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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.
And this would explain why they use the Metro interface on Server 2012? So my illiterate little sister can mange servers in the data center?
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?
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.
I run a computer shop and a lot of people stop in with questions about Windows 8. The #1 question is how the hell to do anything in the metro interface. Even I had to look up on Youtube how to simply close an app because there's no red X, escape does nothing, and alt-F4 works intermittently. I've had people repeatedly run out of operating memory due to too many apps open because they don't know to click and drag the title bar and sort of throw it to close it. It's the least "simple user" friendly interface ever made. Everything is hidden or unlabeled. It's absolutely the opposite of what he's saying.
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.
Powershell is a BSD pipelined interface with all the lovely syntax of Visual Basic oriented around objects in layers all the way down.
It is like an onion, you keep peeling back the layers, and each one makes you want to cry more.