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Through the One Way Mirror: Microsoft Usability
Through the One Way Mirror: Microsoft Usability
#Mirror #Microsoft #Usability
“Dave’s Garage”
Rage and Sadness in the Usability Lab: Dave interviews Raymond Chen, a Windows developer for 30 years, about watching …
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Zero thumbnail effort.
Back in the 1980s we were doing exactly the same sort of things at DEC when developing office and word processing systems. The sessions would often be videotaped and we would replay it in slow motion to see exactly what the test user was doing at the keyboard (no mouse in those days). It could make for some really interesting viewing.
I have spent so many hours raging at Microsoft products doing things for me which I don't want, or not doing things I do want because of some stupid feature I can't figure out how to work round 😫
Heh, the user would hover over the printer icon and pause and think about it but then think “no” and move on!!?? Ok yeah I’m a highly tech savvy nerd, but those toolbars usually had some pretty clear and obvious icons, at least for the basic stuff. A floppy disk for save, an image of a printer for print, etc. It astounds me what kinds of things regular users still don’t seem to intuitively understand. I am a web developer and I definitely believe that a UI should let the user do whatever is intuitive to them and should be adapted based on that. But still sometimes the most obvious and intuitive thing can still be lost on some people.
Often the 80/20 rule applies in user interfaces and code too. 80% of the code is handling all the possible ways how users can misuse the product, and 20% is what the product actually does.
I always wondered why Microsoft didn't run with speech recognition for computer control. IBM did a great job implementing this with OS/2 Warp 4. I think if OS/2 had done better then we'd not be using computers the same way as we do today. What are your thoughts on this Dave?
Indows 11 is an example of verschlimbesseren!
With respect, "Hovering over the Icon" doesn't mean anything when you don't understand what the Icon actually does in the first place. That's why they invented Tool Tips for when you hover…
Deapite this teating, the word FILE was a catch-all menu for SOO many functions
Linux simply Rocks, I use RichARCH btw. With it I was able to get Arch Linux up and running simply and quickly with automation features.
Tool tips would help with that.
Had no idea what the 3 horizontal bars meant when they became the new "menu" button.
The whole purpose of having a picture instead of a word was was so the software could be sold world wide without having to print function names in the language of the country's of the world. BECAUSE MICROSOFT AND BILL ARE CHEEP COUNTER CUTTERS!!!
Many people drive cars and can't change a tire. I imagine some of these usability tests must be like that. I also can't help but wonder their occupation/education.
As a UI/UX guy, it's a neverending journey towards understanding the mind of the end user.
Verschlimmbessern – a word that perfectly describes Windows 11
I enjoyed reading Raymonds articles – cant wait to see the full interview 🎉
clickbait
One of the problems that usability testing will often fail to do is test with users of the entire spectrum of ability, from the absolute novice (which tends to be the focus of such studies) right through to the power user of the previous version, for whom moving some tool to a deeper menu, or hiding it beneath yet another dialog, will cause intense frustration and rage because what they used to do easily can still be done, it's just another step, which is a small amount harder.
Add up those small steps, and the power user will very quickly become frustrated to the point that they'll leave your ecosystem in favour of something entirely different simply because it's unfamiliar and they can again have the joy of finding the function they want.
Raymond Chen is a very talented guy! Believe me, I've worked with his technology called MFCMAPI )
“ it was a picture of a printer “. Yeah I’ve seen some of those icons and they barely look like a printer
I will say that I have always preferred text labels over pictures on buttons. I know that's a UI designer's nightmare. But my brain always has to think longer about the picture than it takes me to read a word.
Did they ask the subject, "Why did you linger over the printer icon for a while but then went past it?", and what was the answer???
Vershlimbessen is practically Microsoft's motto these days.
I wonder how many cumulative hours have been lost to the change from
alt+f, a, tab, p, enter
To the clusterf that it is now
I know someone will know what I'm talking about without clarifying
Classic Microsoft just throwing more toolbars and giant ui buttons that can’t be removed with more buttons that already have 5 dedicated shortcuts.
It's a shame they don't seem to do usability testing anymore, or even seem to use their own products anymore. At least, that's the only conclusion I can come to when you find a feature that is so obscure to access that you have to wonder who designed it!
Please ask the Microsoft developers, why Windows Update takes so long. This was especially an issue in all Windows Update versions before Windows 10.
Could it be that the printer icon looked like a dot matrix printer, but the printer that the users were familiar with were laser printers? Even now, the printer icons in Windows 10 "settings" look more like a sheet-feed scanner than the 4 foot tall Ricoh MFP we share in our office! Similar example: to save a file we click on an icon of a floppy disk, wouldn't a better image of "save for later use" be an icon of a USB stick?
I prefer the early 90s Linux solution where if anything got weird it would just crash X and dump you to the command line. Then you could get down to work.🤣
In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy our heroes attempt to steal a spaceship belonging to the intergalactic supergroup Disaster Area. However, there's a problem. The control panels are all black, the control knobs are all black, and they are labelled with black lettering. The lighting in the cabin is dim. All they can do is panic and press things at random – it does not go well. I have always thought this was a prescient vision of the modern user interface.
I feel clickbaited.
Clickbait! Unsubscribe, thanks.
Symbols that I have no idea what the heck they mean and mousing over them doesn’t show a dialogue description.
A long time ago, I watched a playtest session of a new game that was days away from going gold, having completed many QA cycles by a large team. The game was a side-scrolling platform game (a long time ago) which involved the character moving right, jumping on platforms avoiding obstacles etc. Our tester sat down in front of the game and walked his character left, crashing the game as the character effectively fell off the map. A lesson in users will do weird stuff
Dave be like: You got no NDA that pulls my strings – singing to the corporate slaves over at MS.
So they did the test…and then fixed nothing? Also, I have been forced to learn many hotkeys because Windows will always move or hide useful menus. win-r "ncpa.cpl"
Raymond Chen – C++ guru. Love his blog.
There's nothing more confusing in the entire history of computer UI than Office's current Save File As dialog.
The goal of designers these days is to make something that looks pretty in a static PowerPoint presentation. They do not care about how the user interacts with the app on a day to day basis. This is why it is getting harder and harder, with each iteration, to use applications without the mouse, to use overlapped windows or to use multiple applications in a multi-monitor setup.
I worked on mainframes for many years. Had a break and tweeked around with Apple II e's and TRTS 89 Model III for a few years. Then my daughter gave me a 286 PC and Windows 3.1. Wow that was cool so I looked around for a 486. Followed up an advert in the paper and the owner gave me 3 hours of his time showing the wonders of Word. I thought it was a magnificent product with its format and editing capabilities. The toolbar was amazing and easy to use. It set me off onto a new career which I'm still working at even though I'm pushing 80.
PS Anyone have a fail safe way to get rid of malware using the name DismHost.exe. Keeps filling my Temp folder with folders named 23/11/2023 8.00 pm. It seems to generate a folder every time I sleep or hibernate the PC. I run Defender and Malwarebytes which don't detect it.
Things like the word "Print" on a button or bubble are so useful. 👍🏻🎅👍🏻
Hilarious!
Microsoft watches it's consumers via Bing, Copilot, Cortana, "Internet Safety", Xbox Gamebar, "Optional diagnostic logging", Windows Update, Edge, and "Ink and typing"… on top of what's mentioned here 😅
User interface has certainly gotten worst these days. 'modern design!', screw it man it's unusable, waste so much space, took too many clicks, unnecessary animation delay….
More Raymond!
No-one thinks about how much analysis Microsoft could do on all of their Office 365 Tenants….
This is very revealing. Rather than invoking a sense of humility in the developer for failing in his task of making an intuitive UI he gets pi$$ed at the user for not being bright enough to understand the garbage he has created. No wonder Microsoft's UI sucks. Y
I'd probably be very confused if I had to use the UI of a program instead of keyboard shortcuts.
Excellent video. And I love when German language is used to precise a statement. Happy thanksgiving from Germany
History repeats with the idiotic win 11 context menu
This was my experience as well. We would watch people who had experience(they said) with word, and we would ask them to perform simple tasks. We were frustrated on the other side of the glass watching them. We couldn't believe how hard it was for them to do the most mundane things. I came from Word support in Charlotte, so I had experience working with people over the phone to troubleshoot their problems, but I have to say watching these users through the glass was a frustrating experience.