the combing of the two UIs and I've long said that that's where 8 is rough and hopefully that's where Microsoft is spending most of its efforts on the next version of Windows. And doing this doesn't require a Metro off switch or classic Start Menu, indeed that would be the wrong way to go about it. The desktop and modern UI need to work as a whole together better across various form factors.

No this isn't easy but the rewards will be worth it in the long run as it will give Windows new life on devices for which it was not originally designed for over 30 years ago.
 
I thought that Windows 8 was great on the Surface Pro. On my desktop, however, I was far less impressed. A lot of the touch/swipe features were really intuitive on the Surface and I was really impressed. On my desktop where there is no touch, Windows 7 is still easier. I haven't tried 8.1 yet though..
 
No. Swiping from the sides for certain things? Have to go to settings to power down? Nope, I didn't find it intuitive at all.

I do really like Windows 8, and once you do learn it, it's a great OS. But, intuitive? No. At least with Windows 7 and before, you had visual things you could just click to see the options. With Windows 8, there just isn't any indication that there is something there. I'm glad they added the start button back, at least so you knew there was something there to touch/click on.

It reduces the actual 'playing around' with the OS to learn it. People aren't sure? They go looking for it. 'Looking' being the key word. You can't click something you can't see (or know is there).

Still, I'll take Win8 over Windows 7 anytime.
 
There's an argument to be made for similarly unintuitive things in earlier versions of Windows, of course. In 7, you click a weird marble-like orb to shut down your system. In 8, you drag out some sort of bar, then click a gear. Neither map particularly to anything we understand naturally: we learn the conventions over time.

That said, there's an argument to be made for the value of years of training and how that's not something simply to be thrown away on a whim. Microsoft did take that direction for a lot of things — some subtle and some not so subtle, and some that don't offer good value for having changed so significantly.
 
SuperSubZero said:
A lot of people say this. It kind of confuses me, since Windows 8 can shut down/reboot the same way it's been done for ~20 years: alt-f4 on the desktop.
Click to expand...

For you and 5 others who used that. The others use GUI.
 
I didn't find it intuitive at all either. I got stuck in some apps that I couldn't figure out how to back out of and just had to alt f4 out.
 
Personally I didn't find typical usage significantly different, I just didn't like the visual changes (although my main complaint of lack of aero glass now has workarounds).

For instance people mention the interface being optimized for touch controls and things like swiping. I'm however using a Win 8 system right now with a touchscreen (Win 7 desktop is currently out of action) and I just use it with mouse and keyboard in the same manner I used Win 7. The only change I've really noticed is I use ctrl+x as a shortcut. For the touchscreen I only use it really cause I find it faster and more convenient then using touchpad but that is when I'm not at a desk using a keyboard and mouse. I however haven't used it for any touch specific commands other than sometimes using it to shutdown, however I don't really find this as something really significant.

Launching programs as another example I still do it the same ways. Either my program is pinned to the taskbar (no difference), pinned to start (no difference other than visually assuming you start menu mod) or I just hit the windows key and type the letter then click or enter+arrow keys (no difference other than visually assuming you start menu mod).

Actually when I get my desktop back I'm going to miss ctrl+x.
 
I use Windows 8 on my gaming machine and I'm still confused by Metro interface for the my not touche screen PC with keyboard and mouse. I would be happy to disable Metro altogether.

Though I totally enjoy metro UI on my Windows Mobile Phone.
 
I have two time a "first time"

1) first time on desktop with mouse -> pain in the neck to click around in the corners

2) second "first time" on a Lenovo helix -> great. No big issue with metro and also Outlook on a secondary monitor with touch screen is great.

My only issue is: content creation without mouse is rather slow and cumbersome (PowerPoint or Excel).

Overall I like it: Win8@work and Mac@Home. Diversity.
 
wonderfield said:
There's an argument to be made for similarly unintuitive things in earlier versions of Windows, of course. In 7, you click a weird marble-like orb to shut down your system. In 8, you drag out some sort of bar, then click a gear. Neither map particularly to anything we understand naturally: we learn the conventions over time.
Click to expand...

This is a particularly important thing to point out. It's not necessarily that Windows 7 is intuitive and Windows 8 is not. If you took someone from a remote part of the world who hasn't really ever used a computer and sat them down in front of either, I'm not convinced they'd find Windows 7 any more intuitive or easy to use than Windows 8.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that Windows 8 and Windows 7 differ. I had absolutely no difficulty picking up and using Windows 8 at all. Is that because it's intuitive? I don't know that most of us can really say, because most of us have had a good 10-20 years of experience using computers before approaching Windows 8. I feel that whether or not Windows 8 makes sense to a user more or less comes down to how capable of handling change that user is.
 
Loading and running programs was fairly intuitive. Took a little while to get used to the search button on the right hand side of the screen.

I still struggle with the location of all the configuration screens.

So my take is, parts of it are intuitive, others not.
 
Windows 8 has to be one of the least intuitive OS's I've ever used... at least the metro side of things. The swipe to close is just dumb. Took forever to figure that out.... as well as the 'shut down' command.

Even with StartisBack installed, and everything related to metro stripped out that I could get away with, I still find myself scratching my head occasionally. Mainly their choice to put the Bluetooth settings under the metro 'settings' opposed to the control panel.... Safe mode is also really dumb IMO. They don't make it easy to get to like in previous versions. In the rare instance I need to get access to it, I have to Google instructions on how to do it and I've been using Windows 8 on the ultra book for around 6 months at least.

I don't think the transition would of been as bad as it was, had they made subtle changes over multiple versions of windows opposed to an 'all at once' strategy.
 
I'm sure many found it very intuitive. COUNTER intuitive that is! :D
 
Counter intuitive at first but now I would pick it over 7 any day.

Voted counter intuitive.
 
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