Stefan Mileschin

While Windows 8 appears to be great touch-friendly tablet software, it is starting to look like it is as user-friendly as a Great White Shark to ordinary PC users.

Former Xerox PARC researcher Usability expert Raluca Budiu of the Nielsen Norman Group told Laptop magazine that the new OS is less user friendly than its predecessors.

She said that the design Vole used does not make sense for PCs and has the potential to confuse desktop users and slow them down.

While there are things that you can do more easily in Windows 8, such as share a news story through email or with friends on Facebook, these are not the sort of things people do most often on a PC.

It is looking like Windows 8 is optimised for content consumption rather than content production and multitasking. But content consumption is better done on tablets and phones while production and multitasking are still best suited for PCs.

Microsoft appears to have ignored that fact and gone entirely for consumer use.

She said that the learning curve for Windows 8 going to be steep, particularly after Windows 7. The duality of Desktop-Metro is likely to confuse at least some of the users.

The concept of giving priority to content is not suited for the larger non-touch screen of most PCs or laptops. Many apps waste a lot of space for huge images and give little space to text.

Hiding controls to give priority to content may make sense on mobile, where screen space is so limited, but is nuts on a large screen, especially if users have to work harder to access hidden features.

For example if you are in Windows 8′s desktop environment and want to launch a new desktop application, you must return to the tile-based Start screen to click a shortcut.

So getting rid of the start menu is probably the daftest thing as it means that you have to go through all sorts of rubbish to get your software running.

http://news.techeye.net/software/mic...-user-friendly