Amazingly, the Windows Supersite of Paul Thurrott is showing some falling out of lockstep with Redmond.
I usually don’t visit there often, since the site usually spreads enough sludge about the qualities of Microsoft products that the color scheme of the site should be in sepia tones.
I took a chance, and was checking it out today, only to see that back in December, the site owner gave some fairly good reasons why Microsoft should not move down the path we see it has with Windows 7 and the Start Menu evisceration.
Some times, the article seems to be an apology for Microsoft -
When I think of words that are overused in the computer industry, “intuitive” is the first one that comes to mind. In fact, the word intuitive is tossed around so frequently these days that we’ve lost sight of what that word actually means. Let me be clear: There is no such thing as an intuitive computer user interface. Instead, today’s OSes rely on a certain level of familiarity on the part of the user. Most people have now grown up in a world where computers are commonplace or at least available, and babies are taught to map the motions of a computer mouse to the onscreen cursor at the same time they’re learning to speak and walk. But we don’t come out of the womb computer-ready. It’s a skill that’s learned, not something innate or obvious.
but then the author takes a turn with -
Now, I’m not suggesting that Microsoft should chart new territory with a brand new UI. But with Windows 7, the software giant is very definitely cruising into territory that Apple, again, pioneered when it rearchitected its own OS from its humble “classic Mac OS” systems to the UNIX-based Mac OS X of today. That is, in a bid to make Windows easier to use, Microsoft has in fact just made Windows simpler. But Windows 7 is not, in fact, easier to use than its predecessors, because all Microsoft is really doing is hiding complexity, not removing it. That distinction is, I feel, important.
It is a fascinating article, mostly because the author is in such inner conflict; being a Microsoft fanboy isn’t as easy as it used to be, it is harder to defend such inane shifts in design.
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