Slashdot Mirror


Windows 8 Metro: The Good Kind of Market Segmentation?

nk497 writes "A UX designer working at Microsoft has taken to Reddit to explain why Windows 8's Metro screen isn't designed for power users — but is still good news for them. Jacob Miller, posting as 'pwnies,' said Metro is the 'antithesis of a [power user's desktop],' and designed for 'your computer illiterate little sister,' not for content creators or power users. By splitting Windows into Metro and the desktop, Microsoft has created space for casual users as well as power users." Update: 02/18 18:14 GMT by S : Further explanations from Miller are available now.

10 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Really?!?! by x0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not a bad attempt at trolling, but in a data center, server 2012 would likely be a headless server-core instance with no GUI at all. To address your question, I would imagine that developers who choose to develop on a server SKU may want to target Metro/Modern apps so it is available, if required.

    --

    PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
  2. mod options by HybridST · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where do I mod this article -1 Flamebait? I'd really like to know.

    --
    Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
  3. Whoosh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This "UX designer" has completely missed the complaint everyone has lodged against Windows 8 and its interface. Nobody cares that there's a new interface added to the system, or even that it's the default. But power users do care that there's no way to bypass it.

    Give us a way to shut it off and restore the original functionality in a control panel somewhere.

    And shut your dumbass mouth, Jacob Miller. We didn't miss the point. You did.

  4. Re:I'm confused by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because Microsoft is making themselves look bad there. Ideally a UI will have good discoverability. That is, things that you want to do often are easy to do, and things that you want to do infrequently are possible to discover, or figure out.

    A good example of this are hot keys. Most apps have them, but you don't need them to use the app. They are easy to figure out because they are listed next to every menu item, so if you forget how to past, you can look at 'paste' from the menu and see it's cntrl-V.

    The joke here is that Win8 is not discoverable, the gestures are rather hidden. Furthermore creating two different UIs for the same computer is pretty near the opposite of good design. You will inevitably run into the same types of problems you have with 'mobile' websites, which are not good for anybody.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Re:Astruturf? by pwnies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I had been astroturfing, I wouldn't have been using the term Metro. Nor would I have been stating that Apple has better mobile hardware. Nor would I have used that account - have you seen my post history? http://www.reddit.com/user/pwn...

  6. Whatever. by sootman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't matter if you're right if you can't sell it.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  7. Re:Really?!?! by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't care about the UI because I just want to get in and do what I want to do. Since metro thoroughly prevents that, suddenly I care about the UI.

  8. Ubuntu and Windows 8 fail the newbie test by Kremmy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where do you get the idea that having a searchable list of all applications, not segmented into categories, is a good idea for the novice user? You've created an interface that outright requires previous computer knowledge and said it's for the people who aren't used to computers. Novice Ned isn't going to know what application to search for to do whatever task he's trying to accomplish, he's going to need a categorized list that lets him narrow down his options. What you've done with Unity and Metro is generate a list of executables and claimed it's user friendly. Idiots.

  9. I call bullshit by js3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To really understand metro, you have to watch the development videos at microsoft virtual academy website.

    Somehow their UI designers came up with this ridicilous notion that your apps don't need any "distract" menus or system icons and it should only display content. Content is the king they say, none of those resizing bars or window icons or anything. This is the main reason why metro apps look like that.

    It's like someone designed a car and said.. "you don't doors once you're in the car all you need is the road". To that I say "getting in and out a car shouldn't be an un-intuitive mess dumbass"

    --
    did you forget to take your meds?
  10. Re:Really?!?! by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Can't figure out" isn't the same as "don't want to use because it's less functional and more time consuming to do basic tasks". You knew that and yet you pretended they were the same because you have an inferiority complex that demands you think less of others to justify your own pathetic skills.

    I'm not an admin, and I know how to use powershell. That doesn't excuse fucking metro.