back to article Fanbois designing Windows 10 – where's it going to end?

What happens when your data sample isn’t representative of the public? We already know, for 2015 is turning out to be the year of the dodgy opinion poll. And it isn’t just politicians who are being stung. In Windows 10, Microsoft says it will hide running apps from the task bar, breaking a twenty-year-old convention which …

Page:

  1. Yugguy

    Design by Comittee!!!

    Awesome!!

    Cos that always produces the best results.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Facepalm

      Re: Design by Comittee!!!

      The problem regarding how to show running apps over multiple desktops was solved by XFCE years ago - with multiple monitors too. I'm sure many other Linux desktops too. Jeez, this "it's new to us so must be new to the world" attitude got old back in the W95 days.

      And we see this week the beginnings of the eventual forcing of everyone to upgrade. Upgrade they will, but not the way you think.

      I never would have thought ms themselves would fight so hard to make next year the year of Linux on the Desktop. Remember that includes Chromebooks...

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Design by Comittee!!!

        The problem regarding how to show running apps over multiple desktops was solved by XFCE years ago - with multiple monitors too

        Shrug. In my opinion, it was solved just fine by UWM nearly a decade before XFCE was a gleam in Fourdan's eye.

        But users are not homogenous and no one solution is going to please everyone. As, indeed, this article demonstrates.

    2. Preston Munchensonton
      Flame

      Re: Design by Comittee!!!

      There's nothing wrong with Design by Committee. The entirety of Microsoft's problem (and software vendors in general) is that they think that their users aren't smart enough to have user-specified options.

      Why the fuck can't they just make this a feature to toggle on or off? I'm not entirely sure when user choice was thrown away, but it gives me good-ol-day syndrome of the highest order.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Design by Comittee!!!

        "good-ol-day syndrome of the highest order."

        Enough for me to remeniss about 3.1, 95, NT4, 2K, XP

        but as it is looks like ill stick with W7 for some time to come, if i cant see what is running what's the point of a task bar :-(

        DONT get me wrong i want to upgrade to get the improved background security improvements but if the UI is too radically different im not spending time relearning all my work flows.

        OK read further posts and it seems the show on tasks bar is configurable so just have to learn how to make windows work like windows should and has for decades .

      3. jdv

        Re: Design by Comittee!!!

        From TFA:

        > Don’t worry global Taskbar fans, you can have it your way with just a settings change: Settings app > System > Multitasking > Virtual Desktops.

        1. Tromos

          Re: Design by Comittee!!!

          Settings app > System > Multitasking > Virtual Desktops.

          Of course. So obvious! (Settings > Sarcasm > Off)

          1. Naselus

            Re: Design by Comittee!!!

            Or you could, y'know, just tell Cortana to find it.

      4. veti Silver badge

        Re: Design by Comittee!!!

        @Preston Munchensonton: they are making it a feature to toggle on or off. But there's a default option.

        To criticise Microsoft, of all people, for not allowing for user choice seems about as wide of the mark as it's possible to throw, without actually tossing the missile backwards over your shoulder. There are more "user-specified options" with every version of Windows. Looking at my "Taskbar" options right now (W7), I see: "Lock the taskbar", "Auto-hide the taskbar", "Use small icons", "Taskbar location on screen", "Taskbar buttons ('Always combine, hide labels')", "Notification Area", "Preview desktop with Aero Peek". And that's just on the first tab (of three).

        And then you can get (often, free) third-party extensions to add in yet more options (e.g. the start menu in Win 8). Try adding something like that to OSX, see how far you get.

        Windows 8 tries to reduce the complexity, but it doesn't do it by taking options away - oh no. Nothing's gone. Nothing's ever gone gone. It's just hidden. For instance.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Design by Comittee!!!

          My choice : do not install Cortana or Bing.

          1. jelabarre59

            Re: Design by Comittee!!!

            > My choice : do not install Cortana or Bing.

            I'd prefer to have a significantly more modular MSWin, where you can elect to not install pretty much any component of the system. I have no desire to use MS Msdia Player, since I use VLC. Would prefer to skip WordPad or Notepad, since I'd probably be installing LibreOffice and Notepad++. Or, if I'm setting up a VM on my Linux systems for running some piece-of-cr*p software (yeah, I'm looking at you, TaxACT) that simply refuses to run under Wine, I'd like to have a severely striped-down install that provides just the bare minimum needed for the application to run.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Design by Comittee!!!

      Windows 8 was decidedly NOT design by committee, it was design by dictate, ignoring the users. How'd that work out?

      1. SuccessCase

        Re: Design by Comittee!!!

        "The specific problem here is quite straightforward. Normal people don’t sign up in large numbers to try out very rough alpha software, or at least not knowingly."

        The problem is consulting users to decide design choices at all. Years ago I used to do graphic design. Every now and then I would have a client sitting on my shoulder or a design would get reviewed by a marketing board or some such before it was complete. Almost every time this occurred, whenever there was a customer making decisions part way through the process, the result would be a dreadful compromise. Yet I know from experience, whenever the customer didn't have the opportunity to review work until it was complete and coherent, in general, they would prefer the work I had done. Getting understanding of user input and preferences is a good idea. In this regard, I'm pretty sure UI design will be the same as Graphic Design. Giving users power and choice during the design process is abdicating your design responsibility and a bad idea.

        Of course every now and then I would come up with a dud design and every now and then the customer would have a great idea, so I'm not being dogmatic about this; just saying that in my experience, across the large volume of work I did, I know the clients were usually happier and (ironically) preferred the result when we could keep them out of the process until a final coherent design was delivered.

        Referring to asking users what they want, Steve Jobs would quote Henry Ford. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

        The problem isn't a failure to ask normal people. It's a problem of a fear of design and abdicating design to normal people. Sinofsky didn't prove Microsoft needed to listen more, he simply proved he was a good politician and a bad designer and he lived in a political environment where the man who promised to save Windows (by welding it onto a tablet design) would survive. At Microsoft pure designer in the mould of Johnny Ive would have remained unpromoted and unloved.

        1. Nicole D.

          Yet the influence of Johnny Ive....

          "The problem isn't a failure to ask normal people. It's a problem of a fear of design and abdicating design to normal people. Sinofsky didn't prove Microsoft needed to listen more, he simply proved he was a good politician and a bad designer and he lived in a political environment where the man who promised to save Windows (by welding it onto a tablet design) would survive. At Microsoft pure designer in the mould of Johnny Ive would have remained unpromoted and unloved."

          True enough. Yet the minimalist influence of Johnny Ive is where we can trace a decision (or even an "insider" preference) to de-task the Taskbar back to.

          I don't know what portion of the customizations I've done to Windows over the last decade or more were so I could bypass Apple's influence on the UI, but I know that most of them were about un-hiding things previously visible, turning off things (like effects) that provide no benefit, or simplifying OS navigation and application use by creating more direct routes to functionality hidden safely away from my prying, end-user eyes.

          Apple's influence on UI design as been for shit. Google's may well prove worse (as it follows the same "let's hide stuff from the dummies and shove what suits our purposes down their throats" approach without even the pretense of an aesthetic rationale.) I approach each new version of Windows wondering not "Where do I want to go today," but how will I de-Mac-ify this thing to get it to run like a serious work environment should.

        2. jelabarre59

          Re: Design by Comittee!!!

          > The specific problem here is quite straightforward. Normal people don’t sign up in large numbers to try out very rough alpha software, or at least not knowingly.

          Whenever I'm looking at preview software (such as the MSWin10 preview I have on a scrap laptop), not only am I looking for bugs/defects (such as the Synaptics touchpad bug that will consistently crash your system as soon as you use the touchpad, http://tiny.cc/jqx2yx) but I'm also considering how my brother or the in-laws will view and use the system. And I will submit bug reports accordingly. Of course, with MSWin10, I would probably be running ClassicShell instead of the built-in "start menu", except the current release can't see the "apps" menu and various other Metro/Modern functions in the later W10 builds.

  2. MattLoren

    Avoiding people with clipboards is a very basic skill

    As a result, only the stupid, unobservant and the very slow are ever in a position to give their opinion to a pollster or fill in a survey. Heck, I'll happily cross the road to avoid someone with a clipboard. What's shocked me is that they don't regularly get everything wrong, given this indisputable observation.

    1. Wade Burchette

      Re: Avoiding people with clipboards and television cameras is a very basic skill

      I will expand on that and say I also avoid people with television cameras. Many years ago when Star Wars Ep. 1 came out, I saw that piece of garbage with my brother and a friend. We came out of the movie studio and there was a lady from the local news wanting to interview us. We purposefully were trying to avoid her, but she came walking briskly toward us anyway. When she asked to interview us, all 3 of us said no and kept walking. She had the look of confusion, as if nobody has ever turned her down. The last thing I needed is my picture on TV with the words "local Star Wars fan" under it, especially that Star Wars movie.

      1. king of foo

        Re: Avoiding people with clipboards and television cameras is a very basic skill

        Sounds like you missed an opportunity to show the world your deathstarfishes.

      2. Rob Gr

        Re: Avoiding people with clipboards and television cameras is a very basic skill

        What are you talking about, I refuse to believe in the existence of more than 3 Star Wars films.

        1. Matt Devney

          Re: Avoiding people with clipboards and television cameras is a very basic skill

          Apparently, there might be a 4th film coming out this year. But that might just be a rumour. We'll know for sure on December 17th I think, when I may or may not have some kind of memory lapse. About something. I don't know. I've got a feeling of deja vu here. Can't think why. Just the three films so far anyway...

  3. Yag

    What is the difference between a "design by democracy" process with a biaised sample and the age old "design by comitee" process?

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      "What is the difference between a "design by democracy" process with a biaised sample and the age old "design by comitee" process?"

      two very important points:

      1 : The democracy do not know what day it is.

      2 : The committee knows that it is almost time for lunch.

      Conclusion:

      The democracy make decisions based solely on their ignorance whereas the committee make decisions based upon their desire for smoked salmon accompanied with a glass of Viré Clessé.

      1. WylieCoyoteUK
        Coat

        Of course the camel was the result of the horse design committee.

        Mine's the one with the hump.

        1. Ralphe Neill

          A camel is a horse designed by a committee to government specifications.

          1. Khaptain Silver badge

            The government specifications actually recommended buying three fish but the committee like fish, as mentioned above, therefore they decided that a horse would be better. They love French wine but they don't care for French horse, even when cooked "à point".

        2. Mpeler

          Mine's the one with the hump.

          Igor (from Young Frankenstein): WHAT HUMP???

    2. Charles Manning

      democracy

      Democracy is ultimately doomed because stupid people outnumber clever peoplee

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: democracy

        > Democracy is ultimately doomed because stupid people outnumber clever peoplee

        Nice touch of irony there, with the spelling of the last word ;)

        Actually I did wonder in the past about this - that half the population are below average, etc. Then I read that the distribution is such that the vast majority are of (or around) normal intelligence, so it turns out to be not as bad as I feared. However, this may be at odds with perception due to the number of complete buffoons who rise to positions of power - which is another phenomenon of its own.

  4. Anonymous Custard

    A novel idea?

    How about just making it user configurable and let us have the choice for how we want our own desktops? Even down to the manga wallpaper... :)

    Or is too much choice deemed even worse than enforced choice for the poor guys who have to use the product?

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: A novel idea?

      Indeed. If your testing finds that a majority of people prefer mode X, but a significant minority prefer mode Y, you introduce a feature to switch between the two and default it to X.

    2. Radelix

      Re: A novel idea?

      It is configurable. There is a setting available to reverse the this view so all open apps are visible on all taskbars.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A novel idea?

      It is configurable.

    4. LMitchell
      Happy

      Re: A novel idea?

      From the source MS Blog post:

      "Don’t worry global Taskbar fans, you can have it your way with just a settings change"

      So apparently choice hasn't been deemed as being worse.

    5. dogged

      Re: A novel idea?

      > How about just making it user configurable and let us have the choice for how we want our own desktops? Even down to the manga wallpaper... :)

      Andrew somehow neglected to mention that in fact, it is user configurable.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A novel idea?

        Yes, the trivial is configurable.

      2. Jyve

        Re: A novel idea?

        Yeah, was first wondering what the fuss was about as wasn't really mentioned WHAT was the problem until the 2nd page, and then... 'oh, yeah, you can change that setting".

        And lets be honest, how many regular users ARE going to start faffing with multi windows?

        And regular power users will already be using vdesk.exe or desktops.exe and all configured to work they way they like. (which in this case, I think MS hasn't done that good a job, nothing seems to have ever kept up with the sheer speed/configuration of the original windows nt 3.1 resource kit's vdesk.exe that only just stopped working after all these years with Windows8).

        This is a non-issue for anyone that'd use it.

    6. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: A novel idea?

      "Or is too much choice deemed even worse than enforced choice for the poor guys who have to use the product?"

      It may not be too serious for this particular decision, but as a general rule you increase the size of everyone's test matrix each time you introduce such an option. Also, only one of the options can be the default, which in many cases means that only one of them gets properly tested. On the other hand, if you do end up with a fair distribution of usage, everyone in a support role who prepares "howto" guides has to write defensively, covering all common cases.

      1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

        Re: A novel idea?

        Also, only one of the options can be the default

        Which is just the start of the trouble with Microsoft... when some braindead "User eXperience" drone decided that hiding all the keyboard shortcuts by default, enabling intrusive animations(*) and effects by default or at one point (when Active Desktop was the latest things to push), hiding all the bloody desktop icons by default. The particularly dumb stupidity is hiding all the notification area icons by default which when coupled with a retarted timer which starts when the application with a notification area icon first thinks about showing a notification, not when the OS gets round to showing, the notification shows for about 10ms or often just long enough for you to notice it but not to get the mouse there in time and by then the icon has disappeared (because that's "helpful") so you're not even sure which application produced the notification in the first place. Twats.

        * I have nothing against animations in a GUI, just so long as they don't make the process of using the interface considerably slower than without them. Little more annoying than having a really fast PC then have the use of it slow to a crawl because every damn window and menu "needs" to animate in and out at an annoyingly slow speed.

        1. Michael Strorm Silver badge

          Re: A novel idea?

          I still love the irony- or cheek!- of how in Windows XP, when you choose to turn the animated search-help characters off, rather than doing this straight away, they actually illustrate this by showing the user another animation(!) showing the dog (or whatever) running off and disappearing over the brow of the hill.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A novel idea?

      @ a. custard

      That's why I like Linux and in particular KDE. The biggest bugbear I have with windows is it's GUI seems to be designed by the Politburo.

      1. Chika

        Re: A novel idea?

        Actually KDE (and most UIs) are designed by or at the behest of a committee (or whatever you want to call them) and aren't without their detractors. The difference is that most Linux/Unix UIs are designed to sit on a pre-existing system rather than being a part of the system itself so swapping UI is possible if you want to do it.

        Goodness knows I've moaned about KDE's designs for KDE4 before this. And probably will continue to do so. But then I'm a miserable old duffer like that, really...

    8. jelabarre59

      Re: A novel idea?

      > ...Even down to the manga wallpaper... :)

      Could be worse, they could be bundling Hentai wallpaper. You don't think that would be bad? Well, your grandma might see it and decide to get frisky with grandpa.... (now try to get *that* image out of your mind...)

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        Re: A novel idea?

        "Manga Wallpaper" - really says it all.

        The people designing Win10 obviously spend too much time looking at a blank screen and not enough time actually working.

  5. TRT Silver badge

    You can't please all of the people all of the time...

    But you can allow shit like that to be customisable, something Apple seem to have forgotten with it's non-skrewymorphic updates and default full-screen green button etc etc.

    Microsoft's Windows 8 removal of the Big Friendly Button is another thing that could have been left up to the user to choose - it's not like it's any more work because they ended up putting it, or at least a version of it, back. I accept that if you allow every version of a desktop to spawn a new stream that needs to be coded for in future updates, then it could get out of hand, but forced changes like they have done in the past... I was left floundering the other day over an Excel question because the menu bar has been replaced by an icon filled ribbon that mutates depending on how you use the program - a disaster when you're trying to guide someone over the phone towards a particular function.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why call the July release 'Windows 10'?

    I'd say it needs a lot more time, best to go by the Telemetry data; Microsoft Feedback programme hasn't suddenly dropped to a few whispers, now has it - in terms of numbers.

    I'm sure Microsoft would be shouting that from the rafters, if they had.

    Like Windows 8 they had a date for release, and this (Windows 10) seems exactly the same methodology, get it out the door, patch later.

    What seems daft is naming the July build 'Windows 10', because if its free/or with special discounts for 12 months there is absolutely no need to officially name it 'Windows 10' (the name that could stick/be associated to a bad first release) during the launch period.

    Much better, giving it a much softer, but more robust (over time) launch. Calling it officially Windows 10 in Jul/Aug 2016, when discounts end, seems more sensible given its current build state.

    Its different to Windows 8 in this regard as that was a charged upgrade from the start.

    1. Pookietoo

      Re: given its current build state

      They're supposedly working on a rapid update development cycle, so troublesome features should get fixed a lot quicker than MSFT users are used to - no waiting for service packs, no bugfix-only policy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: given its current build state

        "They're supposedly working on a rapid update development cycle, so troublesome features should get fixed a lot quicker than MSFT users are used to - no waiting for service packs, no bugfix-only policy."

        They're supposedly working on a rapid update development cycle, so troublesome features should get introduced a lot quicker than MSFT users are used to - no waiting for service packs, no bugfix-only policy.

    2. DanceMan

      Re: Why call the July release 'Windows 10'?

      Because they need a new name to get rid of the stink of "Windows 8."

    3. Richard 81

      Re: Why call the July release 'Windows 10'?

      Since they've said something like "Windows 10 will be the last version", with any subsequent changes taking the form of incremental patches rather than discrete service packs or full releases, why don't they just go the whole hog and just call it "Windows"?

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like