UPDATE FOR THE HATERS (as the kids say): Getting lots of hate mail on this one, saying I distorted the Windows desktop, etc. Well, that may actually be true. All my Vista screenshots come from Paul Thurrott's WinSuperSite. That's pretty much the source of everything I know about Vista, since I don't seem to own any hardware that can actually run it. I guess I thought Mr. Thurrott was a good Windows advocate and would show off the cool Windows User Experience in his screens... oh well... that is all, we now return you to your regularly scheduled ramblings...
UPDATE FOR EVERYONE ELSE: Check out
Charlie Owen's blog for way better screenshots than these... I still don't like Windows too much - but it looks like it can look a lot better than I thought when I wrote this post...
Anyhoo, here's the full original post:
Windows users, your life is about to get a whole lot worse. This is something I've been meaning to comment on for a little while: Is it just me, or does every "new, improved" release of Windows actually increase the complexity, confusion and frustration of the user experience? Here are a few illustrations of what I'm talking about:
The Start Menu:I've never really liked the Start Menu, but the closest I ever got was in Windows 98:
OK, so it's not going to win any beauty contests, but at least it gets the job done, right? Here's what you can look forward to in Vista:
This thing takes up fully a third of the screen, and it's full of mind-boggling teeny-weeny text... buttons, forms... look at all the information I have to sort through in order to find what I want. How can anyone think this is an improvement?
Which brings me to the all important...
Usable desktop space:Here's what life was like in Windows 98:
Not bad; I'd say I have maybe 95% of the screen to use for my applications. Vista says:
OUCH. Supersized taskbar and giant sidebar clutter my workspace with seldom-used information, and leave me maybe 80% of my screen for actual work. It's like CNN Headline News for your computer! Just for comparison, here's what I get on my Mac:
Those are my honey's feet, by the way ;-)
Everyday tasks:Here's a good example of how the complexity keeps increasing. Web browsing in Windows 98:
Here it is in Vista:
Why there is all this horrible visual complexity right at the top of every single browser window, that I can never get rid of? How come Safari does all the same stuff, but looks like this:
I just don't get it.
Speaking of everyday tasks, what about the all-important
Control Panel? Since Windows users spend so much of their time in Control Panel, we can expect some improvements there, right? Well, some things have stayed pretty much the same - compare Windows 98's Network Setup to Vista's Network Setup:
Not much change there - well, except I hope my Grandma never calls me up and tells me her Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver broke.
And some things have gotten much worse. Compare the overall complexity of 98's Control Panel to Vista's:
Just for reference, here's what things look like in non-bizarro world:
Just in case Windows users are confused by that last screenshot, that's the Mac's "Control Panel." I'm searching for "print" and it's highlighting stuff that I might want to do if I'm interested in printing. The most relevant choice has the brightest highlight.
Anyway, here's my gripe about the so-called "improvements" in Windows: Most of the core stuff,
the stuff that nearly everybody has to do, they either haven't improved at all, or they've added more layers of complexity to make it even harder than it was before. At the same time, they've added all kinds of additional bells and whistles to get in your way and distract you while you're trying to work. My question is: How can anyone live like this?
