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.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 is dumbed down in more ways than just this Metro/Desktop schizophrenia.

A lot of power features are not "hidden". They are GONE.

If you down want to show them to the causual user that's ok with me..

But make them optional AND ALLOW TO MAKE THEM DEFAULT for those of us who need to get real work done.

(Sorry about the shouting, I just spend several hours fighting the usability nightmare that is a 2012 server box.)

Re:Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated.

[michrech]

My experience mirrors yours. I've had gift cards, thank you cards, and other notes shoved under my office door for pointing people to StartMenu8 ever since Windows 8 became available. Some people like the UI, but MANY seem to loathe it (as I do)...

user design?

[Teunis]

Metro lacks the user friendliness of a pet rock.
Learning curve is high enough that an old windows user like me (since the early 90s) can't figure out how to open an application or find where anything I have installed is.
No menus, no help, no interface, no organization, no context, no structure and too many ads.
I can't help anyone running windows 8. I can't find applications, documents, programs or interface. I'm not sure what that great scrolling walls of ads is, but it doesn't seem to relate to anything resembling functionality - it's easier to find an installed app using "google play" than it is to use that.

And forget "power user". I DO know how to open a command shell, and replace the scrolling wall of stupidity with a terrible second-rate wannabe menu that injects ads everywhere. (which is to say, pretty much every start menu replacement)
I don't actually -need- the start menu - the folders of windows 3 were actually more or less ok.
If I were running a tablet with this stupidity, it'd probably be tossed across the room.

It managed to build an interface almost as terrible and in your face as Ubuntu's "Unity". Except that it takes 50-90% of your CPU to run windows 8 and Unity only prevents you from using it.

I'm not sure who designed either system, but they should be kicked out of user design and forced to go back to school, perhaps in something useful like sales.

Re:My computer illiterate little sister...

[Andrio]

I posted this story a while back. Still relevant:

I tried changing the wallpaper on my brother-in-law's Windows 8 laptop the other day. So I downloaded a picture, and opened it after it finished downloading. The picture loaded in the OS' default image viewer. I saw the picture appear, full-screened, and with no interface. I tried right-clicking the picture. That didn't give me a menu, but an interface did fade into appearance. I promptly saw an option to "Set as."

I clicked it, thinking: "Surely this will let me set the image as the wallpaper", but I was given just two options: set as lockscreen (IT'S A LAPTOP!), and set as 'app tile'

I immediately closed the window since the option I wanted wasn't there--no wait, actually I didn't close it. There was no UI option to close this fullscreen picture. I alt-tabbed back to the desktop. I found the picture again, right clicked it, and went to the "open with" option. There were like 5 image viewers that came with Windows to choose from. I chose the old "Windows Photo Viewer" and set it as the default so this madness won't happen again.

full denigration

[globaljustin]

doesn't appear to denigrate Microsoft enough for me

I don't know what would be enough **for you** but TFA is shameful admission

Shameful if you are in the design part of the tech industry.

This is M$ fully admitting that Metro (and many of their design decisions) was nothing more than **DUMBING DOWN THE INTERFACE**

I know coders don't get this as easily b/c you dont think of the user...but look...

Metro's awfulness is an expression of what M$ thinks of its users. Its 'easy' version of the OS is so mind-numbingly stilted that in attempting to be usable by the stupidest person on earth, it has instead been rendered useless to *everyone*

This article is proof that Microsoft really does act as if it **hates its users**

Wroooooong! Sorry but, WRONG!

[slashmydots]

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.

Re:user design?

[green1]

now try using it on a tablet without a keyboard... (you know, what it was ostensibly designed for) Work recently took away my XP laptop and replaced it with a windows 8 tablet... my productivity has halved... (and that's an optimistic estimate) our best guess is that some VP thought it would look cooler in front of customers if we were on tablets instead of laptops, never mind that we've lost most of our functionality.

99% are NOT headless

[daboochmeister]

I don't know what data centers you spend time in, but 99% of the Windows servers I encounter in data centers (maybe more) are explicitly NOT headless. And with the MS certification programs for admins emphasizing the "GUI way" of doing things way too much, there's no reason to expect that to change with Windows Server 2012 adoption.

In fact, if you accept Azure as the best reference profile for Windows servers, I'm not even sure there's a way to get a headless Windows server on Azure (try searching "site:windowsazure.com headless" if you don't believe me).

Re:Wroooooong! Sorry but, WRONG!

[phlinn]

What title bar? I haven't seen any clue that the top of the app is something special that you can grab onto... Just another example backing up your point about it being hidden. It's not even in Microsoft's own tutorial for using windows 8.

Re:Really?!?!

[MightyMartian]

No, what sucks is that there's no search bar where I can type "Printers" or "ODBC" and there pops up the appropriate Control Panel or Administrator functions. The first Server 2012 installation I did it took me a few minutes just to find the goddamned System Management functions.

Re:Really?!?!

[Billly Gates]

BS

You setup the server ONCE. You walk away and use the MMC console at your desk to do sysadmin work afterwards.

If you can't figure out how to use Metro then I question your ability to do IT. Seriously just because it is not as good as Windows 7 doesn't mean you can't click on a tile called server manager. Good lord.

Most sysadmins who do not know basic powershell should not be in IT either. Infact with Exchange you need ps if you plan to do any upgrades from earlier versions. You need to create keys and import them and use connectors with your other exchange servers scattered around active directory.