Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

Re:Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody by sunchild on Monday August 29, 2011 @04:17PM (#2938722)

File systems and file browsers are just never going to be easy for users to understand. That's why Apple is slowly but surely hiding them entirely from "beginners"/"people who don't care to learn how to use their tools".

Microsoft's solution is more akin to the way animal researchers teach apes to recognize arbitrary symbols. It's a subtle and pernicious form of vendor "lock in", because when you try to move those users away from their comfort zone in Outlook or Windows Explorer, they feel lost.

Personally, I think Microsoft and "people who can't be bothered to learn their tools" deserve each other.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody by mmatants on Monday August 29, 2011 @05:09PM (#2939003)

This. Files and folders are not an optimal paradigm for this stuff. Partly because even real files/folders are not a "civilian" thing, especially now. Plus, there's typically just one level of folder nesting in the real world.

The actual user story is always: find what I'm looking for. Google got it right with GMail and informal searching - screw manual organization. Power users should be able to set up structures, but typical computer folks don't need that.

[ Parent | on HN ]