Vista UI. Oy... Just Oy.

[yoavcs]

I've been using Vista for the past two days. I just had to share this. I've got a splitting headache.

This thing is by far the worst UI design I've had the misfortune of laying my eyes on. You can't even call it 'design'. Total chaos. It looks like someone decided to throw in everything into the UI, without any thought on simplicity, consistency, or putting things where you need them or would look for them.

Seems they figured that lots of sparkly, shiny stuff makes a good UI.

I don't even know how to describe it beyond 'sheer chaos'. Every window is freaking chock full of options, and shiny things, and little pull-down menus, almost every spot is clickable. It never ends. More and more and more options. No consistency, as if every window was designed by someone else with the goal of adding even more options. It really is that horrible.

I truly have a headache trying to wrap my head around this monstrosity.

Chaos.

 

[killmoms]

I think the thing I dislike the most is the elimination of normal, expected things from common windows like the menu bar. It throws you off, even for someone who's been a long-time Windows user.

But I agree, it's definitely a Franken-interface (Frankenface?). No consistency in terms of widget placement or colors or, well, anything really. And the added differences due to window contents still being drawn with GDI in most apps instead of WPF... yeah, it's a mess.

 

[Eidorian]

Thread over.

 

[yoavcs]

Yup, that photo pretty much sums it up. Actually, the real deal is even more messed up.

I'm usually pretty good at describing things. But I am at a loss of words for this beyond my aforementioned 'chaos'.

What shocks me the most is: are there people in MS who released this as final code and said "yup, we're good. Fine job everyone! Bonuses coming up".

Scary.
I've never ever had a headache from using a computer before.

 

[bokdol]

dont forget to add the dramatic changes to office 2007. man talk about confusing your userbase. we down graded to office xp so our people can be comfrotable with their computer. also the mailmergers were not working correctly with office 2007. oh well.

 

[toddburch]

So, I'm the guy my neighbors calls when they have PC issues. No problem. Until now. My buddy called me the other night to help him copy his daughter's homework onto a flash drive. He has Vista now on their new PC and he couldn't figure it out.

I'm thinking - how hard could this be? HOLY COW!! Took me 30 minutes.

First, he had plugged and unplugged the flash drive multiple times, and Vista kept racking up the count of removable drives - and never got rid of the drive when the flash drive was unplugged. ("Safely removing hardware" is not a process my friend knows about).

So, I removed all those by EJECTING them - even though they didn't physically exist.

Then, I plug the drive in, and now, using Windows Explorer (or whatever they call it now - I feel fortunate you can still get to it by right clicking the icon formerly known as "Start"). However, I have to back up the file structure "tree" by clicking up at the top (horizontally), and going back through something called "windows roaming" or some such conceptually named feature I am not familiar with except in terms of a cell phone.

Then, I see the bundled software that is distributed on the flash drive - a Vista popup tells me the launch file is not compatible with Vista and it's probably a virus - or at least I need to be scared enough to consider it a virus...

Anyway, I select all files on the flash drive and press DELETE. Nothing. Nothing at all - no beep, no error, no deletion - nothing. I look for the RED X. Nope. I look for a trash can. Nope. I figured - I'll show this turkey. I drop into CMD and enter ERASE *.* on the flash drive. "Access denied". I guess that was a bit too complex for Vista to tell me.

So, I write the powerpoint to the flash drive by doing a "Save As" in powerpoint. Now, even more popups - a popup to pick the file type and I can't remember what else. Like I said - took me 30 minutes. I would have like to have drug it over to the flash drive, but I didn't have the luxury of time to figure out how to use the doggone thing.

Piece of crap.

I worked for IBM for about 10 years, and I'm still working with IBM hardware/software after 27 years in the industry. IBM maintains a concept called "protecting your investing" in terms of buying hardware or software. Microsoft should take note. Relearning a user interface is time I don't have. Perhaps MS should also consider designing an operating system for the homeowner - not everybody has a network or security administrator in the next room when at home.

Todd

 

[Osarkon]

In response to toddburch:

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I've been dealing with windows for years now and my transition to vista is seriously giving me a headache.

I believe you when you say it took you 30 minutes because i'm sure I've spent at least that much trying to do normal tasks. Vista seems to actively resist simple tasks because it deems the user is a complete idiot and doesn't quite grasp that for instance when i disable the network adaptor (because it doesn't authenticate to the uni network unless i do in the first place) that i know what i'm doing and a nice little pop up will ask if i'm sure. It'll then do the same when i re-enable it.

Well i'll be damned, i'd never have clicked 'disable' if that wasn't what i meant to do!

Almost tempted to put my desktop onto XP, but I always like to have the newest of everything and so Vista will stay and i'll just deal with it while my mac is in being serviced (again. another 3 weeks without it.)

 

[SilentPanda]

I'm hoping all the people I know upgrade to Vista. I'm familiar with up through XP pretty well and don't anticipate touching Vista ever unless they install it at work (but I'm using Win2k at work so... that'll be a while). Once everybody upgrades to Vista and the tech support calls start rolling in I can just say, "Sorry... never used Vista. Can't help you."

 

[yoavcs]

Gotta love the new User Access Control.

You click "Disable Firewall", for instance. ***Manually*** click it using your mouse. And still the screen goes ominously black, and the UAC prompt pops up: someone or something is trying to disable your firewall...

Yeah, idiot, ***I*** am.

And that is just one example.

 

[clevin]

1. u can always go back to classic UI

2. who cares about title bar has an icon or not? does that make it more difficult for average user to finish the task?

 

[live4ever]

Is there an option in themes to use the Win2K or Server grey style like you can in XP, all that transparency is just rubbish.

 

[yoavcs]

@clevin:

That's just it. The UI is a total mess, chaos. It sure as heck makes things difficult. It's even worse than XP.

Imagine every car (ooooh, a car analogy, how original!) had its controls splattered all over the place, each manufacturer doing it differently. Could you still not figure out what the wheel and gas are and drive? Sure you could! But it would make life difficult as you switched cars.

Same holds true for every fracking window in Vista.

 

[killmoms]

1. u can always go back to classic UI

2. who cares about title bar has an icon or not? does that make it more difficult for average user to finish the task?

Creating an inconsistent interface where even typical window layouts are eschewed for seemingly no good reason DOES make it more difficult. It leads to interface confusion. Especially in things like Explorer or IE, whose Vista interfaces have removed or drastically changed UI elements whose layout and operation had been basically the same since Windows 95. Re-learning these interfaces which are usually less intuitive takes time and does impact efficiency.

Clearly when someone who has had long-term experience with Windows finds it takes 30 minutes to successfully COPY A FILE, there's something wrong. Even I find Vista sometimes confusing and difficult to use, and I've been using Windows since 95. Many things were changed for seemingly no good reason. Don't even get me started on the new, stupidly dissected control panels. The changes made to Vista affect even basically ingrained UI concepts with no clear benefits.

And yes, when Apple went from OS 9 to OS X, they did change a number of things that took getting used to. But they didn't, for instance, get rid of the Menu Bar. If you've used OS X, chances are you can probably use OS 9 without TOO much trouble. Vista vs. earlier versions of Windows... a LOT of stuff is different, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.

Or are you just the new official Windows Apologist on this board, who leaps to the defense of bad UI design every time Vista is questioned?

 

[clevin]

Is there an option in themes to use the Win2K or Server grey style like you can in XP, all that transparency is just rubbish.

 

[clevin]

Clearly when someone who has had long-term experience with Windows finds it takes 30 minutes to successfully COPY A FILE, there's something wrong.

Or are you just the official Windows Apologist on this board?

i would remind you this is a board discussing facts rather than guessing my personality.

for a long term windows user, take 30 minutes to copy a file under vista? oh, am I suppose to feel sorry for that? I copy a file under vista, after I touch it for 1 second, successfully, what do U want me to say about that? ctrl+c/v is easy, right? a long time windows user? maybe a long time, not really mean anything. Like I only used mac, so far, for less a year, should I know less than a guy who use it for 10 years? I don't think so.

discuss facts? welcome! don't cross the line.

 

[killmoms]

discuss facts? welcome! don't cross the line.

Fact: user interface change, especially when widgets/layouts/behaviors are inconsistent between apps, leads to user confusion.

Fact: Vista sports a number of different layouts, even within its own bundled apps, that seem to serve no particular purpose.

Fact: Every time someone points this out, you rush in to trumpet how great Vista is.

Fact: You are a Windows apologist.

Hooray facts!

 

[clevin]

Fact: user interface change, especially when widgets/layouts/behaviors are inconsistent between apps, leads to user confusion.

Fact: Vista sports a number of different layouts, even within its own bundled apps, that seem to serve no particular purpose.

Fact: Every time someone points this out, you rush in to trumpet how great Vista is.

Fact: You are a Windows apologist.

Hooray facts!

ur facts? sorry, it sounds more like your guess, lead to user confusion? any major report show that?

ur name calling is very annoy, and u can search for my posts see how great I think Vista is. Name calling is prohibited, i think, at MR.

oh, finally, what should I apologize for, if u think I regard vista as great?

 

[xUKHCx]

I upgraded to Vista but rally didn't like it at all, the performance and reliability monitor showed a graph that started low (8.7) and just got lower and lower, ended on 3.8, until i finally formatted the drive and installed XP back onto it.

I found they had changed things, for what i could see, just for the sake of changing things. For example the old display properties when you right click on the desktop. Used to be a simple window that had everything neatly tucked away in tabs. Now in Vista, a windows pops up with all the options split slightly differently, fair enough. But now when you click on an option a whole other windows pops up. I found i spent my entire time opening and closing windows just to try and find options.

Yes you can use spotlight or whatever it is called to find things but when they change the names of things for absolutley no reason makes it impossible. For example why the hell did they change the name of add or remove programs. Took me so long to spot it.

Also i found it generally sluggish and a pain. It felt like i was waiting just because of the fancy UI animations when you open and close a window. (i.e a slight fading away into the background).

Final thoughts, scruffy and doggish.

 

[someguy]

clevin is the original Windows Defender™.

 

[clevin]

I upgraded to Vista but rally didn't like it at all, the performance and reliability monitor showed a graph that started low (8.7) and just got lower and lower, ended on 3.8, until i finally formatted the drive and installed XP back onto it.

I found they had changed things, for what i could see, just for the sake of changing things. For example the old display properties when you right click on the desktop. Used to be a simple window that had everything neatly tucked away in tabs. Now in Vista, a windows pops up with all the options split slightly differently, fair enough. But now when you click on an option a whole other windows pops up. I found i spent my entire time opening and closing windows just to try and find options.

Yes you can use spotlight or whatever it is called to find things but when they change the names of things for absolutley no reason makes it impossible. For example why the hell did they change the name of add or remove programs. Took me so long to spot it.

Also i found it generally sluggish and a pain. It felt like i was waiting just because of the fancy UI animations when you open and close a window. (i.e a slight fading away into the background).

Final thoughts, scruffy and doggish.

A better way is to use classic theme, no animations, there are ppl out there who like fancy animations, Im sure u are not one of them.

clevin is the original Windows Defender™.

whatever, I only do these things

1. defend freewares
2. correct wrong impressions
3. provide solutions
4. point out the fact

It better call me a NON-APPLE-Zealot than Windows Defender, after all, my posts do not support the later, I didn't defend the weakness of windows. if somebody think Im defending windows, most probably is because apple's brain wash style PR campaign confused the reality and the fiction. LOL

 

[JNB]

Seems to me that the whole point of this is that there is absolutely no standard even within Microsoft for user interfaces. What will appear on a menu bar, in what position, what functionality does it have, etc., etc. Actually, they never have (F1 is the closes thing to a Windows UI standard as exists, but that's just common convention). Well, ok, the close box, too.

Themes aren't the UI. Themes are the color and chrome trim of the car. The UI is where the freaking pedals are from model to model and what their function is.

Even Apple has wandered from the Toolbox, or at least not held AD's to it quite as rigorously as they did back in the System 7 days.

 

[someguy]

4. point out the fact

Why is it, Mr. Defender, that when you voice your opinion, you refer to it as fact, yet when anyone else voices an opinion based on their user experience, you insist they are wrong and spout off further about your "facts"?

I won't be the first to deny that there are MR users who simply refuse to commend even to the slightest degree anything that Microsoft does, but I will say that there are many of us here who gave Vista the fair shot it deserved and would appreciate the right to express their feelings on it without being instantly shot down by The Facts™.

 

[clevin]

Why is it, Mr. Defender, that when you voice your opinion, you refer to it as fact, yet when anyone else voices an opinion based on their user experience, you insist they are wrong and spout off further about your "facts"?

I won't be the first to deny that there are MR users who simply refuse to commend even to the slightest degree anything that Microsoft does, but I will say that there are many of us here who gave Vista the fair shot it deserved and would appreciate the right to express their feelings on it without being instantly shot down by The Facts™.

well, always welcome anybody pointing out where my "fact" is untrue.

why don't you, Mr., simply point out the untrue statement I posted? rather than name-calling me? I would glad to admit any flaws in my statement rather than being name-calling w/o fair discussion.

 

[someguy]

well, always welcome anybody pointing out where my "fact" is untrue.

why don't you, Mr., simply point out the untrue statement I posted? rather than name-calling me? I would glad to admit any flaws in my statement rather than being name-calling w/o fair discussion.

I believe this has been done already:

Fact: user interface change, especially when widgets/layouts/behaviors are inconsistent between apps, leads to user confusion.

Obviously.

Fact: Vista sports a number of different layouts, even within its own bundled apps, that seem to serve no particular purpose.

Care to explain the purpose, clevin, or would you agree that there is none?

Fact: Every time someone points this out, you rush in to trumpet how great Vista is.

Can't argue with this one.

Creating an inconsistent interface where even typical window layouts are eschewed for seemingly no good reason DOES make it more difficult.

It sure as hell does. We aren't just picking on Microsoft either, search the forum for threads complaining about the simple, much less chaotic inconsistancies between Aqua and Brushed Metal apps in OSX (thank God for Uno).

Clearly when someone who has had long-term experience with Windows finds it takes 30 minutes to successfully COPY A FILE, there's something wrong.

...and if you read the Original Post, you'll see that "what's wrong" isn't the user in this case. The OS was acting up (surprised? me neither).

But I agree, it's definitely a Franken-interface (Frankenface?). No consistency in terms of widget placement or colors or, well, anything really. And the added differences due to window contents still being drawn with GDI in most apps instead of WPF... yeah, it's a mess.

I think the image posted earlier in this thread is evidence enough to file the quoted text above under Fact.

Mr. Defender?

 

[clevin]

I believe this has been done already:

Obviously.

Care to explain the purpose, clevin, or would you agree that there is none?

Can't argue with this one.

It sure as hell does. We aren't just picking on Microsoft either, search the forum for threads complaining about the simple, much less chaotic inconsistancies between Aqua and Brushed Metal apps in OSX (thank God for Uno).

...and if you read the Original Post, you'll see that "what's wrong" isn't the user in this case. The OS was acting up (surprised? me neither).


I think the image posted earlier in this thread is evidence enough to file the quoted text above under Fact.

Mr. Defender?

boy, u name calling me as defender, and u didn't quote anything i said as "untrue"? whats your logic? is this the way how u reasoning?