Windows 8: A Design Disaster

I agree. Apple is successful because they embrace good design, from the looks to the user interface. Windows is good from a technical point of view and they were getting there with the design, but now they're going back in time to ugliness.
 
I think what MS should have done is just made a bar on the left hand side of the screen for all the application icons, and make it so users can rearrange the order or add/remove program icons from the bar on the left. At the top of the left bar, have a search function that users can use to find applications or files. The rest of the desktop area would be free to display the current application, or the desktop, which users could add shortcuts to programs or files as well.

/seewhatIdidthere
 
It seems to me like MS makes a solid OS every other version.

Win 7 - solid
Vista - skip
XP -solid
ME -skip
98 - solid (for the time)
......
 
Putting keywords "design disaster", along side something as massive as “Windows 8”, in your article title, will earn your Web-site more advertising revenue than if you put the words “Ok”. It is called Troll-baiting or Fanboy-baiting. “Disaster” has bigger audience catchments than “Ok”. Words like “crap” & “rubbish” have also been used too much. "design disaster" is a new one, and is much more posh because it has the word "design” in it, and “disaster" which is big, as is Microsoft.:cool:
 
canna said:
It seems to me like MS makes a solid OS every other version.

Win 7 - solid
Vista - skip
XP -solid
ME -skip
98 - solid (for the time)
......
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Kind of like Star Trek movies,the good ones are always followed by a clunker.
 
canna said:
It seems to me like MS makes a solid OS every other version.

Win 7 - solid
Vista - skip
XP -solid
ME -skip
98 - solid (for the time)
......
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That only works if you conveniently skip any OS that doesn't happen to match the paradigm.

Windows 95 came before 98 and was what I would call a good OS. You also skipped Windows 2000. You're also ignoring the 64-bit movement. Windows XP 64-bit was terrible, but Vista was the first OS that made 64-bit truly mainstream. Vista64, especially after good 64-bit drivers had come out, was a fantastic OS that is 90% of what Windows 7 is.
 
Krieger91 said:
What exactly are the improvements over Win 7?
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One thing that comes to mind is File Copying. It shows you more detail about the file transfer and allows you to pause and resume. It also can change network paths without interrupting a transfer. Like let's say you started a file transfer over wireless. You noticed it going pretty slow so you take your laptop over and plug in an Ethernet cable. Windows 8 will automatically detect that, and without any user interaction the file transfer will automatically start to transfer over the faster Ethernet connection. If you unplugged the Ethernet, the transfer would seamlessly switch back to the slower wireless. In Windows 7 it will simply try to transfer over whatever connection you have set as primary, and if you switch connections mid-transfer, the transfer will fail. If you plug in a faster connection, Win7 will remain ignorant and keep transferring over the slower connection.

But nothing that is actually worth having to deal with Metro. I'm looking forward to being able to use these new features with a real UI in windows 9.
 
GotNoRice said:
That only works if you conveniently skip any OS that doesn't happen to match the paradigm.

Windows 95 came before 98 and was what I would call a good OS. You also skipped Windows 2000. You're also ignoring the 64-bit movement. Windows XP 64-bit was terrible, but Vista was the first OS that made 64-bit truly mainstream. Vista64, especially after good 64-bit drivers had come out, was a fantastic OS that is 90% of what Windows 7 is.
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Windows NT
 
GotNoRice said:
That only works if you conveniently skip any OS that doesn't happen to match the paradigm.

Windows 95 came before 98 and was what I would call a good OS. You also skipped Windows 2000. You're also ignoring the 64-bit movement. Windows XP 64-bit was terrible, but Vista was the first OS that made 64-bit truly mainstream. Vista64, especially after good 64-bit drivers had come out, was a fantastic OS that is 90% of what Windows 7 is.
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I'm looking at the mainstream consumer segment. Windows 2000 and XP-64 were not mainstream OSes that many people used in their home or had to contend with when buying a new PC. I'll give you windows 95, but looking back over the last 14 years or so, MS has been on an "every other OS is solid path", windows 8 looks to continue this trend.
 
Steve said:
While I do agree with some of the points this guy makes, I don't know if I would go as far as calling Windows 8 a "design disaster."
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Why not Steve?

Design Disaster is one of the things everybody who hasn't been sent a cheque or a free laptop/tablet from Microsoft has been saying about Windows 8.
 
I actually talked to some MS people about this a while back in beta - I raised my hand and said "i hate the new interface is there any way we can just get a desktop? All this metro stuff just won't fly in a business"

There were long talks about how the desktop is just an app now, someone asked where the start button is, geek laughter abound and I raised my hand again and said"

"you're not listening to me, metro does not fly as a corporate interface, you have to think of companies the size of well...you. Why do you think so many corps still run XP? No one wants to train 90K people on metro and how to use the new PC, the cost is to enourmous."

I see they listened lol...not
 
I said it when I first tried the dev preview and even though I use Windows 8 daily now I'll still say it. The change from Metro to desktop is very jarring, especially with the Aero effects removed. Everything looks so squre and pointy. They really could have done a better job with integrating the desktop overall. I like many of the improvements in the OS, but it does feel like they are gluing two completely seperate UIs together.
 
All the "Oh it's another Vista!" is such bullcrap.

The only problems with Vista was that it needed another 3-4 months in the oven, the hardware manufacturers were too lazy to write drivers for it and the retailers just filled the new machines with bloatware designed for XP.

If you install a fresh Vista SP2 build on a machine it works just as smooth as 7 in 99.99% of cases.
 
groebuck said:
I see they listened lol...not
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Microsoft is being very odd about how they manage relations with the public. If you look at Apple, they don't generally listen to user feedback, but they don't ask for it either: they believe they know what's best for users, and they're absolutely resolute in this belief. They project an extreme confidence in their products and what they're doing. Microsoft asks for feedback but generally doesn't listen to feedback. They believe what they're doing is right, and they will seek out validation for it, but they simply crawl into their shells when the flak starts flying. Microsoft appears to have little genuine confidence in what they're doing: they seem to feign it, but they really desperately want validation for what they're doing, and when they don't get it, they lash out.

It's absolutely bizarre.
 
michael.pa2 said:
Kind of like Star Trek movies,the good ones are always followed by a clunker.
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I don't know man.

I thought the first three were good, and then we got "The Voyage Home" which was funny, but not a terribly serious Star Trek film.

The we got the Final Frontier which was absolutely horrendous. "What would God need with a Starship?" :p

The undiscovered country was pretty good, and the next generations films Generations, and First contact were both solid films. Insurrection was pretty bad, and I never saw Nemesis.

I was expecting the new TOS Star Trek movie with new cast by J.J. Abrams to suck, but it was actually pretty good.

I just don't feel it matches the every other trend as well as you'd like :p

1.) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (good)
2.) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (great)
3.) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (good)
4.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (silly, but funny, ultimately enjoyable)
5.) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (Miserably bad)
6.) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (good)
7.) Star Trek: Generations (good)
8.) Star Trek: First Contact (very good)
9.) Star Trek: Insurrection (awful)
10.) Star Trek: Nemesis (never saw, can't comment)
11.) Star Trek (JJ Abrams) (surprisingly good, even though I was expecting to hate it)
 
i hated Win8 from the minute i completed the installation and started to actually try to find anything. it's much more complicated to try to find stuff that you're used to finding a certain way, and will never believe that the "tiles" way is the better way for a non-touch-enabled system.

if MS insists on releasing Win8 without even the option to switch back to a "normal" desktop mode full-time, i will do what i did with WinVista....skip it.

and not to mention from a support perspective, trying to get anyone using Win8 anywhere to troubleshoot things will be a MASSIVE headache, since basically EVERYTHING has changed.

MS, they take one step forward, and about 20 steps back...... :rolleyes:
 
Vista was only bad that first year ....when the video drivers especially were not ready to perform in prime time. all the hardware that vista did not have support for..well niether does win 7 ...but a few years had gone by and so it was not as essential people could just upgrade to new hardware.
 
:confused:Do you think that anyone working for Microsoft thinks that it is a Design Disaster?
 
syncore said:
This gets rid of Metro (until reboot, I believe). I'm about to try it out myself
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And any of these:
windows_7_retail_box.png

will get rid of Metro permanently :)
 
At the end of the day it's all about MS being 100% committed to building a App Store worthy to compete with Apple and Google. They are desperate for it to succeed so are just railroading users into it.

It's nothing to do with giving us the users a better user experience. Nothing wonderful or philanthropic.

It's all about the apps and us paying for them. Well we all know what we can do about that.;)
 
DW-UK said:
:confused:Do you think that anyone working for Microsoft thinks that it is a Design Disaster?
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Microsoft is trying to create a ecosystem that sucks people in. To do this you must have a unified interface. That means you can't go around making a different interface for different devices. One size fits all sorta thing.

I'm sure there's been a lot of Microsoft employee's against this, but money talks. They're trying to do the same thing Apple did, and that's to bring people in and lock them in. So you'll own a Windows Laptop, tablet, phone, and even game console.

By keeping the interface the same it ensures that people will stick to the product. Even if Windows 8 were to fail, Microsoft could always quickly release Windows 9, or Windows Viesta! Microsoft can always afford to bounce back, they've done it with Vista. If it pays off, they'll have consumers locked in the Windows ecosystem forever.
 
Azhar said:
I find myself trying to locate apps in the jumbled mess that hasn't been pinned to Start Menu for whatever reason - I don't use it often, not really pin-worthy (SQL Server Configuration Manager for example). What used to be a simple task of scrolling down All Programs alphabetically, I find my eyes wander all over the place in All Apps even though I know it's also alphabetical, taking several times longer to locate something. Perhaps all they need to do is bolden and change the color of each "app folder" fonts (Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for example) and make the apps within have smaller fonts.
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You are the first but sadly not the last in this thread that for some reason ignore the ability to just type what you are looking for.

As is mentioned other places in this thread, this is NOT a new feature. But for the love of something to hit people with, it sure as heck is ignored a lot.
 
Microsoft has always had a hard time with UI designs. Go back as far as win mobile and you will see. For lack of betters words, microsoft just never quite "gets it". Even their Metro design, their best effort yet, smacks of some desperate attempt to differentiate themselves from the competition. Whilst the competition had some genuinely good ideas pioneered on their own, MS simply set to make theirs "different". This kind of attitude results in a shoddy contraption that never quite knew what it was. Just look at Metro on any cell phone, A good 15% of the screen or more goes unused, the icons are stuck to one side breaking symmetry, lots of wasted space. The whole thing just feels like some horrid mutation of android/iOS.

Obviously Apple set the bar, and they set it high. Google ripped it off but made it better through openness, and windows just kinda sat outside in the rain trying to think of ways to make theirs stand out. Now they're trying to force it into the rest of their products, and I do not think it will work.
 
bcrisp82 said:
don't feed the guy hits. pure retardation being spewed from an "independent blogger"
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Your fear is based on the rational, but incorrect assumption that people actually read these articles before commenting. I don't know about you, but because I'm illiterate, I never bother with that formality before I type in a post.
 
I'm curious why there's so much hate for Windows 8. I've been using it exclusively for the past couple of weeks, and for the most part it has been nearly identical to Windows 7. :confused:

I must admit I had to search to find how to shutdown the computer (Windows Key + i) and how to get to the "start" menu (Windows Key ), but for the most part it's the same damn thing as Windows 7. File copying is better, and I don't bother with a third party file copying app any more like I did with Windows 7.

I certainly wouldn't pay to upgrade to Windows 8, but if I was building or buying a new computer I wouldn't hesitate to put Windows 8 on it.
 
Naed said:
You are the first but sadly not the last in this thread that for some reason ignore the ability to just type what you are looking for.

As is mentioned other places in this thread, this is NOT a new feature. But for the love of something to hit people with, it sure as heck is ignored a lot.
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What makes you think I haven't? The reason I used obscured program names in my example above is because it's an example of a program I rarely use that I would have to find - and remember the name of - in Start Menu. I'm well aware of the Start Menu search feature and I do use it.
 
mzs_biteme said:
I just can’t shake the feeling that Windows 8 would be better off as two separate operating systems. A ‘classic’ Windows 8 for regular desktop and notebook systems - which would feel more like a service pack for Windows 7 than a full release — and a separate ‘Metro’ version for touch-enabled hardware.

^This 100%....
I had the same exact feeling 5min after installing Win8 preview on my laptop..... :rolleyes:
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Agreed... 15 minutes after installing Windows 8 on my PC I'm already popping in my Windows 7 Ultimate DVD... :rolleyes:
 
I've tried to be as open minded about Windows 8 as I could be. I've had to battle hating it every step of the way in doing so. I just recently spent a few days with the newest build they released to the public and over those few days, I hardly wanted to use my computer.

The general feedback from everything I am seeing and reading is that people in general do not like it. In most cases, hate it.

Windows Vista all over again.

You would think after Vista, they would have learned their lessons over that mess. Doesn't seem so.

My girlfriend and I have actually been talking about going over to Apple for the ease of use and dual booting into Windows 7 when I want to play a game that is PC specific. I am just getting so wore down with all this Microsoft inconsistent bullshit in their OS's.
 
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