"From December 2008 to October 2014, he led the team responsible for the redesign of the software user experience of Surface and Windows. Windows 10 was released in July 2015"
Ah, the guy that brought us touch-friendly tiles. On desktop.
He makes good points, though.
I just want the Windows 95 start menu experience. Simple. Worked. I’ve stopped using Windows because I despise the interface so much. Wasn’t a huge Mac fan, but not that I’ve figured out the quirks, I prefer Mac.
>but not that I’ve figured out the quirks, I prefer Mac
And yet, Macs still need third-party software to do window management properly. Not even Monterey lets you snap windows by simply dragging them to the side of the screen, a feature both Windows and all Linux DEs have had for the past 15+ years!
It's unfortunate that you now need to pay the same 10 bucks for the Rectangle equivalent on Windows (that being StartAllBack), but ultimately Windows has passed the point where it needed to sell itself as being better and easier to use and now just chases new shiny at the expense of what happens when you purposefully ignore Fitts' Law so people who want to do actual work need to pay to get the old features back. I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.
For reference, I'm expecting windowing behavior in macOS to do exactly what Windows does: when you drag a window to the boundary (edge or corner) of the screen, it should automatically resize to that half or quadrant of the screen.
Monterey doesn't do this out of the box (I don't believe I'm using it wrong- even if there is an unpublished keyboard shortcut to trigger it, I don't have to use such a shortcut in any other WM), and the behavior it does have is severely lacking.
For starters, you have to manually hover over the button hiding the feature to use it, and that button isn't on the edge of a window (worst-case for accessibility, per Fitts' Law). Additionally, its window-arranging features aren't capable of arranging more than 2 windows on the screen (you can't do it by quadrant like you can with other tilers), and it also puts them into full-screen mode so it both hides the menu bar and you can't easily just pull them out of the arrangement like you can with other WMs.
I don't believe there are currently any plans to fix this, and that might be just as well (the term 'Sherlocked' originates from Apple for a very good reason), but the fact that it took them 15 years to come up with a half-assed version of what Windows was doing in 2006 isn't actually that great a look.
I won't be "upgrading" to Windows 11. Once W10 support has ended I'm moving full time to Linux. I've already started the transition so I'll be more than ready when the time comes. Unnecessary changes with no benefit just show a lack of respect for the consumer and a level of arrogance I thought had been extinguished in Microsoft after the Windows 8 debacle. Clearly it hasn't.
Interestingly, on both my laptops (2013 MBP and a 2015 Lenovo gaming laptop) Windows says that they "don't meet minimum requirements to install Windows 11". They're perfectly reasonable machines and Windows 10 runs smooth as butter on both of them, since when did Microsoft got so picky? Anyway, I'm sort of glad, because if the machines were eliglble for the Windows 11 upgrade, I'm sure MS would just go for it one night without my permission.
Though, if you really want to run Windows 11, easy workarounds[2] exist for both.
For what it's worth, I'm currently running Windows 11 on a 2011 MacBook Pro — in BIOS mode, actually, because EFI support for Windows is broken on this particular model — and hardware support is no worse than it is on supported versions of Windows (meaning mostly OK except for the lack of GPU switching and precision touchpad drivers), and considerably better than it is on recent, similarly unsupported Mac OS versions (this machine — my emergency "for the rare cases where I actually need a laptop" box — is currently triple-booting Windows 11 [BIOS], macOS Monterey [EFI], and Linux [EFI]).
If they're Skylake or newer and the Lenovo has a TPM + UEFI Secure Boot, you can probably clean-install Windows 11 without a hitch. I recently reinstalled a Win10-era Asus ZenBook with a Skylake m3 which Microsoft claimed "is not supported" but a normal, unpatched Win11 setup USB worked fine and Windows Update runs properly. (It doesn't complain about unsupported hardware as it would)
I wonder which Linux DE environment you will be using, KDE? I find Gnome's changes to be more unnecessary than Windows, e.g. Gnome 42 defaults to overview on login.
Overall, I find Gnome to at least be more consistent than Windows and no adverts in the activities/applications menus are of course appreciated. However, every major release tends to force the user to relearn certain how to use your desktop principals.
> every major release tends to force the user to relearn
As in the sense of re-education? Or brainwashing? Or maybe just outright monetization of the user (as start menu adverts would indicate)?
Genuine upgrades (esp. security, bugfixes) are one thing but the practice is extremely prone to abuse. Previews are rarely robust enough and you always end up having to change your workflow to conform with questionable (or seemingly arbitrary) "improvements".
Many times I just feel like a rat in an A/B test lab.
So I embraced minimalism; I don't even bother with a full DE these days. I used to love gimmicks like wobbly windows but the novelty wears off fast. I just run a stable and trustworthy WM now (OpenBox, if you're curious) and cherry-pick everything else.
Ever since I've found my environment to be much more comfortable and serene... likely more productive too. YMMV
How do you know that? Do you follow up on random online people making this claim a few months down the line to make sure they are really running Linux now?
You can see it in usage stats for desktop Linux. So many people have claimed over the years that they were going to change, yet never did. If they had, the usage stats would be much higher, but desktop Linux really hasn't gained much popularity over the years. It's sad, because it actually works pretty well these days, despite Gnome doing its best to scare people away by offering a radically different UI than they're used to and pitching itself as the standard (with most of the corporate backing).
2% desktop market share (traditional PCs + laptops) during the last 20 years since people started making that assertion after each single Windows release that annoys them somehow.
Windows XP toy's are us UI, DX10 being Vista only, Windows 7 new UI, Windows 8 new UI, Windows 8.1 new UI, UWP focus, ....
ChromeOS and Android don't count as Linux desktops, given the only thing Linux about them, is their usage of the Linux kernel, considered by Google an implementation detail and not exposed as public userspace APIs to the respective store apps.
I have Windows 11 on x86 and ARM and few PCs with Windows 10 and honestly can't tell the difference between those two after configuration of Windows 11 by few user settings and one forced settings (legacy context menu via loading registry value). So I don't really understand this outrage.
I have to disagree, Windows 11 feels much more like a desktop UI without all the random Windows 8 fly-ins, sidebars, etc. of Windows 10. The Settings app is much neater and dark/light mode is in better colors than "night blindness white" and "astigmatism-inducing OLED black on IPS". Quick actions and the smaller Wi-Fi menu make more sense and are a lot more responsive than the Windows 8-era network menu that barely changed.
Right so a location problem. Solved by placing this content in a more appropriate place, behind a button "offers and recommendations" or similar.
Turns out users don't want to be smacked in the face with a wet fish around every corner of the Windows UI. They want good IA and honestly helpful information. UX design is easy when tied to ethics.
Searching for Chrome in Windows is clear intent and should return Chrome first, followed by secondary results such as "other web browsers" and EDGE might be listed first, then competitor browsers. You can favor your own product while still being helpful & accurate.
There's got to be some recognition at Microsoft that the entire Windows 11 project is being held back by the Taskbar and Start Menu UI team right?
If I were an engineer on Windows and I saw every day how take up of useful improvements I'd worked on were being held back because of the ego of this team I'd be livid. At what point does senior management step in to clean house?
I can highly recommend classic shell. Been using it since win10 came about and it greatly improves the experience by adding a windows 7 style start menu
26 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 71.2 ms ] threadAh, the guy that brought us touch-friendly tiles. On desktop. He makes good points, though.
And yet, Macs still need third-party software to do window management properly. Not even Monterey lets you snap windows by simply dragging them to the side of the screen, a feature both Windows and all Linux DEs have had for the past 15+ years!
It's unfortunate that you now need to pay the same 10 bucks for the Rectangle equivalent on Windows (that being StartAllBack), but ultimately Windows has passed the point where it needed to sell itself as being better and easier to use and now just chases new shiny at the expense of what happens when you purposefully ignore Fitts' Law so people who want to do actual work need to pay to get the old features back. I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.
Monterey doesn't do this out of the box (I don't believe I'm using it wrong- even if there is an unpublished keyboard shortcut to trigger it, I don't have to use such a shortcut in any other WM), and the behavior it does have is severely lacking.
For starters, you have to manually hover over the button hiding the feature to use it, and that button isn't on the edge of a window (worst-case for accessibility, per Fitts' Law). Additionally, its window-arranging features aren't capable of arranging more than 2 windows on the screen (you can't do it by quadrant like you can with other tilers), and it also puts them into full-screen mode so it both hides the menu bar and you can't easily just pull them out of the arrangement like you can with other WMs.
I don't believe there are currently any plans to fix this, and that might be just as well (the term 'Sherlocked' originates from Apple for a very good reason), but the fact that it took them 15 years to come up with a half-assed version of what Windows was doing in 2006 isn't actually that great a look.
Interestingly, on both my laptops (2013 MBP and a 2015 Lenovo gaming laptop) Windows says that they "don't meet minimum requirements to install Windows 11". They're perfectly reasonable machines and Windows 10 runs smooth as butter on both of them, since when did Microsoft got so picky? Anyway, I'm sort of glad, because if the machines were eliglble for the Windows 11 upgrade, I'm sure MS would just go for it one night without my permission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module
Though, if you really want to run Windows 11, easy workarounds[2] exist for both.
For what it's worth, I'm currently running Windows 11 on a 2011 MacBook Pro — in BIOS mode, actually, because EFI support for Windows is broken on this particular model — and hardware support is no worse than it is on supported versions of Windows (meaning mostly OK except for the lack of GPU switching and precision touchpad drivers), and considerably better than it is on recent, similarly unsupported Mac OS versions (this machine — my emergency "for the rare cases where I actually need a laptop" box — is currently triple-booting Windows 11 [BIOS], macOS Monterey [EFI], and Linux [EFI]).
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...
[2] https://rufus.ie/en/
Overall, I find Gnome to at least be more consistent than Windows and no adverts in the activities/applications menus are of course appreciated. However, every major release tends to force the user to relearn certain how to use your desktop principals.
As in the sense of re-education? Or brainwashing? Or maybe just outright monetization of the user (as start menu adverts would indicate)?
Genuine upgrades (esp. security, bugfixes) are one thing but the practice is extremely prone to abuse. Previews are rarely robust enough and you always end up having to change your workflow to conform with questionable (or seemingly arbitrary) "improvements".
Many times I just feel like a rat in an A/B test lab.
So I embraced minimalism; I don't even bother with a full DE these days. I used to love gimmicks like wobbly windows but the novelty wears off fast. I just run a stable and trustworthy WM now (OpenBox, if you're curious) and cherry-pick everything else.
Ever since I've found my environment to be much more comfortable and serene... likely more productive too. YMMV
I've been hearing people make this vow for decades now, but they almost never follow through.
>a level of arrogance I thought had been extinguished in Microsoft after the Windows 8 debacle. Clearly it hasn't.
Microsoft has always been arrogant; this is nothing new.
How do you know that? Do you follow up on random online people making this claim a few months down the line to make sure they are really running Linux now?
Windows XP toy's are us UI, DX10 being Vista only, Windows 7 new UI, Windows 8 new UI, Windows 8.1 new UI, UWP focus, ....
ChromeOS and Android don't count as Linux desktops, given the only thing Linux about them, is their usage of the Linux kernel, considered by Google an implementation detail and not exposed as public userspace APIs to the respective store apps.
I'd dual-boot to play games, but I want to be able to run Ableton simultaneously with web browser/etc.
I just don't think Ableton would run very well in a virtual machine with acceptable latency.
Right so a location problem. Solved by placing this content in a more appropriate place, behind a button "offers and recommendations" or similar.
Turns out users don't want to be smacked in the face with a wet fish around every corner of the Windows UI. They want good IA and honestly helpful information. UX design is easy when tied to ethics.
Searching for Chrome in Windows is clear intent and should return Chrome first, followed by secondary results such as "other web browsers" and EDGE might be listed first, then competitor browsers. You can favor your own product while still being helpful & accurate.
If I were an engineer on Windows and I saw every day how take up of useful improvements I'd worked on were being held back because of the ego of this team I'd be livid. At what point does senior management step in to clean house?