Let's fix Windows 8 together: Maybe Microsoft will even listen
Over the next year, the Windows team will hopefully be spending much of its time fixing the many problems with Windows 8. Assuming this to be the case, I have a few suggestions for where to start. And this first one involves a pervasive problem in this new OS: A user interface that is not discoverable.
I’m speaking this time about the app bar, a piece of UI “chrome” that debuted first in Windows Phone, as is so often the case with these Metro-style experiences. The app bar is analogous to a toolbar in classic Windows interfaces, or the ribbon in more recent offering. It’s a container for buttons that trigger commands.
Microsoft has mostly screwed up the app bar in the various Metro-style experiences in Windows 8 because it inexplicably hides this UI in a bid to make the display simpler and less cluttered. I’m actually OK with doing that in some cases … but only if you providesome indication that the interface does exist and is there waiting to provide more functionality. And in other cases, many cases, the app bar should simply be visible and available all the time.
Let’s look at an example.
Here’s the Calendar app. It’s simple looking, yes. But some of its best functionality is so well hidden that many people will never even find it.
This is the most common issue that I see with users that have questions on how to find this-or-that in Windows 8. It takes a lot of practise to learn that right-click on a mouse doesn't necessarily bring up a context-sensitive menu beside the mouse cursor anymore. There's a bit of a disconnect between the left-click and right-click now because of this too. For instance, a left-click acts only on the object you're clicking on. A *new* right-click, on the other hand, brings up a UI element that is mostly AWAY from what you clicking on....
ReplyDeleteMaybe the right-button on a mouse should be relabelled as an "options button" instead.
I find that extremely annoying. They should find a better way to do that. Right click on the desktop and in the Start screen behave differently. The Start screen is not mouse friendly for the most part.
ReplyDeleteMe too! Just allow me to resize two open metro apps. Confining one to a quarter of the screen is pretty useless.
ReplyDeleteI have read in several reviews by the usual assortment of tech media and also usability experts this is a major problem with Win8 across the board. How were issues like this allowed to escape from Microsoft testing and evaluation? An OS has to be nothing if not usable and to be so must indicate in some way how the user can accomplish a task. It can't leave users to wander about searching for functionality. I certainly hope MS fixes some of these issues with a patch or soon instead of waiting for the long awaited service packs.
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