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gregjohn <pte### [at] yahoo com> wrote:
> [-- text/plain, encoding 8bit, charset: iso-8859-1, 31 lines --]
> The coolest Microsoft application ever, IMNSHO, ***was*** Microsoft Photo
> Editor. The HDD died on the WinXP laptop I use in my place of employment. With
> the new HDD came the latest suite of Office products. To my chagrin, Microsoft
> Photo Editor is gone and replaced by Microsoft Office Picture Manager. It is
> terrible.
Seriously, it just seems like common trend inside Microsoft: First develop
a software which is between acceptable and actually pretty good, and then
develop new versions of that software which have changes for and only for
the sake of change, at the cost of usability.
I have never understood that. MS has its own program and GUI design
documents which are not half-bad, but they don't seem to follow them at
all. It seems that their rule number one is "we *must* make the new
version look&feel different, no matter what the cost". It seems unthinkable
to them that they would release a new version which actually looks and
feels the *same* as the old version, but which has bug fixes and enhanced
features.
Windows Media Player is a prime example of this. Compare all versions
of it from version 6 to the current one. The newer the version, the more
bloated, the harder and more unintuitive to use, and the more horrible
they get with each version. If it was just the eyecandy then it would be
ok (after all, most media players are skinnable, so it's kind of ok).
But it's not only that. They must change how it works and how it is used.
Old = bad, change = good. It doesn't matter if it changes to less usable
and less intuitive, as long as it changes.
I must admit I haven't followed the details between the different
versions of MacOS X, but I have the feeling that while they have implemented
some changes to the UI and functionalities, they have tried to keep it
easy and intuitive to use. Eye-candy yes, but not at the cost of usability.
--
- Warp
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