pcworld.com/article/129410-1/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws Vista UI Is a 'Step Back' for Microsoft French researcher says Vista's user interface suffers from more 'friction' than Microsoft XP
That's why I like to run in Classic mode. Keep it simple and moving along :)

"Dale White"

This was already brought up a while ago. See the thread, "An objective study that compares 3 OSs"

Anything that has to call itself or be called objective ... isn't
akin to the 'reality based' left ;)
The new UI is plenty fast here ... and faster that the XP UI with the same set of installed applications
now what?
Rich

Did you read the article, it was talking about user speed not system, speed.
"Rich"

Yeah, I figured someone already beat me to it. I didn't noticed until after the post that it was dated in Feb.
As the great thespian Homer J Simpson once said...'DOH!"
"Justin"

Thats even worse .. objectivity about someone else's navigational abilities on a new OS?
thats has to be the summit of cherrypicking nits.
"I bitch, therefore I am?"
Rich

I don't know about that. It's supposedly a measurable item. They tell X number of users to do X number of tasks, and they see how long it takes the users to do such tasks. By the report, it took the users 14% longer to do the same task with Aero than XP.
An example of some of the time loss, is due to things like menu fading, which looks cool, but if you're waiting for one menu item to close and the other to open, it's lost time.
The point of the article is that most OSes strive to make this time faster, but in Vista's case, the new interface slows users down..
"Rich"

"Dale White"

That's a bunch of bull. I want to see what exactly these people where told to do. I have 5 users that I upgraded from XP to Vista Business and they all screamed at first that it sucked and it's different, blah blah blah. When I took their new puppy away from them later on down the road they all screamed to get Vista back.
That, among other things, is the exact data I needed for my upgrade proposal.
As for "fade", XP has plenty of fade and scroll effects of its own. I bet they turned them all off, used low resource machines and left Aero alone.

It sounds like you don't like the results of the test. There is nothing that implies they cheated or that this researcher had an axe to grind with Vista or Microsoft. It was even noted, that you could turn off Aero to fix the "friction" but that would defeat the purpose of the test.
Also, just because end users like the new Aero look, doesn't means it's faster or doesn't have "user friction" Another point that I thought was just me, is they talked about Mouse pointer precision, in which you click the wrong thing. I myself do this every so often in both XP and Vista, whichis why I hate that they have delete and rename so close together.
This researcher also did the comparision with the MAC OS-X.
I myself always run everything turned off, as I don't need or care for all that pretty stuff. So I gues now I can say that I run with less friction
"Justin"

"Dale M. White -LV32"

Not liking results has nothing to do with it. In fact there are no results in which not to like. In order to have results you have to something in which to result from. That article had no "from".
Just because a "French analyst" makes up his own term "UIF" doesn't mean it equates to anything tangible.
As was already mentioned, that French guy has written nothing more then a opinion piece. He never ties anything together. He mentions very specific things which MAY have been slower on HIS machines then tell us Vista is slower then XP. Never does he mention any of the improvements. For example, "menu latency". Menu what? What menus, which application menus and how are they slower? The common application menu bars are not slower then XP (they are both instant) and the start menu is leaps and bounds faster then XP. New system? Old system? The people performing the tasks, did they know XP? Did they know Vista? Which did they know better? There are far too many holes in his "theory" and far too many questions are raised. That alone shoots down the entire article. The basis of the research is biased unless he found people that either knew both systems well or didn't know either system at all.
So, like I said, I want to see what exactly these people where told to do.

"Rich"

What that means is that your XP install had issues and was running slow....

More friction eh, posts like these are a continuation of consumer preference by other means.
"Dale White"

Also in terms of menu latency MS's research is that setting it too low means many people can't use the menus. "Dale White"

I don't know Justin, it wasn't that hard to google his name and get the report pfeifferreport.com/trends/trend_vistauif.html
Here's the actual report pfeifferreport.com/trends/Vista_UIF_Rep.pdf
I would suspect that if PCworld posted it, it must have some credibility to it. It would see from reading most of the report, that their goal is simply to measure user friction of a user shell and report back. They clearly state that it's not meant to be a complete measurement of Vista.
Snip What were we looking for?
These User Interface Friction benchmarks are not intended as a complete, all-encompassing assessment of Windows Vista or of the new Aero user interface: the key goal of these efficiency measures was to establish how Windows Vista impacts some key areas of User Interface Friction observed in previous releases of the Windows operating system.
The benchmarks compared Windows Vista running the new Aero user interface to Windows XP SP2 on one hand, and to Mac OS X 10.4.8 on the other.
Snip
Seems like he's doing more than just writing an opinion about some random people he saw at the local internet cafe.
"Justin"

I'd like to see the research that says, a menu that pops open the second I click it is a problem. The problem that the researcher noted is that windows menus, though visual pleasing , is apparently too slow for a productive user.
This is why, even under XP, I turn all the different menu fading, and everything else off. I click it opens, I click it's gone. Obviously a personal choice, but I'll take speed over pretty.
<.>

Not everyone has great psycho-motor skills. Solitaire was incl in Windows to teach the psycho-motor skills. Clicks don't have a delay - hovering over a sub menu has the delay. It's a setting and default is 400 ms. "Dale M. White -LV32"

That PDF only strengthened my comments. There are too many holes and too many questions in the end.
In addition to all this, you can turn off "GUI extras". I kill the fades and scrolls simply because I don't like the way they look.

"Dale M. White -LV32"

"Dale M. White -LV32"

Who said fade was pretty? Just curious.

Thats what you want it to mean. I actually means something you do not WANT it to mean
Know what I mean?
heh
Rich

I dunno, don't you think the menu fade was put there to be aesthetically pleasing ? Afterall, under the advance tabs, there is the options for Best Appearance and an option for Best Performance. Choosing best performance, task away all the "Appearance items" Whether anyone says, oooh that menu fade "was pretty" or whether they say 'That's cool that way it does that" is not overly important, and unless I'm missing something, options like Menu fade, Taskbar slide and the likes, don't offer anything in terms of being productive, Turning them off doesn't take away features
"Justin"

"Dale White"

I've seen apps that implement their own fades or transmissions and it CAN look decent and feel solid. MS's implementations always seem cheap, look bad and just don't feel solid to me. I turn them off company wide and I've not heard a single complaint.

Well, there you go, you've helped your company have less user friction :)
"Justin"

"Dale White"

Less friction in XP? I just don't buy that. Wait....I have all that stuff turned OFF in XP but I haven't touched my 5 Vista machines. So, with Aero in full effect and XP slimmed down, my Vista users are still MORE productive then the XP users. More questions with no answers.

Dale M. White -LV32 wrote:

"Effects" on the display appearance settings (now Control Panel > Personalization > Window Color and Appearance) but I can't see any options for menu effects etc. there.

How are you measuring that they are more productive with Vista Aero on, then with XP Visuals turned off ? Are you then saying that if you turned off Aero, that they would be less productive them with Aero on ? Or are you saying that no matter what you do with Vista or XP, your users will be more productive with Vista than XP ?

"Justin"

"Mark Bourne" >>

My way is to run the Classic theme. Then under the System-Advance settings- option, set it to best performance, instead of best Appearance

"Dale White"

Too many questions. Holy crap! :)
The 5 users I mentioned are more productive using Vista in general. Thus this whole friction research is moot. This boils down to the research being crap in the first place. Just because you have data on something specific, doesn't mean your data is worth anything. This reminds me of that Tom Leykis idiot. According to his DATA, the average house wife is NOT skinny. So his research concludes that house wives are fat, ugly, and plain.
Data can be very dangerous when not properly handled or analyzed.
Lets just pretend for a second that the menus on Vista DO take longer to open. Lets FORCE them to take twice as long to open. We're still under a second! Vista would still be more productive then XP. DEPENDING ON WHAT you are doing of course.
Again, let's pretend that UIF does in fact show Vista being under XP. So what? UIF is not important and amounts to nothing. UIF can vary based on machine performance and UIF can be canceled out by turning off fade.
In conclusion, Tom Leykis is the scum of the earth and should be taken as entertainment ONLY if in fact you can actually find him entertaining.

Mark Bourne wrote:

Another option I can't see, which used to be in the same place, is to always underline the shortcut keys for menus, rather than only displaying them when the "Alt" key is pressed.

"Mark Bourne"

Yup, that speeds people up. Instead of wasting time hunting for a letter THEN going to the keyboard. They get to the keyboard first then strike that next key right away.

"Justin"

I don't follow your point. How is hiding the underline until after you hit the Alt key, better ? I'm looking at the screen, I can see, before I do anything, hit the Alt-F key, to open file. Now I have to hit the Alt key, look up see which key I want (since I'm not a touch typist) and then look back down to type it. I'm sure even for touch typists, the newer process would be slower than the older way. Granted if it's the same old tasks, you pretty much know all your Alt Keys. But if you haven't memorized them all, what's the harm in showing me the keys ahead of time ?
Just because it's seems trivial to you, doesn't mean it's trivial to everyone

"Dale White"

1. I didn't say it was trivial. Please post the quote. 2. If it takes you 3 seconds to look then .5 seconds to hit alt then another half second to hit "F" you are at 4 seconds. Now look at Vista. You look AND hit ALT at the same time. So you drop that .5 second. You are at 3 seconds to look and .5 seconds to hit "F" for a total of 3.5 seconds. Or if you argue that it now takes 3.5 seconds to complete both ALT and looking then you prove that it does not mater at all and takes the same amount of time. Take your pick.

I'm afraid I don't follow your math. I'm looking at the screen. 0 secs, required. I see that I need to hit Alt-M 0.5-1 secs and I'm done. Under Vista, I'm looking at the screen, I see nothing, .5 secs to hit the alt key, 1-2 secs to find the key I need to hit, .5 secs to hit the key.
But let's skip the numbers, since it's subjective. You honestly contend there is zero difference in having the underlines already there, versus making me hit the Alt key to see them ? And what I really want to know, After 15+ years of having it one way (Win 3.1 had it), what possible purpose does it serve to remove it now ? It's a small detail, espeically if someone doesn't use it alot, But I'd like the Microsoft people who said "let's change that" just explain to me, why ? And how it's better then the way it's been. Some of us are use to it, we've learned a way and now I'm having to change,just for the sake of change

"Dale White"

Nope. You have to FIND the underlined letter you are looking for. It's not always the first letter of the word. Especially when using a new app you sometimes have to hunt for it.

Exactly! Here's something else. Most of the complaining about what's changed goes away once the complainer uses Vista for a little while.

Actually, this is where you are wrong, a little. What you are noticing is that YOUR preference is becoming a minority vote. In XP you can OPT to turn off the underlines. A direct result of customer "WANT". Now, the scale has tipped over to the other side. You lose. Sorry, but more people want it this way.

See above.

See above.

"Justin"

That may be true, but I want to see the poll numbers. I guess I'm still wondering why someone would oppose to having the underlines there. Seeing how the majority of "noobie" user I watch don't even know they can do things like Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, I'm guessing that it's more of a case that no one uses the feature or doesn't understand what the Underline means.Maybe I'm just around too many special Ed type users or maybe those are the users Microsoft surveyed.
You right, the complaining goes away if you're using Vista, cause that's just how it is. You're stuck with it. Doesn't mean it is better, and fair enough turn it off, give me the option to turn it on.

"Dale White"

That's just it, you answered it right here. If they don't know about Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V then why would they ever use an ALT shortcut? If XP didn't teach them then nothing will :)

I thought you could? I'll have to look it up.

"Justin"