Microsoft Windows 8 Release Preview

[LazyLion]

Too late Dude... I wiped it last night and put Win 7 back... now I am back at fully functional!

 

[rwenzori]

I think you mean aberration.

Well, not exactly. "Aberration" refers to a deviation from the normal, so I'm not so sure since MS cock up so many versions of Windows ( ME, Vista, Win8 ). Maybe an "aborration"?

Win8 = twin sons of different fathers - abort and plop it down the long-drop, along with a ribbon or two, in memoriam like.

 

[LazyLion]

Windows 8 suffers from schizophrenia. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It has two personalities and neither of them are very nice.

 

[Arthur]

Windows 8 suffers from schizophrenia. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It has two personalities and neither of them are very nice.

Each to his own. Thankfully we have a choice.

For some, the two personalities are actually a godsend. I suspect I'm not the only person in the cosmos who wants a single platform for desktop and portable. I have a massive investment in desktop applications, and a considerable amount of my valuable and useful data is in those (desktop and pre-desktop) containers.

Current state of tech means I need a minimum of three devices to sustainable live in cyberspace: power desktop PC, laptop/notebook, and smartphone. The first two can do the content creation and manipulation, the phone for email/diary checks and gateway to wireless voice and data.

With the advent of viable tablets, I now have four devices, which is actually ridiculous. When on the road, I still have to take my notebook, for desktop and LOB apps and data access, and miss the lightness of the tablet.

I look forward eagerly to the day when I can have one operating system with common services, full app compatibility when required, with all the advantages of each form factor. Win8 is a first stab at that, and it's an amazing achievement.

By the end of this year my computing life will be revolutionized, because one system will give me all the advantages of a light, thin tablet and - very attractive to me - the ability to run all my legacy desktop and Line of Business apps (on x86 ultrabooks/tablets). Plus, my desktop, tablet and phone will run the same new Metro apps.

This is a very compelling scenario.

(Excuse brevity - this laboriously typed on a phone.)

 

[rwenzori]

I have a massive investment in desktop applications,

You mean "legacy" applications. LOL!

Win8 is a first stab at that, and it's an amazing achievement.

No - it's a huge mess. Badly conceived, badly executed, destined for failure like Vista.

 

[Elimentals]

Each to his own. Thankfully we have a choice.

For some, the two personalities are actually a godsend. I suspect I'm not the only person in the cosmos who wants a single platform for desktop and portable. I have a massive investment in desktop applications, and a considerable amount of my valuable and useful data is in those (desktop and pre-desktop) containers.

Current state of tech means I need a minimum of three devices to sustainable live in cyberspace: power desktop PC, laptop/notebook, and smartphone. The first two can do the content creation and manipulation, the phone for email/diary checks and gateway to wireless voice and data.

With the advent of viable tablets, I now have four devices, which is actually ridiculous. When on the road, I still have to take my notebook, for desktop and LOB apps and data access, and miss the lightness of the tablet.

I look forward eagerly to the day when I can have one operating system with common services, full app compatibility when required, with all the advantages of each form factor. Win8 is a first stab at that, and it's an amazing achievement.

By the end of this year my computing life will be revolutionized, because one system will give me all the advantages of a light, thin tablet and - very attractive to me - the ability to run all my legacy desktop and Line of Business apps (on x86 ultrabooks/tablets). Plus, my desktop, tablet and phone will run the same new Metro apps.

This is a very compelling scenario.

(Excuse brevity - this laboriously typed on a phone.)

Personally I love Windows 8 and see what it can do(been watching Build like a hawk), but I have to ad this dream you talking of is still far off even with Windows 8.

The reason I state this is there is no way in hell current Desktop apps will work on the tablet without some sort of a compromise, example Adobe Photoshop or such will never in its wildest dreams be the same app on both desktop and tablet, even Microsoft is aware of this. That is why they still refuse to commit/comment to ARM based tablets if its getting desktop mode or not.

In the future I can see this becoming more feasible but we lying to ourselves if we think we will be able to do with with Windows 8 as soon as it ships or even a year later. Microsoft Dream in order to do this is to get all apps on Metro + WinRT, and for that to happen is still a long shot looking at how people take to/view Metro.

In the mean time cloud computing is starting to address this very issue with HTML5 and other services, and personally I recon this is for most a better bet as your data will be available regardless of platform or OS.

Edit: Well if I look at things like Office 365/Google Docs and ERP systems (Yeah I know this is where my co is focusing right now so I may be biased)

 

[Arthur]

No - it's a huge mess. Badly conceived, badly executed, destined for failure like Vista.

A prophet amongst us!

I find the W8 desktop slicker, cleaner, faster and more compatible with ancient legacy apps than even Win7, which is already great.

All I'm waiting for is the new x86 super-thin and light tablet form factor. And Win8.

 

[biometrics]

Microsoft Bob comes to mind.

 

[Arthur]

@Elim: Yes, it's an evolution. But W8 on an x86 tablet with USB ports and Bluetooth will significantly change my life. That's less than 6 months away.

 

[rwenzori]

A prophet amongst us!

Ons sal maar sien.

 

[Elimentals]

@Elim: Yes, it's an evolution. But W8 on an x86 tablet with USB ports and Bluetooth will significantly change my life. That's less than 6 months away.

There is no argument there, its kind of like how Android did for me already.

(This conversation was brought to you via an Android tablet that is plugged into a Samsung TV using HDMI, and typing on a Microsoft wireless keyboard+mouse, while I wait for a movie to finish downloading to the 1 TB USB drive on it)

 

[noxibox]

LOL! Well put. I like Tim Cook's comment:

Does that mean Apple are going to stop doing it?

 

[Arthur]

One of the reasons for the bifurcation we experience today has its roots in the two widespread CPU instruction sets, basically x86 (32/64-bit) for PCs, and ARM on smartphone and tablet. And the reason for this is even more basic: battery, power draw, and electric lifespan.

Intel's attempts to date have been lackluster to put it nicely. But I don't think that's the inevitable unchangeable future.

I know many will shoot me down, and I might well eat my words, but my own intuition is that ARM is surfing a massive wave that can very quickly collapse to a ripple. If it does, it'll spell the end of iOS and Android (architecturally, not necessarily in name), and Apple can then claim to have invented a single scalable operating system that runs on PCs and mobiles, or is that "fridges and toasters"?

Microsoft is positioning for that now. The more traditionalist and conservative PC users of course object, but then they have always been dragged into the future kicking and screaming.

 

[Roman4604]

Windows 8 suffers from schizophrenia.

I actually see value in this.
My desktop PC is either in two modes;

a) Work - I'm interactively using windowed apps on the desktop (as per any past ver of Win)
b) Monitor - I'm not doing any work, but want it to indicate any new activity

For b) the new Start screen populated with Live Tiles does this job. It provides an 'at a glance' view of new activity e.g. new mail ( # & latest subject), next appointment, new IM, news updates (w/thumbnail pic), weather changes, R/$ exchange rate, stock index updates etc.

 

[Diesal]

Did anyone see the DSTV application on the Windows Store?

Got a screenie: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-uYHvneQY5i8/T943ynvvc-I/AAAAAAAAAYc/3ZJX3o4VAdQ/s800/dstv_app.jpg
Inside the Store: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-...I/AAAAAAAAAYw/rivcuD3cDIE/s800/store_dstv.jpg

Looking through it now and this may come in very useful.

 

[bekdik]

10 things every UI designer should know about end users

10 things every UI designer should know about end users

By Jack Wallen
June 14, 2012, 12:57 PM PDT
Takeaway: An interface that fails to consider the user perspective isn’t likely to win acceptance. Jack Wallen looks at user habits and attitudes that UI designers should keep in mind.

With Ubuntu Unity having its first anniversary recently and Windows 8 on the brink of release, it’s becoming quite clear that not all user interfaces are created equal. In fact, it is possible to have a brilliant design that could revolutionize the way computers are used — but if that design doesn’t take into account the end users, that design will fail before it has a chance to prove its brilliance.

After years of using nearly every Linux desktop and each Windows desktop, hearing the broad spectrum of complaints, and speaking to both designers and end users, I believe I have a solid handle on what UI designers need to know about end users to create fantastic, user-friendly interfaces that can easily avoid the adoption hurdle. Note: This all applies to the AVERAGE end user.

1: End users do not like change
This is a most unfortunate reality with end users. Change is something that does nothing but keep them from getting their work done. The truth is, most end users live in a constant state of fear that they are going to break their computers or that if something changes, they’ll never figure out how to do what it is they need to do. This means that any drastic change you make in the UI is going to cause backlash from users. Does that mean you can’t change your design? No. It just means it must be done with care.

2: End users do not typically use keyboard shortcuts
I live and die by keyboard shortcuts. Most power users I know do as well. In fact, I do everything I can to not move my hand away from the keyboard (unless working with graphics). But end users are not built that way. They like the mouse and will always like the mouse — until they are forced to use nothing but a touch screen. To that end, user interfaces should not be created that rely on keyboard shortcuts. Yes, it’s good (and encouraged) to include them, but don’t design your UI so that keyboard shortcuts must be used.

3: End users separate their mobile platforms from the desktop platforms
Unless you’re Apple, you must understand this. Users separate their mobile interfaces from the desktop interfaces and do not expect them to be one and the same. It’s clear that Apple is working its way toward making the IOS and the OSX interfaces the same. That’s fine. Users have been dealing with the IOS interface for years. That translates into user familiarity. The Windows 7 mobile interface? Not only is it one of the least used interfaces, it’s also one of the least mature interfaces. Users are not familiar enough with Windows 7 Mobile to all of a sudden have it become the UI for their desktops.

4: End users do not think like developers
This one is a challenge for developers. It’s hard to think without the use of your own personal filters, which makes it difficult to put on the cap of a different level of user. It should be obvious that end users do not think like developers. They simply don’t have the skill sets or the fundamental understanding of how computers and their interfaces work. What does that mean in the end? Keep it simple and keep it focused somewhere between the lowest and middle common denominator.

5: End users want their apps easy to access
This is simple: End users want launchers. This can mean icons, quick start launchers, start menu buttons, or panel launchers. In whatever form, users must have near-immediate access to their applications. I have noticed (when trying to support end users) that even having them navigate through a start menu, they quickly become confused. To those of us in this industry, the idea of Start | All Programs | Mozilla | Firefox is second nature. We navigate menus all day. To the end user, this can quickly become a complex maze of confusion.

6: End users adhere to “If it ain’t broke…”
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this very statement from end users having to experience a new interface for the first time. They don’t get the idea of evolving the interface. To them, everything on the PC is a separate entity and the idea that a program must make user of widgets and elements already in place is absolutely foreign. Only those in the know understand that when the foundation of a program evolves, so too must the program evolve.

7: End users needs slow, steady acclimation
Apple is doing this perfectly. Slowly but surely it is adapting its users to its design scheme. Eventually, OSX and IOS will be one and the same and the users will hardly notice the change. If you want to make a grand sweeping change, do it gradually and you won’t have users losing their marbles.

8: End users do not practice safe computing like you’d want them to
To the end user, the computer is a vast playground where anything can be installed and everything is safe. We all know that is a fallacy and one that could land the end user in deep water with the IT department. You can’t count on companies having policies that prevent end users from doing anything and everything they desire, so maybe it’s time for designers to understand that end users aren’t always to be trusted and that fact should be reflected in the design of the UI.

9: End users don’t care about eye candy
I’ll confess I love me some eye candy. I always have. I am part graphic designer, so it’s in my blood to want things to look nice and have a bit of added eye candy value. The average user? Not so much. In fact, the average user wouldn’t care if the interface still looked like Windows 95 — so long as it was easy to use.

10: End users do have a valid opinion on how your interface should be designed
Let’s face it: User interfaces are meant for end users. In a perfect world everyone would have the same level of knowledge and designers could design the most lovely, complicated interfaces they wanted. But the truth of the matter is, end users are the target and their opinions should be of high value to the designer. I know many desktop interfaces (such as KDE and GNOME) have design summits, where designers and developers meet to work together to design the most viable interfaces possible. Those summits should have numerous end users in attendance to help guide the designers down the perfect path.

Design success
UI designers face a hefty challenge. Not only are they charged with designing elements that work well for the program (or platform), they must do so while not making things too complicated or abstract for the end user. Ubuntu has faced this challenge over the last year and Microsoft is about to see just what Canonical went through. I hope Microsoft listened well to end users’ opinions during the final phases of the design. Users are an important group that designers must pay attention to — or else their designs fail.

 

[Arthur]

Nice link, Bekdik. I remember attending a pitch much like this inside MSFT a good many years ago. I think they understand these points very well indeed, and it is very hotly debated inside the company.

Excuse the long post (I can see why Sinofsky et al have trouble being brief), but for those interested, here's a very brief consideration ...

The thinking behind the change to Metro is complex and manifold, but it (very briefly) goes along the following lines - the car UI history/analogy can be useful to illustrate (and like all analogies, it's only valid to a point):

* In the first few decades of cars, the UI (ie man-machine interface MMI, ie user controls of the machine) were machine-specific, and required considerable technical and manual skill to operate.
* At a systems level, drivers of early cars had to be pretty technical to keep the system up and running and effect running repairs, from tyre patching to cleaning fuel lines to grinding a valve seat on the roadside.
* These factors amongst others conspired to keep cars out of the mass market; ornery users are non-technical and not interested in underlying technologies and complexities.
* Once a standardised MMI (man machine interface) emerged (steering wheel, pedal clutch and brakes, etc), ordinary users could start using any system without having to learn the technical details (ie drive anything from Atos to a Zonda).

On PCs, system capability has increased immensely since the early microcomputers of the late 70s, which were the domain of techies and tinkerers, much like early cars.

Importantly, system integrity and reliability has become critical as PCs have become the primary productivity tool for knowledge workers as well as in other industries that rely on intelligent machine-based management and control.

However - and this is a very big point - the very things that made the wide adoption of PCs (and Microsoft success) possible has also become a deep vulnerability: architectural openness and backward compatibility. Microsoft emerged as the 900lb gorilla precisely because it understood the critical importance of backward application compatibility, because this allowed one to build on the installed base and gain major multiplier effects. At the same time it enabled a massive third-party application development industry, which could rely on a standardised target platform for their apps and services.

The only way to truly move into the "information appliance" mass-market (a Microsoft dream since the early 80s) is to design systems where the ordnary user doesn't have to drop down into arcane system settings and configurations. When you step back and think about it, it is quite bizarre that an ordinary user has to know about defragging or partitions or file formats, not to speak of the other more technical aspects of contemporary personal computing. The advent of software intentionally written to damage computer and data integrity has exacerbated this problem, and the openness of the architecture and backward compatibility means that badly-written software can still compromise system integrity, which is unacceptable.

In the meantime, mobile hardware technology has in the past few years enabled the device that we now see proliferating widely ... ARM-based devices like smartphones and tablets.

So how do we go forward?

To address the requirements for integrity and reliability, a new architecture is necessary, but that also means no backward compatibility (and there's no way round - it's a leagacy of the way PCs were in the 80s and 90s). But Windows would die an immediate death if it wasn't backward-compatible, and no company will knowingly commit suicide. On the other hand, you need a system that can build on the best of the PC as we've known it, and yet also address these new requirements, and still be secure and stable.

When you begin to think along these lines you can get an idea of why Win8 is like it is. It includes Desktop, with its backward-compatible environment (and it's excellent at that). And it also introduces a new API set that doesn't have the architectural limitations that can compromise system integrity (the RT/Metro environment).

It's an immense engineering challenge to build a system that does both, but MSFT has the depth, skill and money to do it.

It's a very different sales and marketing challenge to introduce that system to an installed based of 1.3 billion PCs -- a very very different challenge to say Apple, which has maybe 50 million Macs worldwide. (Linux isn't even a blip when it comes to these numbers.)

Microsoft has for well over a decade deeply weighed the options and path from the olde worlde to the new. Win7 is the culmination of a very long and deeply-considered engineering effort around Win32. It's the Baroque stage, if you will, and it is great for old-paradigm users and corporates (which is why it's the best-selling Window ever, with close to 500 million licences sold - ten times the Apple installed base).

In the end, a first stab has to be made to transition to the Next Stage, which cannot be compatible with the past if it is to have the integrity and security future users will require and demand.

So, because most corporates only upgrade to every 2nd release of Windows (for various but mostly financial reasons), and Windows 7 is that version for now, it means that the only opportunity for introducing the "Reimagined Windows" is with Win8 ... a wait to Win 10 is just too long and too risky. It makes sense to do it now, aimed mostly at consumers and tablet users, but also keep the Desktop for backward app compatibility for those who need it.

I need the Desktop. And so far Win8 delivers. We're still on a beta, and we know more fit 'n finish is coming, as it always does.

I know it's only a beta, but so far Win8 RP delivers on all my Desktop requirements, and indeed is some respects is better than Win7, especially under the covers (eg you can scan a system drive without detaching or rebooting, but most users couldn't care less about that).

My own view is Win8 deserves a fair shot. It behoves us in the industry to keep an open mind and try to understand what the bigger picture is, why we are where we are, and where we're going.

 

[Elimentals]

Nice link, Bekdik. I remember attending a pitch much like this inside MSFT a good many years ago. I think they understand these points very well indeed, and it is very hotly debated inside the company.

Excuse the long post (I can see why Sinofsky et al have trouble being brief), but for those interested, here's a very brief consideration ...

The thinking behind the change to Metro is complex and manifold, but it (very briefly) goes along the following lines - the car UI history/analogy can be useful to illustrate (and like all analogies, it's only valid to a point):

* In the first few decades of cars, the UI (ie man-machine interface MMI, ie user controls of the machine) were machine-specific, and required considerable technical and manual skill to operate.
* At a systems level, drivers of early cars had to be pretty technical to keep the system up and running and effect running repairs, from tyre patching to cleaning fuel lines to grinding a valve seat on the roadside.
* These factors amongst others conspired to keep cars out of the mass market; ornery users are non-technical and not interested in underlying technologies and complexities.
* Once a standardised MMI (man machine interface) emerged (steering wheel, pedal clutch and brakes, etc), ordinary users could start using any system without having to learn the technical details (ie drive anything from Atos to a Zonda).

On PCs, system capability has increased immensely since the early microcomputers of the late 70s, which were the domain of techies and tinkerers, much like early cars.

Importantly, system integrity and reliability has become critical as PCs have become the primary productivity tool for knowledge workers as well as in other industries that rely on intelligent machine-based management and control.

However - and this is a very big point - the very things that made the wide adoption of PCs (and Microsoft success) possible has also become a deep vulnerability: architectural openness and backward compatibility. Microsoft emerged as the 900lb gorilla precisely because it understood the critical importance of backward application compatibility, because this allowed one to build on the installed base and gain major multiplier effects. At the same time it enabled a massive third-party application development industry, which could rely on a standardised target platform for their apps and services.

The only way to truly move into the "information appliance" mass-market (a Microsoft dream since the early 80s) is to design systems where the ordnary user doesn't have to drop down into arcane system settings and configurations. When you step back and think about it, it is quite bizarre that an ordinary user has to know about defragging or partitions or file formats, not to speak of the other more technical aspects of contemporary personal computing. The advent of software intentionally written to damage computer and data integrity has exacerbated this problem, and the openness of the architecture and backward compatibility means that badly-written software can still compromise system integrity, which is unacceptable.

In the meantime, mobile hardware technology has in the past few years enabled the device that we now see proliferating widely ... ARM-based devices like smartphones and tablets.

I can see very much where you gone with this and I have to agree that we need a common interface in computing to drive it to the masses.

My only problem when it comes to this very move is, software patents that block us from doing just this. So in your MMI demo software is like the Toyota charging every car manufacturer a license fees to have cars look and work the same.

Look I am not saying they should make Windows free for all, what I want is an Open standard when it comes to UI's and everyone should be allowed to copy it regardless of the "engine" they use.

An Open UI design would push common interfaces way more than one car manufacturer using the same controls for car/bus/bike and block everyone else from doing so with license fees and what not.

 

[bekdik]

@Arthur

A new UI to handle a non keyboard device with a restricted screen size is a given.

Forcing, without any redeeming feature, the same UI on devices with keyboards which already have a totally accepted and standard UI is not acceptable. There is no technical reason as to why the Win7 desktop experience cannot propagate to Win8.

There are some unintended consequences of Win8 in its current form. For instance John Everyone goes into ComputeShop and buys a new laptop, with perfectly reasonable expectation that its UI will not massively deviate from all the previous laptops he has used in the last 15 years. He instead encounters Win8 as we see it today and finds the machine unusable. Ah, but he has been given the option to install Win7 as an alternative OS. Who bears the cost of this re install? Microsoft??? And, yes, I am aware that this isn't a time consuming task for tech savvy user, but for the greater majority it's a step too far.

 

[Arthur]

Yes, I agree that a common and Open standard would be great for the industry. And I'm sure it'll come at some point in the future - probably by being rendered unnecessary because machines will have the nous to know what you want to do and interpret it correctly. In other words, when the various layers are so modularised and capable that they can work with anything else. That's still some decades off, I suspect.

We're only 30 years into the cycle, and in the meantime it's a major expense to engineer a UI, so commercial companies need some way to recoup their investment and differentiate. There's still a lot of invention and innovation happening, which requires a patent system to protect those who spend the money doing the work (otherwise competitors can get the benefit for free and so undercut the inventors, which destroys the innovation cycle). I don't know many software engineers who work for free.

Patent-free / Open system are almost by definition a few cycles behind the curve. It's just the way the universe works, not a conspiracy.