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programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
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Although I rather like Windows Vista -- I think the amount of Vista nerd rage out there is completely unwarranted -- there are areas of Vista I find hugely disappointing. And for my money, nothing is more disapponting than the overall fit and finish of Vista, which is truly abysmal. It's arguably the worst of any operating system Microsoft has ever released.
What do I mean by fit and finish? Well, take a look at Long Zheng's Windows UI Taskforce examples. Vista is absolutely filled with bits of user interface that are inconsistent with the new Vista design.
You're never more than two clicks away from some discontinuity or visual gaffe that zaps you right back into the seven year old Windows XP "experience". Or worse. Consider Chris Pirillo's observations on his Windows Vista beta 2 install:
Windows Calendar font and icon alignment are all wonky.The Windows Media toolbar pop-up preview window is using Arial.
Safely Remove Hardware dialog is in Microsoft Sans Serif.
This goes on for about, oh, eleven pages. Granted, these comments refer to the beta, but the shipping version of Vista is every bit as schizophrenic in design. There's very little consistency.
It also seems every individual team at Microsoft has a profoundly different idea of what the user interface should look like, as Paul Thurrott notes:
And what's up with the glaringly inconsistent UI across Windows Vista and all of its applications? Some windows have menus, some don't, and some have hidden menus. Some have these new black toolbars, some don't. And so on. Why isn't there a team of people just working on consistency issues?
Aren't these trivial, nitpicky complaints? Yes. They are. And that's entirely the point. This little stuff matters.
If all those individual teams at Microsoft can't be bothered to follow the design conventions of their own operating system -- how can they possibly be building applications that I would actually want to use? In software, attention to detail is everything; all these glaring little oversights in Vista's user experience collectively add up to a huge vote of "no confidence" in the whole shebang. A mismatched font here, an ugly pixelated icon there, soon enough you feel that you're living in a neighborhood with an awful lot of broken windows.
If Microsoft's developers can't muster the basic level of craftsmanship necessary to make Vista's bundled applications consistently look and work the same as the rest of the operating system, how can users or third party developers be expected to give a damn about the user experience? Honestly, it's embarrassing.
John Gruber has been critical of Apple's minor UI inconsistencies in the past.
Consistency in and of itself has been a fundamental pillar of the Mac user experience from 1984 onward. But with Apple no longer leading the way, it's fading. "At least it's still more consistent than Windows" is not high praise.
That comment was made well before Vista was released. Nobody's perfect, but from what I've seen of OS X and Vista, I'd say Apple cares a lot more about consistency of user interface today. Microsoft has all but abdicated their responsibilities with Vista.
But the saddest part of this whole situation is that it doesn't have to be this way. Every major operating system is released alongside a set of design guidelines, guidebooks for developing applications that are consistent with the conventions and standard applications provided by the OS.
As a young developer, I remember eagerly paging through the early design guidelines for Windows 95 and the Mac OS. You can always do worse than following the well-worn paths the OS designers have conveniently laid out in front of you. Much, much, worse. And many have.
Of course, all design guidelines begin at home. These guides are only as good as the underlying operating systems they're based on, which are de facto reference implementations. It's hard to take Vista's design guidelines seriously, since Microsoft's own development teams clearly didn't.
If you're a software developer, please don't make this mistake. Understand the design guidelines for your platform -- and for God's sake, follow them!
For a great platform agnostic primer on the importance of UI consistency and design guidelines, look no further than GUI Bloopers 2.0.
The original version of GUI Bloopers has been on my recommended reading list for years, and this greatly updated version was long overdue. There's a sample chapter (pdf) on the official book website if you'd like to get a sense of what the book is about. Jeff Johnson, the author, also provides an excellent companion reading list on his website, which also includes the Web Blooper of the Month archive.
Like everyone else, I'd prefer to use only the most beautifully designed applications. If you can't be beautiful, at least be consistent. Start with the basic level of consistency afforded by following the design guidelines of your chosen platform, and you might just avoid the "homely" and "ugly" end of the spectrum.
THat sounds about right.
(Oh, and on fonts... an install dialog? Still? In 2008? Drag-and-drop too hard?)
That's the same reason why I don't see Linux ever "winning" on the desktop. You think Windows is inconsistent, that's nothing compared to A Melange Of X Apps. It's hard enough for Microsoft (or even Apple, who Really Cares About It) to manage consistent, decent UI.
A bunch of unrelated hackers who would take offense at being told there were Iany/i UI standards? Negative infinity percent chance.
(And limiting yourself to "Gnome and its control panels and bundled apps" isn't a) realistic or b) sufficient.)
Glyph: Gutmann? In 2008? His name is German for "talks out his ass". [http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=284, and eight million other places.])
Sigivald on June 2, 2008 2:08 AMAccording to my friend at Microsoft, who actually works on the new Windows 7, Ballmer is lying about the fact that Microsoft is not abandoning Windows Vista. Microsoft is going to bury Windows Vista, just like they did with Windows ME when they released Windows 2000.
The only reason I have this idiotic excuse for an operating system is because it came with the new laptop.
thedp on June 2, 2008 3:43 AMCome one, since when is conformity an intrinsically good thing? If companies suppress diversity in their user interface designs, how are innovations going to happen?
Apple's Garage Band has a cool wood-panel look to it that's perfect for the feel of the application: just jamming around in the garage. Who cares if it doesn't conform to some usability nerd's notion of how things should be?
Games never conform to UI standards and people _like_ games.
Angus Glashier on June 2, 2008 4:05 AMI still use XP at home, and Vista at work, and familiarity helps me soooo much with XP. It seems to me one of Vista's issues is that it has added layers intended to simplify information presentation for the average user - which just gives users like us more headaches. And the weird thing is, I've had more networking problems with Vista than ever on XP, and never had to dig out ipconfig before now!
Also, on UI inconsistency; I feel that Vista design elements covered in the User Experience - even when applied consistently can be bad. My least-favourite new element is the 'Command Link'. How is this meant to differ from a command button (ok - it's a larger click-surface) - but in terms of expected results, how does it differ from a dialog with several buttons on, or a dialog with a radio-button and an OK button?
There are numerous features I really do like about Vista - but my experience varies with other correspondents --- I like the look of the new Alt-Tab, but actually find it harder to use than the XP versions because the document description text is slower on the scene. How can one easily identify different spreadsheets without seeing the document title?
Nij
Nij on June 2, 2008 4:07 AMThis may have been mentioned, but Ars Technica are currently featuring a piece of a similar nature, around the API's offered to developers by Microsoft and Apple, and how one brave soul is casting aside .NET and Win32 in favour of Carbon and Cocoa.
I'm pretty ambivalent about operating systems. I currently use a Mac, although Windows usage through a Terminal Server features heavily in my day when I need our CRM app or Sharepoint access. FreeBSD is my favourite, preferably with e16 for the GUI dressing. Point is, my Mac is slick in appearance with the ugliness buried under the skin. Windows doesn't really like me to use the command line as much as I am prone to, which is why I favour Unix-based OS'es. Thing is, until you work with a UI based on a consistent framework (darker shades of grey is pretty much the only indication of a difference between a Cocoa app and a Carbon app), you don't realise how nice it is to have that kind of user experience.
Paul on June 2, 2008 4:10 AMYa, "trivial" stuff - right up till you shift tab in a open file dialog and instead of going from the filename edit box to the file list, you to to the column toolbar on the file list. How do you get to the file list? Simple, tab forward.
That pretty much sums up the vista interface.
Vista has some great innards, but the interface is a total let down.
Search box is another great example - in vista it depends on where you are on how search works (if it all). Want a good example, go to the uninstall dialog and search for an app to uinnstalled - whoops, it only searchs for other control panel applets there. Intead of searching deeper like in most spots, it suddenly searchs sideways.
The Vista UI is some of the sloppiest work I have ever seen, clearly beta or even alpha quality work (and would be fine there, but not in a release version). I gotta figure they pushed it out the door two years too early - Normally, I would say one year, but they had a year for SP1 and did not fix a single UI issue that I've come across, so presumably they would need at least twice that.
The reason we should not expect any real kernel changes in Windows 7? They are going to take 3 years to get the interface right.
At least we can hope they will - it needs it.
Xepol on June 2, 2008 5:11 AMThat particular dialog has looked like that since at least Windows 3.1 (when TrueType font support was added to Windows).
That "Add Fonts" dialog is straight from Windows 3.1. Oh, the memories.
Christo on June 2, 2008 6:53 AMApple has actually very good interface guidelines and most developers follow them at least to some extend. Where Apple violates their own guidelines is for example iTunes. Every iTunes looks a bit different and everyone of them looks completely different compared to the rest of the OS.
Mecki on June 2, 2008 6:55 AMWindows is not in the job to make great applications or great software, they are here to make money and that is the only thing they care about. If they gave even one iota of trying to keep the user experience the top priority then they would not be trying to ban XP and push an OS that is half done.
Criminal on June 2, 2008 7:01 AMI really want to use linux. But whenever I use it (eg ubuntu) I found that it has even more broken windows. Try adding the aMule icon to the desktop eg. Use gftp. Everything looks terrible.
Koen on June 2, 2008 7:01 AM"It's arguably the worst of any operating system Microsoft has ever released."
Hm. IMO, Vista is a serious contender for Microshit's worst operating system, but I don't think it may beat Windows ME.
Leonel on June 2, 2008 7:01 AMAgree 100%. The schizoid fonts really bother me. They went through all this trouble to buy/design a new set of fonts and I still have to see the godawful MS Sans Serif now and then?? The Control Panel is a disaster too. It's like they got about halfway there and then just gave up. I'd like to think that they're going to take care of this with "Windows 7" but who knows.
Rhywun on June 2, 2008 7:02 AM"It's arguably the worst of any operating system Microsoft has ever released."
To be clear:
"It's arguably the worst FIT AND FINISH of any operating system Microsoft has ever released."
I greatly prefer Vista to XP. But the fit and finish in XP is much better.
Jeff Atwood on June 2, 2008 7:04 AMJeff said, "And for my money, nothing is more disapponting than the overall fit and finish of Vista, which is truly abysmal. It's arguably the worst of any operating system Microsoft has ever released."
Ah, grasshopper, you obviously aren't old enough to remember the OS/2 1.x days (and yes, MS had a hand in that OS, since they co-developed the 1.x versions with IBM). It was quite common, especially in system admin apps, to all of a sudden have the monitor make actual noises as it went "kerTHUNK" and SWITCHED RESOLUTIONS and went from your nice "high res" VGA GUI to 80x24 text console mode for a property page, AND THEN BACK. Sometimes over and over. The SNA networking setup screens were the worst for this, but there were plenty of others just like it.
And that's not even counting the gray screens of death, the precursor to NT's BSoD.
So, MS has been here before, it's just that all the software engineers who would be around to remember it are retired on options by now.
Jim on June 2, 2008 7:06 AMArs Technica has a nice series on Mac and Windows developments over the past few years. The second part contains a list of UI inconsistencies, all brought together in a single screenshot.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.ars/4
Maarten
Maarten Sneep on June 2, 2008 7:12 AMpeople use VISTA? Really?
ilan on June 2, 2008 7:17 AMJeff said, "Understand the design guidelines for your platform -- and for God's sake, follow them!"
I noticed some days ago an interesting analogy in the non-IT world: http://interfacingreality.blogspot.com/2008/05/unfriendly-traffic-signs.html
Yann Trevin on June 2, 2008 7:29 AMThis pose would be more aptly named: "When will there ever be UI consistency?"
Mattkins on June 2, 2008 7:33 AMSteve said:
And yet, with Office 2007, my wife took over 3 hours to figure out how to "Save" a document, and when she did, she was PO'd to find that it didn't save in the format she wanted. Then, when she wanted to print the document, it took another 2 hours. After 3 days of flailing around, she finally uninstalled it and switched back to Office 2005.
... my wife tried for about 10 minutes to find the file/save (under the upper left icon???!!!!$#$^#*) ... and then gave me a call at work:
(said in a tone that implied divorce if not complied with): You WILL uninstall that and give me back 2003. (click)"
We have 2003 installed still, of course.
If only there was a "2003 mode" to help with the transition. We shouldn't have to throw away 5 years of training to use the new version.
I switched to Mac a year before vista came out. I am now a mac developer with a small company. I really feel for you windows developers. There are many challenges that you guys have to face that we really don't.
This probably sounds sarcastic and prideful, but I don't mean for it to come off that way. I am very happy with the system I develop for, and when I remember what it looked like to develop Windows, I can only feel for you guys. It doesn't look easy on any level. I can only hope that in Windows 7 you get a better environment for development.
Sam McDonald on June 2, 2008 7:36 AMI hate how every 3 years, a new version of Office comes out and every third party developer trips over themselves to buy some half-assed implementation of the new look that Office brought along for NO APPARENT REASON usually that also chooses not to look like the rest of the applications on Windows. Then they never update that look and feel once they've chosen it.
When you use the OS-provided look, you have less code to ship, test, and write. When you let graphic designers design your UI (as is the case with Trillian) or you rewrite all the standard controls to look 'cool,' the end result almost always looks horrible if the user happens to have some slightly different display preferences set.
They are called common controls for a reason.
Matt Green on June 2, 2008 7:37 AM"Aren't these trivial, nitpicky complaints? Yes. They are. And that's entirely the point. This little stuff matters."
Damn right it matters! This is the very reason I now have a mac sat on my desk at home instead of a Windows PC.
miggy on June 2, 2008 7:47 AMFinally, someone has come up with what I wanted to express about Vista. I think Vista is a very reliable system with many new great features, but the UI really bothers me. It feels very amateur and inconsistent. The Aero glass look is not really good-looking. Just look at the toolbar in Windows Mail, it is very hard to read. Same thing for the taskbar. It has shiny on it just to make items are harder to read.
However many great things appeared in Vista (the thumbnail preview in the taskbar), the Alt-Tab (not the infamous 3D Windows-Tab). The Start Menu looks good, but the in-place browsing feels sometimes more cloggy than the pre-Vista Start menu feeling.
This weekend, I have been changing a friend's wireless network security from WEP to WPA. Mac OS X had such a hard time figuring out the password and the security has changed. The only way to change it was to remove the password in the Keychain...not very user-friendly.
Vincent on June 2, 2008 7:48 AMWell I can put up with the a few rough edges in Vista - however I think it shows a general lack of testing and developer care which permeates down through more important areas (at least for me).
The annoying problem with Vista currently is with unzipping, it’s just too slow, I have to use WinRar to unzip most things now...Prior to service pack 1 copying across a network was an exercise in futility as well, at least that seems to be fixed.
I wrote a blog post a year ago on what I thought of Vista:
http://www.feedghost.com/Blogs/BlogEntry.aspx?EntryId=3695
Cheers
Lee
@ilan -
I use Vista on a daily basis as does the majority of my office.. we have only 2 XP machines left.
No one complains about Vista. Our designers do have problems with their MACs.
Integral on June 2, 2008 7:55 AMthese inconsistencies really must add a lot of bloat. Think of the addition resources that need to be loaded into memory to spawn a dialog that has windows 3.1 components. It is a shame
robert on June 2, 2008 8:00 AMThis attitude is not new ....
e.g. the "Designed for Windows" logo campaign ... It had a list of rules to follow to make a Windows app ... and Microsoft Office broke most of them ...
Developers begin to say why bother following the design guidelines when even Microsoft don't bother ...
I have used Vista and after turning off most of the overdone "prettiness" so I ended up with something that looked like Windows 2000/2003 and the most annoying aspects of the added security, it was quite a nice system and a slight improvement on XP ...
If you think Vista is bad then look at Windows Mobile 6. The main screen looks well designed, but if you go into any of the settings windows it looks like Windows 3.11
Paul on June 2, 2008 8:17 AMThe point about GUI consistency is the juggling with memory.
Humans (us) have a bad short term memory = we lose attention with blinking menus/high depth tabs or menus.
The Gui sonsistency helps short term memory to focus on your action : if opening a document is always the upper left menu File item open, then you can focus solely on opening a document not on guessing where the heck they put the "open document" widget.
I was rather puzzled by last office version which has pastel coloured menus and contextual menus that dont differenciate from the content.
I find change a nice thing, but I am still puzzled by the hubris of computer engeneers consisting of reinventing the GUI, and making us lose the benefit of long learned consistent "habits".
And yes, linux is quite inconsistent too because of GNOME : KDE has a strong UI interface and guidelines. But, GNOME is mostly an ideological software project that is an inconsistent bloatware full of "astronaut architect" that was made because Stallman couldn't stand that his "libre" unix (... hurd), hadn't a GUI to compete with the suppositedly non free "KDE". As a result, efforts are splitted, and free unices (BSD/linux) application are split between KDE/GNOME/Xlibs .... It is a mess.
However, there is a solution : for any developper, I'd strongly recommend using wxwidget http://www.wxwidgets.org/, and its guidelines : http://wyoguide.sourceforge.net/guidelines/content.html
Since wxwidget UI library aims at being portable
1)widget relies on the OS look and feel ;
2)guidelines are "cross GUI" good sense and good practice (when optimizing no one can aim the best choice, juste a good choice) ;
3)developpers normaly dont have an easy way reinventing "their own custom widget" ;
My last point would be that since solution could exists, why isn't it adopted ?
I'd guess GUI has become a "Someone Else Problem" lost in the lines of specialization ? Anyone has a better idea that don't involve Chtulu wanting us to become insane ?
I use Vista on both of my machines. I say 'Vista rocks'. But I can't say 'Vista seriously rocks'. The little things that are done wrong are perplexing. Number 25 on Long Zheng's list (which is the active window?) is my most annoying example. In the era of big monitors and multiple monitors, this leaves me speechless. Do all Microsoft developers and testers run everything maximized? How did this slip through? I rarely see the 'Add Fonts' dialog, but this one impacts me constantly. Argh!
josh on June 2, 2008 8:30 AMI wonder if you've seen this screenshot?
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.media/vista.png
bp on June 2, 2008 8:30 AMThis is one of the reasons I'm not so keen on Linux.
The Office UI is fantastic for Office, but Office is really in a niche in terms of UI considerations - lots of functionality needing to be exposed. It's annoying that so many applications that will work fine with toolbars are jumping on the bandwagon without needing to.
Jeff. Once again spot on. I've bemoaned UI consistency (or rather lack of) for a while, and it's certianly my big beef when it comes to Vista.
Seems to be a fine example of design by committee.....
Consistency breeds repeated mental models that are easy to learn and transfer. It's the difference between wandering around a new City with signs or without signs - you could ask the way or find a map, but we're all much happier learning for ourselves...
Ian Pender on June 2, 2008 8:34 AMMy sentiments exactly. Vista is really a half baked operating system especially user interface wise. Aero is just a band aid to a really messed up OS, and it really showed this time round.
And that's why I find it so funny when the Firefox 3 developers work towards a 'Vista native' theme, when in fact, such a theme doesn't exist.
MK on June 2, 2008 8:37 AMSpecial mention to Office 2007 for using non-standard window title bars, that occasionally revert back to standard title bars when the system is feeling stressed!
Syd on June 2, 2008 8:45 AMeven the font-list does not show the font: What would be easier than to have an additional column showing "the quick brown fox.." rendered with the given font?
titrat on June 2, 2008 8:51 AMIf anyone gets the opportunity to hear Ray Konopka give his "Effective User Interface Design" presentation, you should make every effort to attend. It is wonderful.
Ray founded Raize software (http://raize.com), which makes UI components. Originating in the Delphi world, Ray has ported his components to .Net. As a result of all of this component work, Ray has become a UI design expert. He does recommend reading "Design of Everyday Things" and other books.
Ray's premise is that an Effective (good) UI design is one that is so intuitive that no user training or documentation is required.
aikimark on June 2, 2008 8:59 AMInteresting article on Ars Technica but I think the author is a bit harsh on .NET - a lot of the new stuff (e.g. WPF) is very promising, as the same author himself described in another article on Vista on the same site (http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/pretty-vista.ars/3). I think Vista's received so much hate that it's slowed down the adoption of these new technologies. That, and Microsoft's stupid decision to backport most of this stuff to XP.
Rhywun on June 2, 2008 9:08 AMSyd, that title bar thing happens with regular, built-in, *XP* themes. Notice also that the console window is unthemed in XP.
It's no surprise that Vista is half-baked, since it builds on half-baked foundations.
yipyip on June 2, 2008 9:17 AMVista has, for me, become the very definition of too many features for an operating system. Remember the good old days when the OS was the thing that ran all your programs? Now it's become all your programs, all at once. Microsoft blew its production into full overdrive to maximize the volume of code the end user is purchasing, rather than blowing its production into full overdrive to maximize the transparency of the operating system.
Maybe I'm too much of a *NIX fan, but the OS should just be the environment in which you do your work, play your games, etc. It should not be an imposing juggernaut who watches over your shoulder. Vista is the epitome of overdesigned glut.
Stephen on June 2, 2008 9:17 AMI'm surprised you did not mention Office 2007. The ribbon is a big deviation from everything else on the system. How long did it take you before you figured out the glowing meatball was a button?
Akira on June 2, 2008 9:22 AMI never can decide whether small mistakes mean a lot or not. On the one hand, yes, "if they can't get that right, what CAN they get right, ya-know-whatta-mean?" On the other, when I make small mistakes (a typo here, a misremembered fact there), usually they are, in fact, quite small—trivial to the overall argument, a matter of style and not substance.
Bad GUI design _could_ mean bad overall design, or it could not. It could mean, "our middle managers changed the GUI specs in the middle of production and nobody was really sure what they were supposed to be."
I worked at a company that had to implement EXTREMELY rigid design standards (government imposed design standards, if you can believe it) in creating some technical manuals for said government about subway trains. Halfway into the project said state government body changed some aspects of their standards and made us go back and try to remember which was the right one and which was the wrong one. Inevitably there were some inconsistencies. It had nothing to do with whether we worked hard, were well run, knew what we were doing, it was all about bureaucratic confusion.
And we all know that consistency is (usually) best of all, but lord knows that's a high standard on a massive project. I can barely keep my own notes consistent when I'm only talking about a few hundred documents. I would imagine maintaining consistency is probably THE problem of massive software design.
Anyway, I've never used Vista to any degree, so I can't draw any strong conclusions—just some general thoughts.
Shmork on June 2, 2008 9:24 AMcould be worse. could have made no improvements at all since windows 95 like excite (http://www.excite.com/)
Darren Kopp on June 2, 2008 9:28 AMNo. Microsoft Bob still takes the cake.
Scottl on June 2, 2008 9:29 AMI guess I was so pleased with how Vista looked - compared to XP - I haven't noticed a lot of the inconsistencies. Now I’ll be looking for them. Darn it, Jeff. Why d’ya have to do that and mess up my “Vista Experience”? :)
PaulG. on June 2, 2008 9:31 AMConsistency is a tricky thing, especially as you add new features, try to keep things looking fresh and new, leverage the latest hardware, and at the same time strive for backwards compatibility.
I appreciate when the Windows developers work to make things consistent, but I can understand when it doesn't happen. I'd also say that if resources and time are limited, I'd take things functioning correctly over making them 100% consistent.
LorenHeiny on June 2, 2008 9:31 AM@Simon: it's not windows '95 style, it's windows 3.11 style.
In 16 years nobody took the time to update its design nor get rid of it.
Note specifically a Vista U.I. clunker, but for fun try to use Outlook to print two specific pages of a multi-page email.
You can print Odd pages, or Even pages, but not, say, pages 3 and 4. This oddity is all the more incongruous because Outlook is part of Microsoft Office wherein all the other family members permit very specific selection of pages or pages ranges to print...
Ric on June 2, 2008 9:35 AMI tend to view the inconsistencies in Vista's UI as a symptom of major faults in the design of the Windows build process. It would appear that every dialog is handcrafted - those "completed" before the availability of the swanky new fonts just kept to the old ones. It would go some way toward explaining why there's such a long rollout process for other languages, too.
You would think (and would presumably be wrong, although I'd love to hear otherwise) that there would be a dialog development framework, which references a global styling engine and that rendered (resizing where necessary/appropriate to ensure font changes don't cause problems) dialogs at build time.
But I suppose if you have a few spare billion to throw a it, why bother?
Mike Woodhouse on June 2, 2008 9:38 AMVista is the counterpart of the vitamin-laden sugary drinks from Coca Cola. Looks good on paper, but delivers a punch at (or below) the waistline. And you pay premium for a drink even though it is loaded with a cheap commodity (sugar).
It seems that a lot of Windows development is outsourced to people and places where attention to detail does not matter.
Even Bill Gates shouted out that Vista is the best six billions he ever spent on an operating system.
How do you build an incomplete OS with virtually unlimited resources at your disposal?
CocaColaAndVista on June 2, 2008 9:39 AMI can't argue with the point you're making - consistency is important, sticking to the UI guidelines is a good idea.
I do wonder about the "fit and finish" of Vista relative to earlier versions, though. It seemed to me that Windows 95 was full of Windows 3.x-style dialog boxes, and that even Windows XP had plenty of throwbacks lurking just below the surface. I don't think it's surprising that Vista, which is far larger and more complex than previous versions, provides more opportunities for these sorts of inconsistencies.
What's a desktop application developer to do right now, with a market split between XP and Vista? At least if he develops an XP-style UI, his app will work in a correct and reasonably familiar way on both systems.
In the end, this may be a good illustration of how Microsoft's devotion to backward-compatibility is (for them and for us) both a blessing and a curse. They've been able to sell new OSes because the new OSes don't break old stuff; because the new OSes don't break old stuff, app developers (inside and outside Microsoft) won't fix things until they absolutely must.
Western Infidels on June 2, 2008 9:40 AMThe ribbon is a big deviation from everything else on the system.
I heard Windows 7 is going to use the ribbon a lot more. Office often seems to be the place where MS tries out new UI ideas.
Rhywun on June 2, 2008 9:43 AMTo go along with the XP, Vista, and Apple guidelines you posted above, here is a link to the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/
Stphane Charette on June 2, 2008 9:45 AMDoes MK Publishing Pay you to pimp their books Jeff?
ep10 on June 2, 2008 9:46 AMXP was a security mess and heavy handed MS licensing enforcement, Vista is more or less a failure in both execution and user acceptance.
I still use W2K, and am now contemplating upgrading to Windows 2008 Server.
Steve on June 2, 2008 9:50 AMI just HATE how broken Office is now. A program, with a OS style Start Button!?!?!? Where you wouldn't expect one, nor are told that that's what it is?? Ribbons stink as well.
Rocketboy on June 2, 2008 9:53 AMimplementation of the new look that Office brought along for NO APPARENT REASON
This is a clueless statement in reference to Office 2007. The new UI was not for NO APPARENT REASON but a crystal clear reason. MS research revealed that by almost every measure of user experience the old office had failed completely. They even published some of this in order to explain the changes starting with the fact that 9 of the 10 most requested features in office were already there. They have click maps and videos of users searching in vain frustration to accomplish a given task that was often right in front of them. I'm glad they had the guts to reinvent it and find it hilarious that people try to legend and defend the old crapulance. Every interface MS has should be torn down in a similar fashion.
Vista's inconsistency is almost too great to catalog. But I do seem to remember Xp being full of it too as evidenced by the fact that some of the stuff still in Vista is freaking Win98ish.
I would say that with leopard apple has finally pulled in a lot of loose strings. But even Tiger is full of inconsistencies and early versions of OS X were downright disasters. I never understood the half metal/half aqua phase which was as big a disconnect as I've seen in any os. Many people had harsh things to say about it then they do vista now. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/01/03/how_i_learned_to_stop/
Danny on June 2, 2008 10:06 AMIt's cute that you say that John Gruber has been critical of Apple in the past; it harkens back to the day when Gruber *could* be critical of anything Apple, rather than his current low-signal-to-noise-ratio fanboydom.
Jason on June 2, 2008 10:22 AM"MS research revealed that by almost every measure of user experience the old office had failed completely. They even published some of this in order to explain the changes starting with the fact that 9 of the 10 most requested features in office were already there. They have click maps and videos of users searching in vain frustration to accomplish a given task that was often right in front of them"
And yet, with Office 2007, my wife took over 3 hours to figure out how to "Save" a document, and when she did, she was PO'd to find that it didn't save in the format she wanted. Then, when she wanted to print the document, it took another 2 hours. After 3 days of flailing around, she finally uninstalled it and switched back to Office 2005.
This sounds suspiciously like "changing the software to fix the problems for the 10% of users who complained about problems while simultaneously destroying the usability for the 90% who never complained." Our development group has been guilty of this, as well:
"Well, no one ever seems to use this feature, so it's okay if we remove it."
Of course, what we didn't pay attention to was that practically everyone used the feature, they just never said anything about it because it worked fine for them!
I'm not giving up XP until windows 7. Vista is by far the worst MS OS every and it's new look is just a cheap knock off of OS X.
Dan on June 2, 2008 10:44 AMI've been using the ribbon in Office 2007 for a while now, and it constantly surprises me how easy it is to find stuff.
I needed to convert some text to a table in Outlook (Word is the editor). It took me seconds to find Insert, Table, Text to table.
We've recently deployed O2k7 across the office, I haven't had many issues with it at all.
I used Mac for 2 years before switching back to Windows (Vista) recently. Anyone else see signs of the Mac UI going a bit off the rails? It's true that Leopard made some advances (so long, brushed metal and the HIG's laughably made-up justifications for it). But Apple's been lavishing so much attention on the iPod and especially the iPhone that it's not surprising they're trying to crowbar some of those products' UI into the Mac OS. The left-right on/off switch in Time Machine is an egregious offender. As is any usage of Helvetica where there was none before.
Rhywun on June 2, 2008 10:47 AMI honestly don't know how I feel about the Ribbon yet. I use 2003 at work, and at home I have 2007 but I have had little occasion to use it yet. In the little time I've used it, I had some initial difficulty finding stuff I used to find easily in the menus. I also couldn't figure out how to access options that disappear when you make the window smaller. However, I have coworkers on 2007 who swear by it. But seriously... 3 hours to locate the save icon at the top? That sounds like an exaggeration :)
Rhywun on June 2, 2008 10:54 AMInterestingly enough, it sounds like a lot of work went into figuring out the Office 2007 ribbon, and in addition, there was a nice post about "it's not what you say, it's what you're actually doing" mixed in there as well. Here's a blog series from one of the folks that actually worked on the UI. I suggest going down to the bottom (where the first entry is) and reading backward.
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/tags/Why+the+New+UI_3F00_/default.aspx
Sean Patterson on June 2, 2008 10:58 AMMakes you appreciate Mac OX's UI even more. Although I'm sure there's probably a few gaffs in there too.
S Saint-Pettersen on June 2, 2008 11:00 AMIt's not just the UI. Every new release puts critical functionality like ODBC setup or network configuration in a different part of the menus, or puts it in/takes it out of Control Panel, etc. If you've got to relearn everything anyway, there goes another argument against switching to Linux.
A. Lloyd Flanagan on June 2, 2008 11:01 AMYou simply have a choice as a developer: get the product out, or make it perfect. Most of the time, these days, the focus is getting it out in "working" condition and fix issues with a whole hell of a lot of updates and patches. Vista itself was a rush job and people know that. Release dates during the project were constantly being pushed further and further into the future, and the end product wasn'teven really as ambitious as they had expected to be. Worse yet, it works best (note, I say "best". It will work less than optimally otherwise) with only the most advanced hardware.
And to what purpose? Most people only use their computers to check their email and do minor surfing of the internet.
Most people can do these things with much less hardware and much less flashy interfaces than they have. ( You can still use a system with a P3 processor and about 128 MB RAM, and a now miniscule 20 GB harddrive running Windows 2000 for this sort of stuff. You probably can do it with less, but this is the most "out of date" systemI've seen people use.) You can also still old out of date software to do your bookkeeping, some minor photo retouching, and to play some basic everyday media files. (I know someone who until recently still used floppies to install and save their quickbooks files).
In all honesty user's... well... use... hasn't changed much in recent years.
What DOES drive the technological market is the constant desire to have the newest, greatest, and often times, most expensive hardware and software out there. It's almost always a status symbol driven market similar to the fashion industry.
It's very difficult to build a case against that.
So of course you get the push to have a new product out virtually every "season", which goes back to the decision I mentioned earlier: design well, or design quickly. Designing quickly is going to win out usually because otherwise you aren't going to have a product to sell within the proper market time frame.
It'll be interesting to see what happens in the next few years, as hardware has outstripped user's needs, (with, perhaps the exception of SSD's, which are relatively new still and have room to expand, and RAM, which programs seem to just LOVE to gobble up these days). My prediction is to expect to see ever crappier user interfaces and even more buggy software than ever before as the tech industry scrambles to create more fashionable products in shorter periods of time. What I, and I'm sure many others are wishing for is that this nonsense stops and people take the time to build truly beautiful programs that are efficently coded and take up minimal resources.
But don't expect it any time soon.
The Postindustrialist on June 2, 2008 11:02 AMI read an article about changing the gui to minesweeper back before Vista even came out. This article is telling and explains WHY these inconsistencies exist and why it takes so long for Microsoft to create an OS.
MS has never been innovators. They "borrow" ideas from other companies and take them to another level. Those asking for MS to innovate their OS stop holding your breath. XP was a necessary upgrade for those users still stuck on ME (UGH), and 98 ... AND for those who used 2000. Lets face it 2000 is stable but ungodly slow in booting and shutting down. It's ugly. 98 ... well I don't have to say anymore. BUT Vista in this isn't necessary. It's to a) make money b) give those business users who paid for the upgrade service to reap their rewards. As a new experience it offers very little that can't be downloaded. (except for DirectX 10).
The reality folks is that we're stuck with it for better or worse. Our ability to buy XP ends this month. Stock up now...
Bill Szczytko on June 2, 2008 11:04 AMInstead of bashing Microsoft (an easy target) I hope the point is getting thru that all developers need to be wary of the guidelines and consistently follow them. At a previous job I was known as Mr. AnalRetentive for strictly reviewing screen design. It was a tad annoying for those designing screens and for me, but in the end we had a consistent UI.
MattH on June 2, 2008 11:08 AMWhat's surprising about Vista's inconsistencies and it's components that seem like throwbacks from the Win9x era is that Vista is supposed all new, totally rewritten. The UI goofs kinda suggest a different story...
Rob O. on June 2, 2008 11:23 AMI think that Vista is a great OS when it works. After almost two years I have had no problems at all with anything, a first with any Operating Systems, including OSX and three different distributions of Linux.
That being said, a lot of people are complaining about Vista just because they can. Microsoft did promise a lot of features that they didn't provide from the original ideas of Longhorn. The Vista UI looks great, but you're right in the sense that a lot of it has just been pulled from previous versions.
Next to everyone I know that has complained about Windows Vista seem to moan that things are different, like trying to get to the desktop properties, screens to set up wireless, etc.
Mike on June 2, 2008 11:28 AMThe problem Jeff is thought out real criticism about the UI of Vista is lost in the din of "blah Vista suks" from the general population.
I cant figure out what is so good about OSX. I mean Leopard had more security threats in the three months it was out then Vista had all year in 2007. Oh yah, it's all that lipstick.
When stuff fails in osx... no error message nothin, it "Just Doesn't Work".
There are issues with vista's control panel navigation too... which was mentioned by another. All these little things add up. As a developer i like Vista, but as a general user i just have to sigh. So close... yet...
So osx is the lipstick *explicitive* i want to date, but Windows is the gal you want to marry.
Brian on June 2, 2008 11:41 AMIf you think the "nerd rage" over vista is unwarranted, you probably haven't read this yet:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html
or this:
The article that you link to about "nerd rage" is understandably naive and misinformed, but the fact is that a great deal of the horribleness of Vista is real. And as you seem to have discovered, everyone can find something not to like, even if they discount the bigger picture :).
Personally, I'm thrilled about this. Nothing the open source community could have done would have created an opportunity for Linux anywhere close to the windfall that the Vista disaster has created.
Glyph Lefkowitz on June 2, 2008 11:48 AMI read through some of that example chapter and theres one thing I don't agree with. He says that instead of using "Username" as a label you use "Member name". I think this might be a little dated. Most people know what a "Username" is.
Donny on June 2, 2008 12:02 PMMy annoyance is the drop down of the address bar, press the down arrow thing and it brings up a list of recent file locations but mixed in there are also recent internet locations. I believe up until SP1 clicking on one of these did nothing, this changed to open the web browser to that site in SP1 but really if I am in an explorer window am I really likely to want to bring up an internet address no, I am probably moving, copying or opening files.
pete on June 2, 2008 12:24 PMYou think that's bad, try using Office 7...
Mac on June 2, 2008 12:32 PMWhile I'd agree that consistency in vista is terrifying; the OS in itself definitely better than XP.
@Glyph: Both the articles speak only of DRM; which you need to watch BD movies. Badvista article is the usual FSF stuff. Peter Gutmann's article is much debated over - I personally haven't seen "increase in CPU usage while using WMP11". Regardless of that, both of the links don't say "Vista is bad" but "Vista is evil" which is a totally different story.
Leafy on June 2, 2008 12:35 PM@ Vincent: "This weekend, I have been changing a friend's wireless network security from WEP to WPA. Mac OS X had such a hard time figuring out the password and the security has changed. The only way to change it was to remove the password in the Keychain...not very user-friendly."
I'd say if you are reconfiguring your network to use a different authentication scheme you should have the wherewithal to figure out the solution. BTW, I'd have gone to Internet Connect and changed the option there rather than the Keychain directly.
But, it does speak to a larger issue: any time you do something for a user, you risk them not being able to correct it themselves should the situation change.
In any case, the example shown in the article is a Windows 3.1 dialog box which just has never gotten changed. Set aside the obvious "why" (wouldn't most people want to manage their fonts with some kind of a preview rather than just as a list of names?) The question is, why wouldn't Microsoft at some point "clean house" and eradicate all uses of a particular type of control (such as the Win16 controls in use here)?
I can think of a few reasons:
1. You need to look at each functional area. Just replacing the tree control with one from this century would end up making the other controls on the dialog look dated and ugly. It's quite likely that starting with "all Win16 tree controls in the OS" and expanding to "all functional areas containing those Win16 tree controls" would end up netting a major UI revamp project across the entire OS, far too big for a five-year "rewrite" to absorb.
2. You also need to consider external training and documentation, and not just first-party. How many user manuals for other hardware and software include instructions for navigating that clunky dialog box? How many IT shops have instructions for setting up a machine using that dialog box? To break all those aged manuals, you'd have to grow a pair, and Microsoft is apparently incapable of doing this (ex: Zune DRM fiascos).
3. Next, you have to worry about all the third-party "close but not quite" duplicates of the dialog. How many third-party apps will you break by making this dialog work in a reasonable and modern manner?
4. You have to care in the first place. Microsoft does not see a large portion of its cash cow user base migrating to anything besides the next version of Windows in the next ten years. They may be wrong, but they don't see it. They just plain do not care, at a fundamental level. The Win16 controls are good enough. You can live with it, and you will pay for it, just like you have seven times before (Win 3.1, '95, '98, ME, 2k, XP, and now Vista).
Microsoft's general policy here is, "when we rewrite that functional area, we'll update its UI [to the state of the art at the moment, which will again be dated the following year]". This leads to a general OS blight and broken windows down every half-dark alley. On the other hand, it does serve as a pretty good indicator as to where Microsoft has invested its efforts in each release: you know that if the UI still looks like Barney Rubble designed it then that functional area has not been worked on in any significant way. Obviously, Microsoft cares about fonts (at least the ClearType aspect), but it is obvious it doesn't care a whit about how the user manages their fonts.
Gnome 2.22 took it all. Every menu I've seen thus far has been very consistent.
Mark on June 2, 2008 12:52 PMSo how do you balance UI consistency with UI innovation/evolution?
Scott on June 2, 2008 12:55 PMHave you ever thought about the Drive Letter? That must be one of the oldest hacks still used. Microsoft never managed to improve that "technology" that was lifted from C/PM, which introduced it 1967...and it is still in Vista, how about that? Microsoft needs visionaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_letter_assignment
Yet another reason why I am primarily a Linux user and still use XP when I need a Windows system. But to those who say there's inconsistency in Gnome too- relative to Vista, I think that's a mistake.
Vista sucks. Isn't it pretty obvious by now??
Patrick on June 2, 2008 1:01 PMI can't believe that people are still linking to that Gutmann article. Especially since he notes at the top that it is mostly out of date. Apple supports HDCP too so if Vista really "the longest suicide note in history" it won't be because of the issues he raises there.
Danny on June 2, 2008 1:48 PM@Sigivald: I'm aware that Gutmann has critics and his analysis has flaws. However, plenty of his criticism is valid, and his critics have failed to impress me with their insight. I've been reading papers by crypto researchers and articles in ZDNet for years; can you guess which I take more seriously? :)
@Leafy: It's not just about watching movies. As an example: I have an old machine where I can't install Vista. I strongly suspect that this is because the video card is slightly wonky and has some of its "tilt bits" set. Can I prove it? No, I'm not a researcher, and I frankly don't care because vista is so terrible that none of my customers are asking for it yet. But in Linux, I'd report the bug and work on the fix. (This is not idle chatter. I've helped diagnose several kernel bugs, and while I am a software developer, I'm not a kernel hacker.) Instead, Microsoft has sent a very clear message that I may be considered a criminal if I attempt to fix this problem.
Is this relevant to the horribly inconsistent UI that Jeff is talking about? Yes. I love the inconsistent, broken UI. It provides yet another good reason that involves no high-minded principles why users should just stick with XP. It looks nicer, it performs better. And frankly, it makes GNOME look great; OpenOffice is an ugly mess, but it's an ugly mess that's a hell of a lot more consistent with GNOME's conventions than Office is with Vista's (such as they are).
Glyph Lefkowitz on June 3, 2008 2:22 AMSteve said:
And yet, with Office 2007, my wife took over 3 hours to figure out how to "Save" a document, and when she did, she was PO'd to find that it didn't save in the format she wanted. Then, when she wanted to print the document, it took another 2 hours. After 3 days of flailing around, she finally uninstalled it and switched back to Office 2005.
I don't want to be rude, it's not my place. But if your wife spent the better part of a days work saving and printing a document, and the 3 days flailing around, there's an issue with your wife, not so much the app.
It's about learning, she'd learned where File-Save, and File-Print are, and it moved. That's bound to confuse a few people. Not realising that what was once the File Menu, is now a "start like operating system button" in the corner is a acceptable. Finally finding the save functionality after 3 hours and then not realising the same f*^ing thing she'd figured out only minutes before also applies here, far passes the point of stupidity.
I hope your exaggerating, I really do. That would still be a stupid, unbelievable story i fyou changed all your "hours" to "minutes", and "days" to "hours".
Shannon on June 3, 2008 2:30 AMFrom week to week my gf can't remember things I've told her (numerous times I might add). How to hibernate the laptop, find word or excel, use wireless, etc. " Start-Shutdown now hold the shift key and click .. oh sod it .. I'll do it."
From her point of view it's all too bloody complicated, and that's hard to argue. Mac, PC, whatever. It doesn't matter what OS, or what program you use. I'd rather trade prettyness for rock-solid performance. I just want to get things done and not mess around, and fancy UI animations get old fast.
mr fancy pants on June 3, 2008 2:56 AM"Want a good example, go to the uninstall dialog and search for an app to uinnstalled - whoops, it only searchs for other control panel applets there. Intead of searching deeper like in most spots, it suddenly searchs sideways."
Have you actually tried that?
a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26387839@N04/2548589985/"http://www.flickr.com/photos/26387839@N04/2548589985//a
"It's about learning, she'd learned where File-Save, and File-Print are, and it moved. That's bound to confuse a few people. Not realising that what was once the File Menu, is now a "start like operating system button" in the corner is a acceptable."
When I, a not untechnical person takes minutes to find where the *^%$ "Save as" option is and has to try several things to find it then I would say the interface is broken
Every attempt at using the new Office has resulted in hitting so many differences that slow me down that I have always given up and reverted to an older version, not a good sign, when changing to OpenOffice I could find most things almost instantly and the things I couldn't was because they did not exist ... there are still some things that I assume are on the new office but I can't find ... so much for the "customers requested things that were already there" fix, now they will request things they used on the previous version!
Jaster on June 3, 2008 3:28 AMIt would be interesting to see guidelines for Web applications :)
Igor on June 3, 2008 3:48 AMeven in XP, change in windows theme has no effect on applications like
Office 2007, Media Player 11 (they remain light-blue and black).
I wonder how many of the inconsitence in Vista are due to maintaning backward compatibility. It could be that if a 16bit icons were replaced with modern icon it would break some random app made back in the early 90's. From what I understand the APIs in Windows are a huge mess made from 20 years of code.
MS seem to rate backwards compatibility very highly, so if updating some obscure 16 bit icon has even the remotes possibility of breaking a few 20 year old apps then they won't do it. They're in a loss/loss situation. Clean up their own code base and break the huge number of legacy apps, or maintain the burden of the code base that resulted in Vista.
Of course, this is still doesn't explain why MS don't follow their own guidelines.
Also, I don't think that UI consistentence is a trival point. The UI may seem trival to developers, but to the vast majority of users the UI is the program. Personally I think the UI is one the most important aspect of an app. It's hurdle number 1. I strongly recommend "Design of Everyday Things" and "Emotional Design" by Donald Norman and "The Humane Interface" by Jeff Raskin.
Benedict on June 3, 2008 3:59 AMOne small change I noticed today:
In Ubuntu, like most other Linux distros, if you haven't checked your drives for some time, a filesystem check is forced upon boot, and you get a message like "/dev/sda1 hasn't been checked for a long time," or something to that effect, and I always thought this was a creepy message at best.
In Hardy Heron (8.04), that message has been replaced with "Routine check of drives," which is much better.
Can Berk Gder on June 3, 2008 4:02 AMI, personally, really like both Vista and the new Office, though most of the reasons are too "touchy-feely" to really explain. After using Office 2007 for nearly a month without using previous versions of Office, I felt crippled when I sat down in front of my work computer with Office 2003 and tried to do fairly simple things. I always had trouble in previous versions of Word, for instance, figuring out how to use sub- and super-script for notes and formulas, unless I had previously setup the toolbar with buttons for those functions (and the toolbar wasn't too cluttered, so that I could still find it).
In the last few versions of Windows MS has seemed to feel a need to change the Control Panel with each major version, but at least the search bar in Vista works well enough that I can find the damned thing I'm looking for without learning the new version.
I get white-on-black window borders in most applications without every 3rd application coming up with black font on black menus (the worst case is usually an application coming up with a gray or light-blue menu like Notepad).
Windows Mail (the replacement for Outlook Express) is actually functional enough that I don't feel a need to buy Outlook to handle my email. It's also fairly easy to backup and recover the email stored in the program without having to be able to actually run the program to do the backup (it stores everything in User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Mail\ and the .eml files that store the individual emails are plain text). I know it's nothing revolutionary, and other applications have stored their email this way for years.
On the other hand, I'm definitely not going to go around saying the UI is consistent, because it's obviously not. Almost everything in the Accessories folder in the Start Menu that dates back to before XP comes up with some element that isn't adopting the Vista UI properly, with Paint, Notepad, and Calculator being the most obvious failures. What's worse is that this is SP1; not some newly-released OS, but one that's been around long enough for a full service pack.
Of course, I didn't go through the upgrade process on any of my PCs, yet. Everything I'm running Vista on now came with Vista pre-loaded. My older desktop will most likely run Ubuntu once I upgrade it to replace some dead hardware, but it's more because I don't have a real reason to run Vista on it than any problems with Vista itself.
Vizeroth on June 3, 2008 4:05 AMFrom week to week my gf can't remember things I've told her (numerous
times I might add). How to hibernate the laptop, find word or excel,
use wireless, etc. " Start-Shutdown now hold the shift key and click
.. oh sod it .. I'll do it."
In the Power Options (Edit Plan Settings, Change advanced power settings) you can set a laptop to hibernate or sleep when you close the lid. Mine is set to sleep until the battery level gets too low, then it hibernates. Of course, I'm the kind of person that rarely turns my laptop off, and expects it to be ready within seconds of opening the lid.
Everything is really a matter of finding a way to make the computer work for the user. My wife was pretty clueless with computers when we met (though at least she could usually find Word or Excel when she needed them), but the only time she really has problems now is when she gets a new computer or hard drive and all of the little things have to be setup again.
Vizeroth on June 3, 2008 4:21 AM"When I, a not untechnical person takes minutes to find where the *^%$ "Save as" option is and has to try several things to find it then I would say the interface is broken"
Personally i have no sympathy for this. I just can't fathom anybody that has been using computers for any time having that much trouble figuring this out.
Since I was able to save a document in Word 2007 before I even noticed there wasn't a normal file menu, maybe I can help make you a little more "not untechnical".
In almost every app in existence, Alt-F opens the File menu, and Ctrl-S saves a document. That applies to Office 2007 too.
And if you are in fact a not untechnical person that still clicks the file menu to save something, it still should not take you more than one minute to notice the big round button with the Office logo that's in the same general vicinity that the File menu normally is, and that it's probably something important... since it's big and round and has the Office logo. Or if you somehow don't make that connection, then the little blue disk icon that's next to it, which is the standard icon for saving a document, might come in handy.
If you are somebody who takes a long time to adapt to change, you can always choose to install the new version alongside the old version, just in case you need to get some work done fast and don't have the time to learn what you need to do. That's what I usually do with my development tools wherever possible. I never uninstall any tools that I use a lot until I'm comfortable with the latest version.
It does take a bit of getting used to some things in the new office interface, but after you get used to it, it's soooooo much nicer to work with than the old retarded interface. I certainly wouldn't call it 'broken'
Best Regards,
Gerald
@Jon Cram, you make a few valid points. However..
"There are also very clear signs that the Office 2007 interface is broken. Interface elements should communicate their purpose through their appearance alone, as well all know. The Office button fails here."
I tend to disagree with this. And I can take the old File menu as an example. How does the word File with the F underlined convey to people by its appearance alone that you should click on it to print your documents, arrange the print pages, scan documents, email documents, close documents and exit the application? The only reason that connection is made is because people are used to it. Does that mean that the File menu that is present in most applications is a broken user interface element? A button that performs a single operation should be able to describe to you by its appearance what it's for, but really, how can you possibly describe all of the operations that usually fall under the File menu by the appearance of a single button?
The Office 2007 user interface design is a new paradigm in the way user interface elements are arranged and organized. The reason it came into existence is because there were so many features and options in Word that the old paradigm just doesn't fit any more; it made the interface crowded, unwieldy, and took up too much of your workspace. Do you think that Microsoft is lying when they said they got a lot of complains about the old interface? I cursed the old design every time I used it.
The file menu was the one menu that couldn't really be integrated into the rest of the user interface design. Making it just another part of the ribbon menu would have required redesigning the way the file operations were organized and presented all together, which would have made it much more "broken". And putting just a File menu up there above the ribbon menu would have been ugly. So the Office Button makes perfect sense to me. Maybe they could have done even more to bring peoples attention to it, like maybe do what Windows does with the Start Button when you run it for the first time, and actually have the menu open with a giant tooltip telling you HEY LOOK HERE, IM IMPORTANT!
But still, I really can't understand anybody who has been using computers for a long time having that much of a problem with it. My mother, who's 70 years old and thinks the Internet is down whenever Yahoo Mail gives her an error, was able to figure out how to save and print files in Word 2007 without any real problem.
Best Regards,
Gerald
Interestingly, Gruber's entry is a few years old. In the meantime, Apple has gotten a lot better, and Leopard introduced an unified window theme, replacing the old "brushed metal" and "normal" themes.
LKM on June 3, 2008 4:59 AM"people use VISTA? Really?"
My question would be:
"people choose VISTA? Really?"
(Well, Jeff did.)
I had Vista loaded on my laptop (my choice) for a few months and couldn't stand it anymore. The sluggish, bloated, OSX-wannabe just rankled the craftsman in me. And the pesky UAC? That's Microsoft's solution to the elevated privilege problem? I live/work in a Windows world, but I'm procrastinating the Vista force-feeding as long as I can.
Craig Boland on June 3, 2008 5:02 AMTotally agree. What's maybe the most diturbing aspect of this is that the vast majority of these UI issues are reasonably easy to fix. A quick scan of the issues list at the Windows UI Taskforce provides proof. So, what we're primarily left with is the conclusion that Microsoft doesn't care enough about the UI experience to prioritize the work that needs to be done in order to clean up these issues.
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