Discussions

Ian, you are absolutely correct about having desktop icons on the Start screen.  What I really should have said is that I can't get the same integration into those tiles... they aren't "Live" tiles.  (Of course, I've ranted before about the inability for desktop applications to integrate with the formerly-known-as-Metro experience... I won't start on that again.)

Another POV on this is that you can think of the Start screen as conceptually an extension of the Windows 7 taskbar. They both try to unify application launching, switching and notifications (plus instance management and quick actions, in the taskbar's case). So it would be nice if we had more parity and coherence (e.g., ideally using the same or closely related APIs) between what you can do with the taskbar and Start tiles for desktop apps.

(Besides this, tiles for desktop content, especially folders and websites, often just don't look nice or aren't visually distinguishable - folders all use the same ugly folder icon! I would really like a good built-in UX and services for easily associating your own icons for folders and stuff. Basically a more streamlined and service-integrated OblyTile)

@dahat: It wasn't "most users not clicking the start button", just that the number of users clicking it was trending downward. That's not the same thing at all.

The point isn't that the start menu is "bad" and had to be removed because its use is trending downward, or because of the new taskbar. The point is, given that the taskbar takes over many of its functions, how can the start menu be evolved to find a new role and also fit newer trends in use of PCs? The start screen in Windows 8 is an answer to this, it's not the only or necessarily ideal answer, but any problems or deficiencies need to be addressed by actually solving the problems not creating a parallel start menu leading to two places to look for everything and implement everything which just makes no sense.

I definitely agree (there was a button on the taskbar in DP and it was removed for a reason, apparently having two different ways to get to Start depending on where you were coming from didn't make the system any easier to learn and just added confusion), except that I actually doubt adding a popup launcher would change haters' minds either.

I don't really understand your other points (or agree with what I do understand), but I do think contextual help is a good idea that's been abandoned for too long.

3 hours ago, cbae wrote

I like the improvements in Explorer:

• The up arrow button (i.e. up directory--missing since Vista)
• "Open command prompt" and "Open command prompt as administrator" menu options in the ribbon
• Show/hide file name extensions and show/hide hidden items (I usually set these once after installing Windows, but it's nice to have easy access to these settings in the ribbon rather than going to the Folder Options dialog.)

Don't forget the quick access toolbar (now if only the hit target would extend to the top of the screen with the window maximized) and drag and drop from the breadcrumb bar! The ribbon itself is nice enough, but I really wish there were an extension API (that was actually adopted by developers of popular utilities, which is probably the harder part), so TortoiseSVN for example could add a source control tab and extensions in general could have a little more room to put their stuff somewhere besides vomiting it into the bloated context menu.  (yes they will vomit it into the ribbon - and ideally there would be also a nice UI for keeping extensions in line, like IE now has - but the ribbon inherently allows for more stuff to be crammed it before becoming unusable)

Anyway, my own favorite feature is being able to use Shazam on my laptop to identify some interesting music I hear at a coffeeshop. It's an example of the sort of app that was never available on desktop Windows before, but thanks to the much-debated decision to have the same unitary "modern" app ecosystem on all PC form factors including tablets, I can use it on any PC without having to carry a separate tablet around (yes in theory I could use it on my phone, but due to some deficiency of mine my phone is never ever charged when I want to use it; at any rate it's more of a hassle to pull it out and fiddle with it).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNI0r9_BJUM

I worked on this project a bit on my last contract, mostly on a few pieces of the UI (guess the technology stack ). It's pretty sweet, and good to see they've come a long way since I left.

@kettch: Yeah I have to strongly agree with this particular Win8 gripe (two-finger right click) - a case where touch usability actually regressed from the "not suited for touch" Win7.

@wastingtimewithforums: The difference is there are/were a lot of DOS commands, while there are very few signs in the Windows UI interaction language that need to be learned, and they're meant to work consistently across apps. Basically, three: right-click or swipe to select and show relevant commands, move around corner or swipe from right to show charms, and pinch-zoom or hit the minus button to get a higher level view of the content. (There are other signs, but they're more like shortcuts than something you actually need to learn.) 

BTW right-click menu was panned? By whom?

FYI the "touch" qualifier doesn't distinguish desktop vs. Windows UI IE. There is actually (and intentionally) no real way for sites to distinguish between those. It just distinguishes whether there's touch support or not.

When I tried WiX some years ago I found it kind of brain-twisting, IIRC the difficulty being not so much WiX's own per se but more that it was a fairly thin wrapper over the underlying Windows Installer model and it was that model itself that was difficult to grasp. I've heard it's gotten at least somewhat easier though.