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Are Windows XP/7 Users Smarter Than a 3-Year-Old?
theodp writes "Those sounding the alarm about the difficulty in making the transition to Windows 8, especially on traditional computers, should check out Adam Desrosiers' son Julian, a 3-year-old kid who uses Windows 8 like a champ. 'I read these tech pundits and journalists discussing how hard it's gonna be for the general public to learn the new UI of Windows 8,' says Desrosiers. 'Nonsense. The long and short of it is: If my 3 years old son can learn Windows 8 through very moderate usage, anybody with half a brain can do so too.' Bill Gates has already successfully made the transition to what he calls an 'unbelievably great' Microsoft Surface. On Friday, we'll start finding out if current Windows XP and Windows 7 users are also smarter than the average 3-year-old!"
won't be using windoze to begin with.
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They can't concentrate long enough to do any work...
I guess that makes Windows 8 a toy system... and still not suitable for work.
...but I think I will pass this round, thanks anyway. Marketing department appealing to peoples egos to make a sale, now?
No doubt anyone can learn it. Doesn't mean we want or need to.
LMAO
So because a 3 year old can use the playskool interface the rest of us should suck it up? Dear Adam, no one gives a flying shit about you or your kid.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Finally a great tutorial!
Gee, this really makes me want to upgrade right away.
"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no"
Seriously, is the entire point of this story to somehow manipulate me to prove that I am smarter than a 3 year old by familiarizing myself with Windows 8?
Whatever.
Can windows XP and windows 7 users transition to the Win 8 UI?
Yes, probably
Should they have to, to further Microsofts device ambitions?
No absolutely not!
Is it a good idea from a usability perspective
No absolutely not!
ask your 3 year old to do anything more trivial than starting a game app... (e.g. say change screen resolution, find out what IP address machine has, change said IP address to static, FTP a file from another computer, FTP a file to another computer, SSH into another computer, run a certain program for all files in a folder---or simply create a Word document explaining how he'd do all these things).
It might be not that hard to learn the new UI. It is probably hard to unlearn the old one. And with years it gets harder and harder to learn new things and to change the old habits.
Millions of children in China learn Chinese every year, without even really trying! And you think it's so difficult ... it must be because Chinese is incredibly easy to learn and you're just stupider than a baby.
Just because you sold your soul to the devil that needn't make you a teetotaler. --The Devil and Daniel Webster
I don't think the complaint is that the Windows 8 interface is hard to learn, it seems pretty simplistic. The argument that the user experience of Windows has been more-or-less consistent since Windows 95. Unlearning 15+ years of an interface is difficult for anyone, but giving a three year old something that is new for him at a time in his life when learning isn't an exception it's the absolute norm is not a valid test for the hypothesis concerning the general public adoption of Windows 8.
It departments here it all the time: "why can't you just upgrade to Windows 8, my 12-year old kid did that to our laptop". Did the 12-year old kid have to cope with ensuring all applications are in support, the money for the database upgrade has been deferred a year, and the Finance department are using an ancient app that needs a replacement researched? Whould their kid e fired for saying "dad the PCs not working after the upgrade"? I hate articles like this
Sounds like the 3 year old in question is either a prodigy, or someone is exaggerating. Most 3 year old children don't know how to read to be able to use a computer. The child is either a prodigy who can read by the age of 3, or they are associating pictures they're used to seeing on a tablet to get to their games. They don't use a computer like an adult for all the same purposes. He or she simply wants to get to a game to play.
You are outdone by a 3 year old kid unless you have windows 8. This isn't even news more like corporate propaganda.
There are 3yr olds who are adept at linux/apple/andriod. Also MS appear to have finally trimmed some of the fat for a change as W8 has a much smaller footprint than its recent predecessors and is considerably faster its just the cludgy replacement for the start menu that's got everyone pissing!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
A kid is exactly the benchmark we should be using for this. After all, a 3 year old is exactly the target market: they are the people using computers all day long in banks, call centers, offices etc where you don't need to worry about getting the software to do what you want in the manner you need it to: i.e. make your job easier.
It's breaking from old habits and getting new.
The reason people don't move away from Windows, a mediocre and unsafe operating system, to something better, either Linux or OSX, is that they don't want to waste time learning new tricks. They put up, with the crashes, the fact that they have to allocate part of the resources to run an anti-virus, for the comfort of familiarity. If Microsoft changes that they might discover that people when forced to change old habits, they might change to a better OS.
Lost count of the number of people I easily convinced to move to open source office suites when Microsoft changed the interface of Office to that obnoxious thing they have now, just because they weren't willing to waste time looking for stuff that the open source kept in familiar places.
I still don't know anyone who knows how to use the ribbon.
actually, I don't think it's about intelligence here - it's more about patterns that you are already used to. Young kids are still very flexible and learn everything very fast. The older you get, the less flexible you are. You stay within your known patterns. Windows 8 breaks with that and calling people that are used to something and have difficulties in changing their way of thinking (just be cause they are old) dumb doesn't really help. I once had a colleague that said something along the line "You won't teach flying to an old eagle" (translated from German) but I fear it's true.
Just because a three-year old finds it easy to poop into a plastic bowl doesn't mean we should all start pooping into plastic bowls.
But I suspect win8 will continue the pattern of hiding useful menus and dialog boxes under more and more layers of what I consider obfuscated crap eye candy. My primary goal when using a computer is to get it back to functioning normally or at least how the client thinks is normally.
Each iteration of windows has placed more and more "purty" screens in front of the administrative tools and log files I usually need to fix something.
I will buy Win8 next week but mainly because I need to find where they have hidden the useful stuff before people start to bring the broken/mis-configured/AIO-printer install from hell, POS systems to me to fix or at least save their data/mail file from the only cost effective method of repair left open to the end user ie: (nuke it from orbit and reload)
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
Because have learned how something is done, but not why, and refuse to learn a different way that perhaps is better ( or just new ).
-Woof woof woof!
> Nonsense. The long and short of it is: If my 3 years old son can learn Windows 8 through very moderate usage, anybody with half a brain can do so too.
1. A three-year old doesn't do anything serious.
2. It's not whether I CAN learn to use it, the question is whether I WANT to use those cycles to learn a different way to do the same thing, when I could be productive instead.
for grown up men who wish to get serious work done, you know.... like coding, making things happen; Windows XP and Linux distros are the thing.
Balls to Ballmer... he can go play with his dolls.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I thought the problem wasn't so much that the interface couldn't be learned, but that it was terrible to actually use.
Fisher - Price called, they want their UI back.
Was his 3yr old doing something productive? What previously learned skills and software had his son to give up to make the transition from windows 2K/XP/7 to windows 8? Adam Desrosier is completely missing to central point of the windows 8 critiques, that is that an OS should stay out of the way and have a consistent user interface. Windows 8 break both of these with the introduction of radically new interface while keeping the "classic" view for the part of the software.
Well my dog can shit outside, doesn't mean I need to as well.
Now get him to go into the network device settings and disable TCP offloading. Or change the IP. Or remove a rogue program from the context menu when you right-click files.
Whoops. Maybe that analogy doesn't seem so close now, does it?
Sure a 3-year-old can "use" the OS to do everything a 3 year old might want to do. But how easy is it for a parent to configure so that that 3-year-old CAN'T do things (e.g. get on the Internet in any way, shape or form, but be on the wireless so he can print out his work?), or for someone to set it up so that even the most genius 3-year-old + parent helping can't modify the settings you don't want modified (so that the staff member who brings their kid into school and let's them "just play" on the laptop can't run off and mess up their computer?)
That's an ENTIRELY different question. And something a 3-year-old can't do, and probably never will be able to do, on a Windows 8 PC.
My complaint with Windows 8 is not the lack of ability for a newbie to do things. It's the exact opposite. A lack of ability for a SKILLED IT USER to do things, and also a lack of ability to STOP a newbie doing things that are hard to undo for them (A show of hands: How many network admin's usual policy is to just delete the network profile of a user having trouble when the hardware is working fine and let it recreate itself?)
It is about having the functionality you want being hidden, removed, or made harder with the new UI. You can make a few function which are very easy for a 3 year old. B.F.D. the problem are the more advanced functions. Some things are not so "cool" with the finger interface.
Only proves that Windows 8 is made for 3 years old kids
.. says it's "unbelievably great?"
You, know what? He's right. I don't believe it.
End of line..
I don't think anybody is saying that Windows 8 is going to be completely unusable. This kid is obviously getting coaching from his parent. I'm sure anyone can be taught to use the OS. I'm also sure that they won't complain if they've never used anything different. That doesn't mean that Windows 8 contains any worthwhile changes.
The fundamental problem is that they are trying to shoehorn a single operating system into two very different user experiences. Touch-screen based systems tend to have small screens, and they NEED large icons/menus so your finger can accurately select what you are to get to. Mouse-based systems allow for very precise selection, and because of that, they should be maximizing the amount of information that you have access to while MINIMIZING the number of clicks it takes to get there.
Oh, and insulting me is surely not the best way to convince me that Windows 8 is great. I'm not going to buy an operating system based on a dare.
-- Sent from a computer.
is the latest phase in Microsoft's search for the one true interface.
maybe they should learn something from Malcolm Gladwell when he talks about spaghetti sauce.
http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I doubt the 3 y/o has a long history of using a prior Windows system, so he has no prior UI learning that must be unlearned to use Windows 8. Children also have a much higher neuroplasticity, making it easier to pick up new things than older people (age 20+)
Of course it's not impossible for anyone to learn Windows 8 -- but it is absurd to say that just because a child, coming at this tabula rasa, can do this, that somehow means that it will be just as easy for you to do it. (Both my 5 year old, and 3 year old can load movies into VLC media player on Ubuntu, use an android tablet, and play games on Ubuntu -- this means piss-all w/r/t teaching my mom how to use the same)
XCom: Enemy Unknown has a 3D main interface where you can go to the seperate areas, with a fly animation zooming in on the sub sections of your base.
Nice the first time, meh the second, the 1000th time you scream and rage at your monitor and hurl the cat out the window.
Newbie friendly is a great market because you never run out of newbies but the moment a newbie has grown beyond the need for a newbie interface, you lost him forever.
There isn't much repeat business in the training wheel market.
W8 is MS Bob all over again. For older people like me, the desktop is like my toes, haven't seen it in decades. I startup the applications I need automatically and never even minimize them, the desktop could display my golden ticket to nirvana and I will never ever see it.
W8 to me adds just cruft I don't need or want and that increasingly seems to desire to get in the way. I don't use active desktop, widgets or gadgets (98, Vista and W7). The desktop has one use, to stop my applications from falling into the monitor.
I need a start menu to groups application, a taskbar to switch and that is it. End of fucking story.
And trying to sell me on something new because a 3yr old likes it... 3yr olds also like teletubbies, boogers and the word poop. poop... POOP! eheh POOP!!!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
At age 3 a child has an incredible ability to learn. It's half way/near the end of the prime time for learning languages.
Contrast that to an oldster that is losing the ability to learn by degrees. When you add the given amount of "old fart"iness, lack of patience, "...back in my day," or downright lack of care then you have a problem.
On top of it, it gains them *nothing*. This is a move that manipulates people into using their interface for a corporate advantage. It's classic Microsoft.
N/T :)
The OS is just a platform to run your apps. Why are they making it seem like the OS is more than just a platform to run your apps? My software uses Windows, and I use my software, doesn't mean I use windows.
This whole idiotic notion of the OS being important started when Microsoft realized Windows was the most used desktop OS in the world, they figured people must love Windows. Nobody loves Windows! We all cope with it because it runs our god damn software. The only way Windows could be better is if it got out of the way and made our software run better and faster. Microsoft doesn't seem to understand that, they somehow think people care about the OS. I'm sure a huge majority of the users don't even know what an OS is.
Admit it, if you use Windows, it's only because it runs your software. The majority of my software runs only on Windows... but that's changing. Linux has lots of great software, and the moment when Linux has the majority of my software will be the moment when I ditch Windows for good and never look back, and I can see that date in the horizon already and there's nothing Microsoft can do to stop it. (except anti-competitiveness)
... a 3-year-old kid who uses Windows 8 like a champ
Hello Julian. What's happening? Um, I'm gonna need you go ahead and come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around nine, that would be great. (starts to walk away) Oh, oh, yeaI forgot. I'm gonna also need you to come in Sunday too. We, uh, lost some people this week and we need to sorta catch up. Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
Why do people relate intelligence with age? People do not get smarter the older they get, quite often the opposite as IQ tends to decrease with age. There are 3 year olds that are smarter then adults, and vice-versa. There are genius 3 year olds and stupid 3 year olds.
What is really being said is that people without preconceived notions of how computer interfaces work will get used to a completely new interface standard than people who have been using a completely different format for the past 15 years, which I would have considered completely obvious. It would be the same with people transitioning from QWERTY to Dvorak as opposed to those with no typing experience, those without experience would get used to Dvorak much faster.
That the offices full of three year olds that run most companies will love it.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
My 4 year old uses GNOME Shell, but she has her 6 year old brother help her launch MineCraft from the terminal.
No I'm not joking. Kids aren't stupid, so how about not giving them interfaces for idiots.
I actually like windows 8 for my own use, but I am also supporting a number of older users who are lost when faced with
windows 8. I see a train wreck coming for the general public.
That looked incredibly fiddly. Invisible corners (I use 'em on my mac but only for multi-desktop). Tricky start "screen". Why do I want to stick things to the side of the screen? Why does the weather app need to take over the whole screen?! Anyway... I'm sure it will improve and I'll get it. Damn, I've changed UI so often another change means nothing to me - maybe I'm commonly using half a dozen UI's a day. Lemme count - WinXP, Gnome, Blackberry, Playbook, iPad, HTC One X, plain Android not to mention a variety of applications and there UIs... then there's the ones I create!
I think that the sort of $stuff being done there is much more suited to a touch screen.
However, my lad has been using his mummy's "Tap Tap" (iPad) for a few months. He's just turned 2 and accomplished those tasks being shown there in a fraction of the time - in large amount because the device is that easy and the touch screen allows for direct manipulation which little 'uns get much more than mice and gamepads (he hasn't figured out the Nintendo DS yet which annoys him as he loves Yoshi) . He knows what the home button does, knows about Youtube "cows, cows, cows", old Pingu and steam trains!. He tries to play Angry Birds, World of Goo, Bad Piggies but really he likes sit on daddy's lap and watch (that's me BTW). He gets to the pictures and scrolls them around etc. I put Geometry Wars on there... he tried to play it but that's HARDCORE!!! (and nothing beats 2 analogue sticks anyway).
I do wonder about what effect this will have on him but, TBH, as a parent I've learnt if it isn't one influence it's another and this one doesn't seem bad at all. He's been playing on it for about 5 months I suppose and pretty much has it nailed although he will stick all his fingers on the screen then be a bit baffled when the task manager appears.
He's learnt that whenever he gets lost or confused that he should go for the home button. My mama-bear pointed that out a few times - he understood.
He loved it till I got a Playbook - which has excellent speakers (compared to iPad). Now he wants "daddy tap tap" so we can listen and dance to Surfin' Bird!
Anyhoo... Gotta crack on with work so I can go home and play with my boy!!!
Any other geeky mum's and dad's got a story about tech and their little ones?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Three year olds have very adaptable brains, and don't have set expectations or things to un-learn.
A sixty year old who has been using the computer the same way for over a decade is going to have a more difficult time adapting simply due to how the brain works. That doesn't reflect on their intelligence at all - it reflects on fundamental biology.
I'm pretty sure at one point Slashdot editors would have known that and not posted something this stupid, but I guess they need to bait people with "my 3 year old is smarter then you" BS to get pageviews.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
but why am I afraid its going to turn using my desktop into something that feels more like using an iPhone or a tablet or an ATM?
This space available.
The 3-year-old doesn't have 15+ years of muscle memory on doing things the old Windows desktop way.
People who start out using OSX seem to like it. I once had to troubleshoot a system using OSX and wanted to throw it through the window – everything was just wrong compared to what I was used to.
Yes, in time, you could learn to do things differently – but unless there's a good reason, why should I? And if Microsoft is going to throw everything topsy-turvy, take away the reasons why I use their OS, then why should my next OS choice be theirs? If I'm getting screwed up anyway, why wouldn't I take the chance to screw them back by jumping ship?
They haven't been conditioned on where say the control panel is, how to do this that or the other thing (a lot of the stuff from 95 is still carried over in 7.. and the stuff that's really moved or changed hasn't been moved or changed very far/much).
It's easy to learn something when you're young as your brain is more apt at learning. Also, it helps a TON when you don't have set prior ways/habits/etc to compete with.
Now this may be taking it to an extreme, but I look at it this way. My son has Type II Fibular hemimelia/paraxial fibular hemimelia/longitudinal fibular deficiency (which means his Fibula is completely missing in his right leg). This caused that leg to be shorter from the knee down and for his foot to point downward and he had to learn to walk by walking on his tippy-toes (his only option). He did that just fine and actually was walking early.
The condition he had required amputation. They cut most of his foot off (basically just saving the heel to act as a cushion for his ankle area. He needed to have a cast on for 2 months, which was bend at his knee some so it was less likely to fall off. He again learned to walk and stand with in this situation. Then after 2 months, the removed the cast and the pin that was in place holding the heel pad to the bottom of his leg (the pin went up into the tibia bone), and a prosthesis made. Again, it took him a matter of hours to get use to it and walking. He drives his power wheels pick-up truck by using his left leg (this was when his cast was on as well as when it was taken off and he had his prosthesis). He hangs his right leg over the center console.
Now for ME to try to drive like that.. I don't know that I could or how long it would take me to get use to that. Or an even simpler example, my grand father is retired from the Air Force.. flew B-17's in WWII and moved up to Colonel. From all his experience, he drives a car like he did a plane.. left foot for the brake pedal and right foot for the gas.
Again, I've tried that. I eat the steering wheel any time I go to brake. Not to mention the cars I drive are manuals, so I'd most likely either end up trying to stop with the clutch, or go to shift and lock up the tires.
...and I've been using it that long. No kidding it might take me longer to adapt than a 3 year old. I've been using vi for decades too. Does that mean I'm not that bright if it takes a little longer for me to get used to emacs than someone who's brand new. The premise of this argument is more than flawed. It's asinine.
No.
leave Windows 8 to children.
Back to work with somer *real* OS guys!
Almost gave you views.
"But he isn't wearing anything at all!"
Worst. Signature. Ever.
And probably no 3-year-old. I don't have a touch screen and fat chance will you see me buying a touch-screen IPS monitor for the sole purpose of smudging my workspace. Sorry, Microsoft, but my love for you is on its death bed. It was a long ride, but you made a fatal mistake believing touch would unseat they keyboard and mouse. I might have a little wine in celebration of your life.
Child presses box, application opens. Film at 11.
Everyone knows that children younger than five are adept at learning nearly anything you wish to teach them. So this isn't a true test of how easy Win8 is to use. To make a legitimate test, you'd have to select a person (or group of people) whose age is well beyond the toddler stage and, most likely, a senior citizen who's never used a computer before. THEN you might have the basis for a legitimate test. Of course, the test will have to be more than just opening a video or picture album. You'd have to prove usability in several common areas such as email, web, video chat and the like.
Think of me when you shave your legs...
obama or romney some choice ROFL....bribed bought out number 1 , or bribed bought out number 2
no capitalism gives you no choice and it in fact suppresses you to have inequality.
This is an entire article trolling on the basis of the logical fallacy called the straw man. The argument was never that we couldn't learn to use Windows 8. The argument is that the existing interface is better for mouse users than the new one, with less pointer motion and just as much use of muscle memory. Trolling article is trolling. So is slashdot, by repeating it. Nothing to see here, please move along.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...always the one I've been using for the past nn years. I already know EXACTLY how to do all the tasks required to be productive in my job. Any change, no matter how well intentioned, requires me to stop focusing on my work and focus on figuring out how to use my new tool. Why MS keeps changing the Office interface every release is a total mystery to me. They should have one preference button I can click on to set the menus back to 2003. Doesn't anyone designing that software recognize that the installed base completely dwarfs the first time users?
Don't we want intuitively-designed GUIs? If anyone can use it, it's a sign of success, not failure.
"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." George Bernard Shaw
They want to know if they are dumb'in down the users nough.
If my 3 years old son can learn Windows 8 through very moderate usage, anybody with half a brain can do so too.
What I get out of that is that it is a toy operating system, and only someone with half a brain would use Windows 8, or at least use it for something other than a toy. With this news, it finally all makes sense now, I just never knew the target market for Win8.
"Bill Gates has already successfully made the transition to what he calls an 'unbelievably great' Microsoft Surface."
now re-read article above it written by a poor author....it nearly implies bill gates is 3.
It's reminds me of all the doom and gloom over the Ribbon UI and how people would never accept and it'll be the downfall of Office.
In reality, I've been in three companies now which have transitioned from Office 2003 to one of the versions with the ribbon. In all three cases, they provided some documentation on the intranet (a couple of pages in a PDF, not very much), an hour long class for people who really wanted it (of which take up was pretty poor) and floor walkers in the first two weeks helping anyone with problems.
It took about 2-3 weeks for people to get used to the software. A month later and the large majority were perfectly happy and only a select few wanted to go back to Office 2003.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I suppose he had the three-year-old try to complete a complex CAD project on that shitty UI, or maybe administer an active directory domain controller using the fucking horrible Metro interface in Windows Server 2012?
Obligatory Marx Brothers' quote
What can the rest of us do without a 3-year-old at hand?
We're clearly ignoring all of the 3-year-olds that have tried Windows 8 and failed.
Candy Land is obviously a far better game than Chess or Go, because it is much easier for a three-year-old to learn.
I've been using XP since 2001 and previous Windows before that. It'll be tough to relearn such a drastically changed interface...WHY isn't the "classic view" still available? There shouldn't be any impact in what's "under the hood"....
While I understand you need to get the message about how easy-to-use the new Windows 8 interface is, I think you may wish to re-evaluate your plans of doing so by insulting the intelligence of your users. This piece comes off less of a challenge to your customers ("Surely you are smarter than a 3-year old!") and more of an insult ("Ha! You guys are having problems with the UI but my interface manages it just fine!"). Please instruct your shills on this subtle difference in future advertorials.
First place, the kid is not "using Windows 8" - he's a robot following instructions from his dad.
Second place, the kid is not really using a mouse very well at all - "that is a little tricky to get".
And, as so many posters have pointed out, the kid isn't doing anything useful at all.
Of course a 3rd grader can use it.
It was DESIGNED for them to use it.
Ever see idiocracy? The UI for Win8 almost spot-on mimics the 'medical clinic computer' with idiotic giant icons because stupid people (and children) need them.
I'm an adult, thanks, and I have a method of using my computer; my priorities are efficiency and effectiveness, not ease-of-use. I'm uninterested in an OS that promises ease-of-use-uber-alles.
-Styopa
The rest of us will see that once again the bar has been lowered. Anyone will the skills and dexterity of a three year old will feal enabled, anyone else trapped.
That's the long and short of it.
If Microsoft wants to wait for the 3 year olds to grow up, fine, do that.
Otherwise, give us what we want, our real UI back.
I for one refuse to even consider touching Windows 8 without a real UI - that tile bullshit is not a UI - it's a gross waste of millions of development dollars.
I don't have a touch screen, I don't even own a tablet or smart phone - so fuck off with that bullshit interface. I want what I like, what I like is what I've used for 20+ years.
Thanks,
I can't say it's been a pleasure working with you Microsoft, but you've signed your death warrant with Windows 8.
So most adult in the city used ATM's. that means a lot is my my friends! Bwahahahaha... and my teacher told me i have the IQ of a monkey..
Btw next time you take X-Ray/CT/MR exams, don't ask the doctors. Better ask your's 3 years old for your prognosis. Most of those equipments used XP.
1. Make condescending vid comparing folks who don't like your new UI with someone's 3yo 2. ??? 3. Profit?
This is all easily explained by user experience testing. Take a bunch of people who don't know how to use a computer, put various interfaces in front of them, and see which is easier for them to learn how to use. The net result? The Ribbon, and Windows 8. The reality though is that all the people that were used to the old way now have to relearn how to use the tools, and often, the "easiest" to learn is also the less powerful in getting real work done day in and day out. This what I believe MS has been doing for years now--focusing on "how easy is it to learn" vs. "how useful is it to people that use it every day".
Microsoft declared the Windows 95 user interface some great research project where it was determined to be the best UI since sliced bread. Forget that they attempted to include even a small portion of the UI elements in the IBM OS/2 UI called the Workplaceshell but had to back them out because of performance issues. Vista was said to be the same, 'research said' or 'users asked for' blah blah blah. And so world and his dog have hammered through using that UI for going on 2 decades.
So exactly how many years of experience with the XP UI has this 3 year old had? I'm sure the kid is also simulating workloads found in the typical office setup too.
These kinds of Microsoft promotions remind me of why I dislike election season too. Lots of ads with little validity all over the place.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I don't think any sane person, here or anywhere else, would argue "I am incapable of figuring out how to use the Windows 8 interface". Obviously we are, we're all intelligent people, and the Windows 8 interface does behave deterministically and all. The argument is simply that it gets in your face far more than 7 or previous, making it take longer to do any real work with it by virtue of its not being designed for that purpose. Which means, sorry, the 3 year old doesn't really matter, given that I doubt the 3 year old was -trying- to get real work done.
It probably is a great toy for playing toddler games on, though. Perhaps they should have marketed it for that purpose.
Is he able to configure the network? Setup some DNS entries, routes, proxies, wireless, etc. Install/uninstall software, maybe some user management? I'm sure it is really easy to turn it on and open a browser, but that isn't really accomplishing much. Yeah, I only read the summary...this is /.
The biggest hurdle I've noticed with most users (well, ok, my parents) is "I don't want to break something", and that thought seems to paralyze them as soon as something unexpected pops up. A 3-year-old is probably not thinking about that.
Can you figure out how to acheived tasks? Certainly. How much time will you spend and how comfortable will you be as you use it.
For example, hit start, then type 'cmd', then right click to run as administrator. The steps are in fact fairly similar. In Windows 7 and under, mouse users are given a fairly short movement to select run as administrator. In Windows 8 they intentionally spread this out, so your mouse has to travel across the entire display. This isn't a big deal in and of itself, but it adds up quickly. The act of spreading everything out to allow for coarse-grained touch interaction badly impacts mouse movement.
Then there is the whole ecosystem nightmare of some desktops running Metro, some not, some can run these full screen apps, some not, some apps come with both desktop and Metro style interfaces under the same name (e.g. IE) making for ambiguous behavior on job launch.
Microsoft BOB was also easy to learn. But do you really want to do all your work like that?
Over the years I have learned more GUIs and UIs than I can even count. Many of them required reading 100+ page manuals. It only took me a few minutes of experimenting to "figure out" windows 8. The problem with Windows 8 isn't that it is hard to learn (although some visual cues for certain features would be helpful). The problem is that it doesn't work in the way I need do to my work, no mater how much I "relearn"
I stepped up to a windowing environment back in the early 90s when I no longer was stuck with a tiny little monitor. Now they want to throw me back to DOS-Like full screen applications with Metro! (I refuse to call it "Modern UI" because it is not)
Are we somehow now saying that all the people who wanted a windowing document oriented file-folder interface with the Xerox Star, Apple Lisa/Macintosh, and Windows 9x were totally wrong?
If this new dumbed down MS BOB-like interface really makes some people happy then fine, but it creates a problem for the rest of us.
Or, How to alienate those who have remained loyal to your marginal OS improvements and deck-shuffled UI changes, by foisting another change they didn't ask for.
The article's reasoning doesn't make any sense. No one said people couldn't learn to use Win 8 if they really wanted to. The issues are:
1) Does Win 8 offer any benefits over Win 7 which make it worth learning?
2) How easy is it for someone who has learned one system to switch to the other?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the three year old hasn't spent a lot of time learning habits and short-cuts on Win 7 prior to coming to Win 8. The question isn't whether people _can_ learn to use Windows 8, but whether they should, is there any motivation for doing so? Is moving to Win8 worth taking the time to unlearn all the old habits associated with Win95 through Win 7?
That's a clown question, bro.
Maybe 3 year olds don't mind it because they don't know how UIs are supposed to work. For web testing I've used Windows 8 from our MSDN account and it's hideously annoying, from things hiding in the corners of the screen to no logic in metro apps UI, for example I literally couldn't work out how to get the address bar back in Metro IE, I tried all the standard phone UI ways of doing it (scrolling to the top or bottom), moving the mouse to the screen corners, everything. I only happened upon it by chance, you have to press the right mouse button on an empty part of the screen! Yet right mouse button is still a context menu for links.
Then I tried to shut it down and wasted several moments trying to find the shutdown button, finally found it in settings -> power (no idea where the actual power settings menu is hidden).
Needless to say I will not be using Windows 8 on anything I own, I know you can install a 3rd party start menu replacement, but to be honest (as with jailbreaking iPhones) I'd rather vote with my wallet and not support companies whose products are only usable after hacking them, maybe MS will take a hint and fix it for Win9.
"Run out and find me a 4-year old child, I can't make head or tail of this."
Easy to use doesn't necessarily mean usable for the purpose.
My 10 year old cell phone was extremely easy to use - dial the number, press send, and voila, I just made a phone call. A 3 year old could do it.
My smartphone is much harder - unlock the phone, go to the home screen, find the dialer app, start it up, open the dial-pad, dial the number, and voila, I just made a phone call (unless it got dropped).
But my smart phone is still much more usable and useful than my old phone ever was despite being much harder to use.
Let's see how the uber-smart 3 year old handles multitasking on typical office apps - run a report from the ERP system, copy the last 2 years of performance metrics to a spreadsheet, run projections from the numbers, then move the key results to a powerpoint slide. All while carrying on an email conversation with your boss about why you don't have the presentation ready yet.
Unless the typical Win8 user uses their computer the same way as a 3 year old, I'm not sure why it's relevant how well a 3 year old can use it.
This is not a valid comparison. Is that 3 year old a long term user of Windows? Then he does not reflect the average user who will have trouble switching over because they are used to the current interface.
Children, especially young children, are unbelievably adept at learning new skills and languages, and using an OS is a little bit of both. 3 year olds can also learn several languages at once, and are constantly accumulating and processing information about their environment at a rate that an adult brain can't even imagine.
This is a dumb comparison.
See how FRUSTRATED the child gets when he's wondering WHY THE HELL HIS ABILITY TO ACCESS & UTILIZE THE SYSTEM IS CHANGED FROM WHAT HE'S USED TO!
* Welcome to being folks who have been using the Win9x style interface for 17++ yrs. now...
APK
P.S.=> Conditioning = easy! However, BREAKING SAID CONDITIONING is not... and, imo @ least, can affect productivity!
... apk
I can learn to use Win8 just fine. It's not about ease-of-use, or how easy it is for a 3-year-old.
I don't want Win8 because it doesn't have the UI I need, plain and simple. I'm not playing the simple games a 3-year-old plays. I'm not just browsing the Web. I'm a professional software developer who needs a fairly large number of applications open at the same time, spread across 2 monitors. I'm doing coding, technical writing, spreadsheets, diagrams, running visual diff/merge tools, editing XML and HTML and Javascript and CSS, mucking about with databases. I'm running multiple SSH sessions to multiple machines to troubleshoot production issues. At home I'm playing an MMO, running a log parser, running the voice-chat client, running the browser to look up encounter strategies, all at once. And all of this? The one thing Win8 adds, the Metro UI, isn't just not designed to do this, it's designed to not do this. It's designed to have a single application visible at a time, the way a smartphone or tablet works.
Yes, I know, I can kick it back into traditional desktop mode. But that means extra steps every single time I use it, or using a third-party program to hack it into doing what I want. Win7, by contrast, doesn't need hacking or extra work. I see no reason to add extra work and non-vendor-supported hackery to get back to where I am now. Plus there's the question of software support: how many of the programs I must use every day will officially support Win8? Right now none. Not even the ones from Microsoft. I'd have to upgrade all my software to get versions with official support. And for work I can't upgrade, I have to remain on the versions that the company mandates internally. They won't be upgrading any time soon either, they have to first certify every single application as working on Win8 and then they have to get money budgeted to upgrade. In some cases software will have to be repurchased, and there's manpower and other costs associated with upgrading all those computers to a new OS and migrating all the existing data. Our hardware vendor will have to support Win8 on the hardware too or we'll have to purchase all new hardware. So overall the company isn't even going to think about Win8 until the next hardware refresh cycle comes along, and that isn't going to start for another 3 years or so. We just finished a hardware refresh at the end of last year, after all.
So in summary, it doesn't really matter how easily a 3-year-old with no exposure and no existing infrastructure requirements can use Win8. It matters how well Win8 suits the tasks I actually perform and the requirements I have for what my system needs to run. A 3-year-old can easily ride a Big Wheel, but that doesn't make a Big Wheel suitable as a vehicle for me to commute to work in.
Unlike the rest of us who are using our computers to get work done to feed our families, the 3-year old has nothing better to do with his/her time.
The whole problem is that Windows XP has a mature O/S. It solved all the *customer's* problems. That left MS with a problem, which was how to make more sales. Windows 7, Windows 8, etc are all aimed at solving *Microsoft's* problems, not the customer's problems.
What MS should have done is switch to a subscription model for the O/S and focus on fixing bugs and security holes. This certainly would have worked for corporate users and would have solved both the customer's problems and MS's problem at the same time.
One of the XP strengths is NetMeeting. You can simple get your team online, share screen with all the team, talk, remote control desktop, etc. They completely dropped NetMeeting on Vista for a poor tool (MeetingSpace), and then tried replace it MeetingSpace with a lot of different tools (I think they're in a fourth attempt with Office365). They definitely killed one of the most appealing tool for enterprise.
Now have that 3yr old trouble shoot a faulty driver instillation or network issue. Pushing the "on" button and then touching the angry birds icon is not what people were likely having problems with.
You should stop blaming your dad for your failures. Having access to a computer should have been enough. If you were not interested enough to take that and teach yourself anything, then you weren't cut out to be a programmer.
3 year old children are amazing.
They learn.
Just eveything.
They are far better at learning language than people over 30, on average.
It's not a "stupidity" matter, but the ability to learn ... and forget what we already learned.
On the forget side, obviously the 3 year old has a gerat advantage :)
anyway, even my chief can use iOS, so not all hopes are lost :)
The three year old also doesn't have any un-learning to do. Someone who's been using Windows XP for the last ten years is a lot of expectations that certain functionality will be present via specific mechanisms. Replace those mechanisms and that XP user has to reprogram ten years of reflex and memory, while the 3yo just has to remember how the first thing works. There aren't any established patterns to trip him up.
I think a lot of people could benefit by learning to think like a child again; being able to let go of preconceptions is a huge aid to problem solving creatively. (I'm not suggesting you forget everything you know, just let go of the certainty that "this is how 'X' is done.") That said, the new interfaces that we're seeing from Microsoft (and Apple, especially on OS X Server) do a lot to expose the basics (check my mail, browse the web, watch a video, play some music), and make them easy. However, they also bury or remove some of the more advanced or complex functionality, making things beyond the basics more difficult. For new users (such as the 3yo in the article), this is no big deal because the functionality isn't missed. For existing users, dropping or obfuscating that functionality can make the whole interface less useful.
Doesn't anyone know that 3 year olds are better than crayons then adults?
It's that they removed the old one. The new UI is good for a tablet. This would be the most powerful operating system by far if I could carry it around as a tablet and then dock it as a desktop PC with keyboard and mouse and go back to the traditional UI. Who wouldn't want that? But then they screwed that up by breaking the start menu and multitasking / non-maximized windows.
how can anyone stand the don't-call-it-Metro look long enough to do anything with it? Every time I see pics of it (and there's a lot of marketing going on right now) I cringe. What the fuck was going through the designers' heads?
My grandpa likes the Windows 8 UI as well. I can only hope that Windows 9 will keep up with his increasing dementia.
Have gnu, will travel.
To a very large extent, user interfaces are a visual and gestural language. Young children acquire languages much, much faster than adults, because brains at the stage of development are configured for language acquisition. While I really don't think that the difficulty of learning the new UI is the main problem with Windows 8, this response to those who are raising that issue is nonsense.
I'm uninterested in an OS that promises ease-of-use-uber-alles.
I could be wrong, but that phrase implies to me that you have not actually used it yet.
Granted, my experience so far is with an early release of Server 2012 that I added the Desktop Experience to. YMMV and all that. Maybe it does not include quite all of the features of Win8 desktop edition and so is unfair. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
So far, the default theme is very simple. It is not bling or flashy. Yes, I switched it to the default one after I installed Desktop Experience and so I assume it is more or less what Win 8 will have. It is functional and not graphics heavy. I actually kind of like it because things don't glow at me or become randomly transparent and shit all the time.
The desktop behaves exactly as the desktop for Windows 7. If you're ok with 7, then you have no problem here. Taskbar is same way, sys tray is same way, can still put icons on the desktop. The file system layout is the same. The control panel looks the same. The only difference seems to be that the file manager is now ribbonized, which I don't even mind because I rarely used the file menus in the manager anyway. Not much it can do that a right click menu or keyboard shortcut can't. Plus the ribbon offers to do lots of new things. I was pleasantly surprised that when you click on an ISO file, the ribbon changes to show an icon to mount it. It seems to stay out of your way when doing regular tasks but reflect new features of Windows to let you know what it is capable of, so I do not think this is an issue.
As for Metro, all it seems to have done is replaced the start menu with a start screen. The screen is basically just desktop icons as tiles. I really don't see any fuss. It's like they made the start menu full-screen instead of a popup window. That's really about it, just a second desktop, an extra icons screen. Even the Windows key still opens it. I tap the Windows keyboard key, click the icon, and I have what I need.
My point here is that it is WAY less scary and stupid than I was lead to believe by casually reading slashdot a few months ago. From readers on here, repeating how much it was going to be a disaster and is so phone-UI oriented, I was worried with what I would find when I test-drove it. After having it installed on a computer to test out the new server features, and using it basically as a desktop for a few weeks now to test out other new features, I can say it basically is the same as Windows 7, except a little more speed optimized, less flashy (but still with the nice UI improvements like Snap), and with a full screen start menu. That's really it. Nothing overwhelmingly new, but it is not a disaster either. Just steady progress with updates to the core system, .NET, and it certainly seems rock solid so far. This is coming from someone that loves a KDE desktop at home; I have no intention of giving up Linux at home! But I need Windows for work, like to stay on top of new software/technology, and my experience is that Windows 8 does not seem bad at all, and in fact is a small improvement over Windows 7. Which MS probably recognizes, and that's why they're giving Windows 8 upgrades for much cheaper than in the past.
... FreeBSD Release-9.1 should be ready in just a few more weeks.
That's not the issue at hand, at all. this didn't stop me from hating its guts, because I needed to break free from my 15 years old habits and do it differently.
Why do we let a corporation hold us hostage? What can possibly be better about being forced to switch to another operating system, when for for most of the population we already have everything we need in a computer system. The only answer is that this company wants to continue to get richer and richer. We will see exploits go unchecked, security and functionality lost because this company says so? There should be a law against market abuse like this.
If the kid upgraded the computer from Win7 to Win8 before using it, it's even more impressive.
I can learn how to climb a fence at the zoo to pet the tigers too. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea, or that I will enjoy the experience.
W8 truly is a "my first operating system".
Privacy is terrorism.
Kids learn how to walk and talk, where to defecate, and the immediate effects of gravity, pain and hunger in the five years of living.
Grounding expectations in what adults can do based off what kids can do like saying "stem cells have certain properties, and they're barely developed. Certainly older, more mature and experience cells in the body should be able to adapt as easily, or they're 'stupid.'"
I agree Windows 8 will not be as difficult for people to learn as it will for people to adapt to, but the comparison to children is baseless.
As I recall the results:
1) people didn't feel like they could control the car
2) minor bumps/jolts could cause the car to swerve (arm/finger control is unstable)
Feedback vibrations are always a problem. You can feel this happen with a normal car and the gas pedal - first accelerate fairly hard (causes you to be pushed back in the seat) if you then reach your speed (a relatively low speed) you pull your foot back from the gas. At the same time your compressed seat expands. If it expands too quickly, you suddenly find yourself accelerating again...
If your seat expands quickly (or is poorly fastened down), you get into a pulsed mode feedback between the gas pedal, your response time, and your seat. Most people remove the foot from the pedal to recover.
Also tested were pushbutton shifting (also failed, but there, automatic transmissions got a lot better).
... and thus experienced windowsxp/vista/7 users could be the more intelligent ones.
Now saying you mastered 8 in a whiffy doesn't credit for your intelligence, merely you might be the target M$ tries to reach.
And a 3 year toddler's intelligence is apparently enough for a basic user to operate simple tasks with 8.
To me it almost seems that M$ has done something great, making an OS that toddlers to elderly can operate easily.
But for my personal needs a more technical OS will suffice, I need the challenge to feel in control.
Now I fear 8 is the future of M$ OS'es, so mastering any linux distro on the desktop and in GAMING could set a new goal for me.
Makes sense and explains the contempt MS has for adult would-be users.
>'Nonsense. The long and short of it is: If my 3 years old son can learn Windows 8 through very moderate usage, anybody with half a brain can do so too.'
If he knew about child development, he would know that until the age of 4, children are intellectual sponges, meaning quick adaptation to new stimulus.
Conversely, a decade later, personality and other intellectual abilities are more set. Such adaptation becomes increasingly difficult as one ages.
Of course his child is awesome. The half-a-brain comment implies, "What's your problem?"
Highly-functioning autism and adult ADHD over here...but that's another story...
I'd like to block submissions by this submitter -- anyone know how?
Thanks.
I have users that cant remember their very simple password for more than a week. I'm more concerned with if my users are smarter than the average goldfish.
I call baloney on that.
A 3-years-old can learn just about anything.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I came across this video a few days ago it just screamed viral marketing to me. I want to say I'm surprised it got as much traction as it has. The fact that it seems to have gone viral, only seems to validate my original suspicions
Something about the setup... the articulate nature of the child and the mysterious voice in the background. Honestly, on first pass I didn't even bother to finish watching the video. It had all the hallmarks of a viral advertisement
Did anyone else gives impression? Am I the only one?
Agreed - three year olds aren't adults. To compare the two groups is foolish. Biologically, their brains are very different (I Am Not A Developmental Psychologist... but I work with some ;-) ) . To compare the two is comparing different biological structures.
Three year olds aren't "small adults with less life experience" - they are less developed and hence act and react to stimuli in different ways. This is why the vast majority of countries do not treat children the same as adults in terms of rights, responsibilities, and legal situations.
They may have the ability to appear to absorb more new knowledge - but they don't have the ability - at a biological level - to assess and act upon their new learning in the same way as adults.
1) 3 year olds enjoy learning new things for the sake of learning them. They also literally have all day to play around with new things.
2) While most adults like to learn new things, we pick and choose what we want to learn. Most people just aren't into learning new computer user interfaces for the fun of it. Present company excluded (oh look! A new Linux desktop environment!).
3) Most adults don't mind learning new things that we have no interest in if it's to our benefit AND if that benefit isn't coerced. If Windows 7 is getting the job done, then learning Windows 8 has no real value to us until/unless it becomes coerced, such as when we get a new computing device or when Windows 7 support stops and we "have to" upgrade.
Bottom line:
Any adult CAN learn Windows 8 and we can probably do it faster than an 8 year old if our boss orders us to do so. But why should we be forced to spend the time to do so, when we can do something else more productive or which we enjoy more, like making the nearly-300th reply in a /. thread?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That settles it, if I were 3 years old I would switch to Windows 8. But I'm not a 3 year old and I won't. I might switch from 7 to 9 if MS comes to their senses between now and 9.
Ask the 3 year old if he thinks you should pay for something once when you buy it, or pay for it over and over and over again.
Three-year old: Uses Windows 8
Windows XP/7 users: Don't use Windows 8
Conlusion: Yes, Windows XP/7 users are smarter than a 3-year old.
Gee, that was simple.
At work we have software used by 20000 people, worth about $1 000 000 000? It was made for XP. The software have needed lots of training. Part of the software, or most(?) may be run under Win 7 and may be soon win(8). This is a hospital. What would it cost for Win 8 -licenses? quite a bit, but nothing compared to update/upgrade of software including quality control. It is practically impossible to change. We are changing the EPJ-system ( alarge system, but only one of about 300!). The total cost is more than $100 000 000 with data-transfer and education of users is more than 2/3. I have some computers at home. One has to run on XP due to compatibility issues with the Hospital. If I had only one computer, it would have been loaded with XP
Pål
Three-year olds have managed to learn classical Greek thousands of years ago already. They are _champions_ at rote-learning idiotic amounts of incoherent data, and they have to be since they lack the abstractions necessary for more efficient use of their brains. Ever played "memory" with kids?
So please, go away with the "even children could learn it" crap. If they couldn't, who could hope to do better?
A lot of the reports of frustrated Windows users are actually Mac users poisoning the well.
There are both companies and individuals that are clinging onto DOS apps and Win32 apps. They did not think ahead nor did they budget for the change. Replacing applications quantity one can get expensive for the individual, but multiply that by say 100 or 1000 and you send the owners and CFO's of small and medium businesses to find a tall building to jump off of.
For me the problems don't with learning the operating system itself. It comes relearning workflows, habits, and locations of power user tools that seem to get hidden deeper and deeper.. A three year old can learn to navigate Windows XP, or 7 just as easily. That and frankly windows 8 looks fugly.
Just because Boeing support their airframes for 20 years doesn't make their efforts saintly. THEY GOT FRIGGING PAID.
And they still retain copyrights. I.e. they STILL insist on keeping value there, but removing it from EVERYONE ELSE.
11 years? When they have copyrights for 95 years???
Is that you don't learn very much. steep learning curves are good because you learn a great deal in a short time. the inverse of that - idiot proof systems that monkey can use, means you never progress much beyond a monkey's facility or utility with it. and maybe THAT's a good thing but be sure you want something that's as simple and one dimensional as that.
> Feedback vibrations are always a problem. You can feel this happen with a normal car and the gas pedal - first accelerate fairly hard (causes you to be pushed back in the seat) if you then reach your speed (a relatively low speed) you pull your foot back from the gas. At the same time your compressed seat expands. If it expands too quickly, you suddenly find yourself accelerating again...
That is correct. Games and gamepads do not provide ANY feedback on inertia:
When you go around a corner in real life you can tell if you are going to fast for the corner or if you are able to take it faster. The acceleration is towards the center of the corner and you feel that by feeling you are being "flinged out" from the corner
In a driving game you have no sense if your tires are about to lose traction nor the effects of suddenly accelerating or suddenly decelerating. In real-life you definitely feel these!
It is content *creation* that is difficult in dumbed down interfaces. To m content creation spans the entire range from putting together video clips, to writing documents, calculating on spreadsheets, to hacking code, to creating web sites etc etc. It is those tasks where the user interface makes a big difference.
My skill is coding. I have learnt one interface to code and debug. Now if I am forced to chuck all that experience out of the window and learn a new one, OK, INBD. I will do it. But at the end of the process, my improved productivity should justify the downtime for retraining. An accountant analyst's skill is collecting information from various accounting departments, make sure the numbers tally and cross reference correctly, and put them out in standard locations for the daily script to read and update SEC reporting. Even small and trivial changes frustrate her. "I have a process, that works. They are paying me to make sure the numbers are correct. If you change something, unless it improves my process, it is not worth my time to relearn everything new". That is what she would say.
Hurts me to say it. But Apple got it right. One ubiquitos, easy to use OS for content consumption. And a more involved OS for content creation and for people who are more comfortable with computing devices. And they interoperate seamlessly behind the curtain. I hate the Apple walled garden as much as I hated Microsoft arrogance and monoculture. But they are winning because they have learnt something. They don't mind throwing stuff out and starting all over. They ditched their home grown OS and switched to unix, much to the consternation of Apple die-hards back in the 1990s. They ditched their chip set and went to Intel. They constantly experimented with form factors in desk tops. They innovated so much, something had to click, and it di.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's a question of do I like it or not and whether I want to spend the money on another OS when the one I've got still works fine. I just have no compelling reason to give up WIN7.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Are slashdotters able to tell the difference between an advertisement and actual news?
Have a look at Start 8. I find that it gives me everything I am accustomed to in a start menu, except for the ability to drag shortcuts from the start menu to the desktop. Otherwise it works just like the Windows 7 start menu, but can be set up to look and feel like Windows 8 (or can be set to look and feel like Windows 7).
For me, it has made 8 fine to use. In my case, doing Windows support at work I need to be running 8 so I can test software compatibly and the like with it.
At any rate, I feel it is worth the $5, it really does a good job of solving the stupid Metro start screen problem as you just don't deal with it anymore.
My issue with the start screen has never been that I can't use it. Of course I can use it, it is easy to use. Just scroll through a massive list of icons until i find the one I want. My issue is that it is worse than what it replaces. The start menu is faster to navigate, and it doesn't occupy my entire screen when I'm looking to launch a program.
I am always willing to try a new way of doing things, but if that way is not superior I will not be interested in switching to it. For example I was skeptical about the Windows 7 task bar with the way it changed from a quick launch to pinning icons and mandatory grouping of windows. However, I tried it and sure enough, it is better to use.
My objection to Windows 8 isn't that it is new, it is that it is worse. I've tried the start screen, it is worse than what it replaces.
It's okay for a child of 3 years.
And what about a grandmother of 82 years that spent 2 years learning how to use the basic of Windows 7?
I'm a keyboard AND mouse centric user. I've been a hardcore keyboard shortcut guy for many years. The Ubuntu Unity interface is great FOR ME. I hit the Windows button, type a keyword and most of the time just hit enter... Same for Win7 and Win8. My left hand is always on the home row, and I've gotten to the point (years ago, mind you) that I hate CTRL-S to save docs, and prefer to hit ALT-F then hit S, just to save my pinky from the movement.
I'm not saying this to be an ass or to gloat and say you all suck. I'm just saying that it has always been a priority of mine to learn how to use things easier and quicker, and it has paid off in dividends over the years as Microsoft keeps screwing with their interfaces. I don't like ribbons, but I've learned to work around them. If I hated the Start screen, I'd spend 5 bucks to replace it. But the Windows button is my friend. Without it, I'd go freaking nuts trying to use Windows, but I'd go nuts if you forced me to use XP, too.
Just give it a shot. + D sends you to the desktop and you can say goodbye to the freaking hell of an interface that Microsoft has unloaded upon you.
Too bad most people aren't as advanced as the typical Slashdotter, because I fear for all of those casual users who will be scratching their heads due to the removal of the start button that has been a major part of windows since win95.
I also understand if you find my suggestion irritating. Microsoft did screw up gigantically, and no one should have to worry about interface changes so much. I'd switch to a Mac or Linux if you feel that way. Give Ballmer the finger and make them pay with your wallet!
Oops should have looked at the preview.. I mean Win + D... oh well...
She figured out how to launch Firefox, go to favorites and pick her Disney princess flash game and play it, then when she was done she would close Firefox and shut down the PC. I'm not sure why this sort of hyperbole masquerading as "fact-finding" rates a slashdot post as it would appear young kids have been using Windows operating systems for years. Probably just like they've been figuring out how to use Mac OS for years. Probably just like they figure out how to unlock Mom's Android/iPhone and call random people or play games on it. Probably just like they figured out how to turn on Dad's TI calculator and delete his stored functions for this week's exams.
Nothing to see here but FUD from the other direction.
Change "Windows 8" in the comments to "Windows XP" and you'll remember what it was like a decade ago when XP came out. Or you could change it to "Windows 7" just 3 years ago. The same type of bitching and moaning happened back then. I suspect we'll see the same the next time Microsoft decides to make major changes to the UI.
Bunch of luddites.
It is about efficiency and not always having a dirty, smeared monitor. Touch-interface is a show-stopper on the desktop. Also, the interface by itself may be simple, but when doing other things (that a 3 year old certainly cannot master), it may still detract and stand in the way.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
A three year old isn't trying to make a living using this crap. I'm not THAT old (35) and I am still hating life pretty bad just getting my job done with Office and it's Ribbon interface crap after over a year of being moved to it. Sure a 3-year old could figure that out, but ask them to be efficient and do real work with a real deadline. Windows 8 strikes me as more vomitous spew from whatever bozo thought up the Ribbon crap. Oh well.
First they tried pushing a desktop environment into a mobile one, now they are doing a 180 and pushing a mobile environment into a desktop one. I expect the results to be a duplicate of the previous, not improving where they want to and hurting the other. It makes no sense to me, they could have done something really revolutionary if they were going to throw the baby out with the bath water but instead they do this.
In the mid 1950's, Piper Aircraft claimed their new TriPacer aircraft was so easy to use that an 8 year old girl learned to fly it in just a few short lessons. Of course, no one produced the 8 year old girl, and those of us who have flown that aircraft found the ad more amusing than realistic. I wonder if the same may not be true of Windows 8? What is the general public going to actually say about ease of use when they find a tablet interface has been shoved down their throat in the guise of a real computer? Lessee...I want to run a fairly complex application, yet my default interface looks like something off an overblown game. I don't want a tablet, smart phone, etc etc because I wind up paying the cost of a computer, without getting a full computer. It sounds to me as though Microsoft is taking this one step further: we're being asked to buy a full computer, but with the functionality of a tablet, or similarly neutered device.
when people respond to intelligent criticism of poorly designed technology with insults and absurd condescension - you get a clear warning that you're dealing with diabolical levels of incompetence.
My 8 year old daughter was happily clacking away on a learn-to-type game when she accidentally hit the windows key. Bye-Bye game. And no clear way to get back to it. She was completely flummoxed.
I have been using Win8 as my exclusive home operating system for a couple months now. I've gotten used to the tablet-yness, but I still don't see the point. Why do I have to treat my desktop computer as a tablet?
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I seem to remember this as the discussion we have had before any windows release. It's just like a hammer with a different handle. We will still use it to drive our nails.
I watched the video and I am not worthy... This kids mastery of weather app and clock are about as amazing as Microsoft removing those same gadgets from W7.
Good luck managing your W8 disaster.
I didn't read the artice (standard for slashdot, I know), but I suspect the author was trying to shame all of us old-timers into believing there must be something wrong with us because a tiny-tot can figure it out and we have trouble... I for one, say "F**K YOU AUTHOR OF ARTICLE!!.. I'm 62 years old and have been using Windows since 3.0 and, even though I enjoy learning new things, I WANT A REASON to learn these new things.. Microsoft hasn't provided that "reason".. I've installed the beta and honestly tried to use it for about a week, and gave up.. I can see how appropriate that interface would be on a tablet pc, but on a desktop??? With two or more screens????? GimmeAFuckin'Break... Now I read that MS has taken measures on the RTM build to break any of the
"Windows 7 start menu replacement" utils that have popped up due to the NEED for them... To this I say "FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!!"
"1 year-old baby plays Angry Birds"
"Baby Works iPad"
(a) My cousin at age 3 had far less difficulty with Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.4 than this kid is having with Windows 8.
and
(b) Learning for the first time is not the same as encountering an entirely new way. The first time you discover that this leads to that whereas the second time you discover that this no longer leads to that. Which is more frustrating?
Windows 8 is very easy to use unless you try to do something that 3 year old would never do... you know, like trying to get your work done...
I am going to kindly refrain from purchasing the new version of Windows. Not because I already have a satisfactory version installed, not because I would be wasting money on another proprietary OS that I never use, but because I am afraid I might not be capable of learning how to use it. It might be a different story if it were easy enough for a 2 year old to use :)
All I really care about in an OS are the following seven points:
1. Does it work without crashing?
2. Is it light and fast on older hardware?
3. Do the drivers drive all the stuff I need?
4. Is it secure?
5. Can I get under the hood it or does it try to treat me like a dementia patient who has seizures when given too many options?
6. Will it run all my old software?
7. Does it try to pull DRM shenanigans or will it let me do what I want with my files without artificial restrictions?
If it passes in all seven categories, then it's a categorical success. Any remaining complaints are simply about cosmetics and having to re-learn muscle memory, points which we'll all get used to in about the same time it takes to master a new video game control interface. One, maybe two days.
And in ten years time we'll bitterly complain if MS tries to retire it.
welcome our new touch-and-drool interface overlords.
Bill Gates has already successfully made the transition to what he calls an 'unbelievably great' Microsoft Surface.
So, just because Bill Gates has made the transition to a Microsoft Phone GUI system, the rest of the Horde should jump on the Win8 bandwagon?
Nah. It just means Billy is trying to pimp 8 like he did with Vista... with the same fail results.
As for Adam Desrosiers: Good you that your 3-Year old can use 8. Too bad the issue isn't "ease of use", but rather a "fixing an imaginary problem that never really was a real problem" issue. That and 8 is a blatant attempt (ripoff?) to clone Apple and emulate the same success with the tablet/phone/touchscreen OS race. (To which Microsoft is a million days late and a billion dollars short in that department. Windows Phone and Zune, anybody?)
Also: Nobody cares your three year old can use it. That just tells me MS is trying to dumb down the product so I'll have to explain to my future in-laws how they messed up an operation a purported 3-year old may have done.
Bottom line: Trying to shove a previous failure down the throats of people under the guise of a new OS is just another failure in the making. Consumers aren't stupid and I doubt this time they will take the bait like they did Vista.
... he was able to restore to factory defaults an Android tablet. Hackers rule!
The question is not, can one adapt from a classic windows GUI to the coloring blocks of Win8. Rather it is: Which GUI allows the most productivity? I am not using a Windows-based tablet or phone. I still use the classic GUI, pre-XP, because I find it better suited to my needs. If one looks at how Office, for example, is used, users do not open an Office program, say Word. They open the file, which brings up Word. Why? Because it is more convenient.s I have not used Win*, but somehow I think MS wants s to click on the Word square to start the program.
Bill Gates is as smart as a 3 year old! I've supported many mortals who have no idea how to save a file or how to find it when they do.
Microsoft and many companies business model is dependent on re-selling us the same stuff. It hasn't always worked out too well, as the core products reached maturity several years ago. There really aren't any new features to be added to Word, Excel, Visio -- Outlook continues to be horrible, and Access should have been killed a long time ago but that's beside the point.
Windows8 will no doubt have a very slow adoption curve, and no doubt SP1 will land us on the desktop unless it detects we have a tablet.
I prefer Linux, but run Windows7 because I need Goto Meeting, and all of my customers expect me to be able to consume office docs - Open Office is nice but it does not consume the kind of office docs my customers send.
Surely we all remember one of Murphy's most important laws:
"Design a system a fool can use, and only fools will use it"
You missed the part where the video was supposed to refute all criticism on Windows 8 and supposed to show that the kid used Windows 8 'like a champ'.
If you want to give Julian a pat on the head and tell him he's a champ because he can use a mouse, that's fine with me. But please don't transfer your warm fuzzy feelings to your appraisal of the article or whether it belongs on Slashdot or not.
does that mean he checked his email, updated his antivirus and checked and cleaned his hard drive, wrote a new front page for his website, researched some data and used it to create a presentation based on some projections from a spreadsheet? In less time than it took under XP? No, because 3 yr olds don't do that stuff.
so now it's the customers' fault for using earlier microsoft products?
The point is not that people can't learn Windows 8. The point is that they shouldn't. Windows 8 is a disaster that will be fondly remembered along with Windows ME and Vista (fondly because they're gone). Windows 7 will outlive Windows 8 because 7 is better from every angle.
Of course, it doesn't really matter to myself. I run Linux for work. Windows is just a game platform as far as I'm concerned.
My 69-year-old farmer Dad uses Ubuntu, loves it, and my 4-year-old can zip around a Gnome3 interface faster than Bill Gates on windows 8.
Nobody's making you use windows.
Now STFU.
Metro is useless on desktop. What were they thinking?
On Windows® RT® it may be good. Why would I needed this mind-boggling "split personality disorder thing" in desktop version of 8?
If not for the "3 year old Surrogates" who invaded the Corporate IT world in the mid 90's, Windows would have never lasted THIS LONG! Windows 8 will be the stake that kills the giant Ogre that is Redmond and Microsoft. "EM" Balmer is already there measuring for the interment ceremony. Trust me, I was directly involved in a large (ok HUGE) company in the mid to late 1990's when the OS wars (Microsoft Vs Microsoft vs. Novell, vs. UNIX) were in full swing. BY FAR the majority of mindless foot dragging and foul language emanated from the "3 year olds" who had managed to parlay a spot in development HOW? Well following a stint on the "help desk" where their "rudimentary windows skills" translated into "Server Skills"......Only and I mean ONLY reason this worked was that the Microsoft Servers were SO DUMBED DOWN, that a 3 year old could actually configure them. I called this process "Click and Hope" in terms of "go through the GUIs long enough, and at some point (like the monkeys typing on typewriters" one would ultimately randomly create something intelligible. The unfortunate thing was that the cost of deployment, support, and overall COI was so inflated by this inefficient model that many companies could not compete. In 1995 an IBM OS/2 server could serve as domain controller and serve 500-700 users, Microsoft was limited to 100 users max. In terms of application serving and reducing COI of software, again Microsoft with its "flagship" (more like Pirate ship) office ABSOLUTELY fought this concept, and wanted an Office copy on every PC. Again the 3 year olds complied. Had OS/2 Warp, Sun Solaris X86, or even Novel been given an “equal shot” by the industry (rather than MGMT relying on the “smoke and mirrors” at Microsoft, we would be about 10 years further along right now. With lots and lots of the IT “GURUS” as baristas at Starbucks. Promises were made to upper management (at our company) from Redmond at "dog and pony" events telling how Windows 95 could extend your desktop to any other PC in the company (forgot to tell you that the other machine would have to mirror yours exactly and that specialized apps on your PC were not accessible to the other PC). This was major as it was one of the primary reasons Windows 95 was deployed. (BTW) this capability STILL does not exist natively (on Microsoft products anyway). UNIX and LINUX could do it at the time. Now you can use the Virtual PC and other similar technologies to approximate what Microsoft claimed and swore by in 1995! By my count, that is almost 20 years of lies alone!!! As far as the "3 year old" people taking over IT, no where is this more apparent than today. "Click and Hope" configuration is the norm, breaking standards the goal, and dominance through devotion the only key. Much like a 3 year old clings to a parent for sustenance and survival, so have the masses those beginnings in the 1990’s have devoted their "souls" if you will to promoting a now lumbering and faltering giant. Unfortunately for many who "banked" on Microsoft dominating for their career span, a younger and hipper crowd has deemed APPLE the new regent and status symbol. While I see neither "winning" long term, they will collectively muddy the waters until a "new" victor emerges. While many would arguable say that XP and perhaps windows 7 are useful and "easy" to use, never in its history has Microsoft provided a feature rich tool upon which an enterprise could be built. Only the point and click and pictures made this tech viable for the masses of IT incompetents. And before extolling the innovation of Windows NT, remember that that NT OS was "co-developed" (by co I mean written by IBM and "co opted" by Microsoft) and that the overwhelming success of that project was OS/2 (version 2.11 - WARP). So Forget NT as an "innovation" Prior to that, Windows 3.1 was a "rip off" of the Mac interface (albeit poorly implemented) And MS DOS before that was "essentially stolen" from another small company in Washington State and handed off to IBM a
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
Learning an interface and liking and being productive with an interface are TWO DIFFERENT things (or concepts if you prefer). I am sure I could use Windows 8, however, there are features I like in Windows XP, and Windows 7 that I don't want to give up. I find it arrogant of ANYONE who thinks their interface can make we work better, that is MINE decision on what I feel makes me more productive. I am finding a lot of authors like one of this article, just a mindless Mircosoft Zealot.
Endorsed by the Teletubbies?
you have to un-learn a lot of things for a little of benefit. If it was a new amazing phone that everyone else uses you would pick it up quickly!
This absolutely makes sense to me. It has the playschool interface.
No seriously... It takes some intelligence to operate a computer. Microsoft is trying to follow apple by pandering to the short attention span Americans.
The same people who cannot bother to pick up a book and actually learn an operating system. The have succeeded in insulting those of us who use a computer for uses other than you tube and angry birds... I should make a career move to become a doctor treating shoulder strain and injuries.... all these new touch screen desktops with windows 8.... Microsoft is marketing this for business...try holding your arms out 8 hours a day... FAIL