[solaris_7]

I'm always intrigued by this desire for integration. Even if you want to have one device that is mainly a phone but also a PC when you connect it to an external 24" screen and keyboard - why can't it have totally different UX experiences optimized for each state? Is that really so bad?

Windows 8 was a UX disaster - so maybe that's just coloring my judgement. I haven't used Ubuntu on mobile yet so guess I need to try it.

[wvenable]

Windows 8 was a separate UI for desktop and tablet. Windows 10, for comparison, more closely combines the tablet and desktop modes. Windows 8 was a disaster and Windows 10, at least for desktop/tablets, is more of a success.

I think the problem with completely different UX experiences is exactly that. People want a similar experience with the same software. Microsoft assumed with Windows 8 that the tablet interface would work on the desktop but people don't want that watered down of an experience. Windows 10 at least lets you use tablet-designed applications on the desktop in a more integrated way.

[baldfat]

> Windows 8 was a separate UI for desktop and tablet

Wait what? The "Metro" was the combining of the GUI for touch and mouse. I actually prefer the Win 8 UI since it is more of a tiled window manager like I use in Linux. Windows 10 is back to click with a mouse. Windows 8 I never touched the mouse unless I needed it in a program.

> Windows 10, for comparison, more closely combines the tablet and desktop modes

It was a move away from Tablets and back to laptop desktop focus.

[wvenable]

> The "Metro" was the combining of the GUI for touch and mouse... I never touched the mouse unless I needed it in a program.

The Metro interface was not optimized for mouse operations; it was a touch UI you could "touch" with a mouse. All apps were full screen. UI elements were hidden and meant to be swiped from the sides of the screen. Nothing about Metro seemed to be optimized for the desktop.

But thankfully you could completely switch modes and have a regular Windows 7-like desktop experience. When I ran Windows 8.1 it booted straight to the desktop, I used ClassicShell for the start menu, and I never saw a single metro app.

With Windows 10 can run metro applications in regular desktop windows as well as switch to tablet mode and run regular desktop applications and metro apps full screen or tiled.

[baldfat]

The "Metro" was also optimized for keyboards

[wvenable]

Metro supported keyboards (to an extend) but I wouldn't say it was "optimized" for it. Even some Metro apps, like Netflix, couldn't be controlled by the keyboard. That one kept me from using the Netflix app on Windows 8 as a HTPC solution.

[NetStrikeForce]

> It was a move away from Tablets and back to laptop desktop focus.

Why? I mean, what are the changes that make you say that?

[baldfat]

Windows 7 was not a tablet environment. Windows 8 was a full tablet environment and Windows 10 is a mixture of both and tablet took a tiny hit.

I'm weird I know but I preferred Windows 8.1 and more so on touch devices. I have about 20 touch screens at work and I miss the charms and the swipe in from the right and the easy short cuts. Open a program in Windows 8 was win-enter. Windows 10 it is win-arrow up. silly example but these arguments are usually silly when talking preferences.

[wvenable]

You aren't that weird. My daughter had a touch screen laptop and she also preferred Windows 8 to Windows 10 and missed the charms and the swipe in. I, however, could barely use her computer because of all the fingerprints!

Windows 8 on the "desktop" was a carrot for all the computer manufacturers who decided, that year, to put touch screens on everything.

A better strategy for Microsoft would have been to call it Surface OS and release it just for tablets (and phones) and focus on Metro and have the desktop as a cool add-on for their tablet OS. For the desktop, they should have done a Windows 8 that was more like 7 yet still have Metro but more as an add-on. This wouldn't have helped you as much but it would have been better for them overall.

[baldfat]

> A better strategy for Microsoft would have been to call it Surface OS and release it just for tablets

I say open up the ability to run optional desktop environments like we have in Linux. I can have my tiled window manager (I am sure 2% of users would LOVE it and 98% would HATE it) and then others could use one of the official desktop environments. No need for a whole OS version. Its bad enough we have Pro and non-Pro Windows 10.

[Osiris]

Windows 10 has a tablet mode.

[V-2]

They shouldn't be totally different. Common look and feel is welcome in my opinion. Then obviously they should be customized to adjust for different input devices and screen sizes.

It can be done without repeating the Windows 8 fiasco - which seemed to be tailored for touch-input devices, leading to clunky experience on a regular PC.

Eg. see Remix OS, or Android for desktop: http://www.jide.com/remixos

It's Android, but from the look of it, it's adapted nicely: https://youtu.be/TjAxCWO84L4 (I admit I haven't used it myself, but even if there are some quirks not visible at first glance, my point is not that Remix OS hit the sweet spot, only that it can be done in principle).

[jug]

Yes, I think Windows 10 is a more mature and sane take on this concept, where the "apps" can now run windowed as usual. Makes the transition _much_ less jarring, and is more like how RemixOS also mentioned in the comments here does it with Android.

[digi_owl]

Will be interesting to see if OEMs will adopt floating mode for tablets and such with Android 7.

[pjmlp]

Right now what I am seeing is the majority of tablets with keyboards are being sold with Windows 10 on them, lets see if OEMs decide to sell Android 7 as well.

[Sylos]

I used to have the same opinion until I found an example of UI continuity which actually helped me learn a different UI quicker and didn't feel like it held me back once I had learned it.

But well, that wasn't continuity between phone and desktop. It was continuity between GUI and CLI (openSUSE's YaST).

Whether it really makes sense trying to find a compromise between [mouse&keyboard + big screen] and [touch + small screen] is then again an entirely different question. And in my opinion, this isn't happening until we have a good generic solution for projecting the vast number of different screens that you need on a phone UI to one big, densely-settled screen as is necessary for a good desktop UI.

[Zardoz84]

I'm a user of a convertible Table PC. Windows 8.1 was really pleasant to use. In special compared against Windows 7.

[wyldfire]

> why can't it have totally different UX experiences optimized for each state? Is that really so bad?

Gee, not only is it not bad it seems like it's really good. The context seems so different as to necessitate different UX.

[pbhjpbhj]

It sounds like you're conflating UX and UI? The UI can differ massively within an overarching consistent UX.

[wyldfire]

Yes, perhaps I am.

[WayneBro]

Windows 8 was not a UX disaster. It just wasn't finished. How long did you use it for?

I personally used it the whole time it was available. Despite the fact that it was unfinished, it was still vastly superior in many ways to other desktop systems. So, I'm quite certain that I don't know what you mean at all when you say "UX disaster".

[baldfat]

I prefer Window 8 since I use a tiled Window Manager (i3) on Linux. Windows 8 was a much better productivity UI for me since I never had to touch a mouse unless I was in a program that specifically worked better with a mouse.

[Sylos]

Since you seem to want actual evidence that Windows 8's UX was a disaster, well, what's the biggest difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 for a user? It's the UX, I assume you can agree.

And if you look at the marketshare of Windows 7 vs. Windows 8/8.1, you see a pretty big difference.

StatCounter (includes mobile): 20.36% vs. 5.64%

netmarketshare.com: 48.27% vs. 9.61%

Steam Hardware Survey: 36.38% vs. 10,78%

Now, you might respond with Windows 7 simply having more adoption, because it has been around longer, which is a valid point. I can only really refute that with the anecdotal evidence, that Windows 7 is currently seeing more growth off of the people moving away from XP and Windows 10, than Windows 8 is seeing.

[simonh]

Most actual users had a disastrous experience of it. Hence user experience disaster.

[krylon]

To be fair, I work as a sysadmin / helpdesk monkey / sometimes-developer at a Windows shop, and the amount of complaints about Windows 8 was a lot lower than I had expected. A couple of users did ask me, however, to install ClassicShell on their machines. (Windows 8 has given me more trouble sysadmin-wise than its predecessors, but most of that was due to third-party software. Especially, Windows 8 will regularly hang on startup say "Please wait...", at least on some machines - but that has nothing to do with the GUI.)

Personally, I still think the lack of a start menu is very disruptive - and since Microsoft re-introduced it in Windows 10 makes me think I was not alone in thinking so.

[digi_owl]

The basic problem with Windows 8 was that Metro apps and Win32 programs didn't mingle. The whole desktop was basically treated, within the UI at least, as a single big app.

Come 8.1 and this was partially reversed, with Metro apps being possible to manage much like Win32 programs (showing up on taskbar, could be closed or minimized via icons top right).

And i must say i kinda like using the start page concept for launching programs once i have things set so i go right to the "list" rather than dealing with the live tiles.

I have been contemplating getting a smaller Windows based tablet as an alternative to my existing Android one.

[ansible]

The basic problem with Windows 8 was that Metro apps and Win32 programs didn't mingle. The whole desktop was basically treated, within the UI at least, as a single big app.

Hah. The first time I played a music file in Win8, the application took over my screen, and I had 50 Cent glaring at me (almost larger than life) while my song was playing. I guess he though my music was inadequate, and thought I should buy his stuff instead.

Also, just going to the program tiles screen was just a wall of visual noise. All these tiles were animated, it was hard to focus on what was there with all that going on. You can (and I did) turn off animations for them (or just delete them from the shortcut list), which helped a lot. So yeah, that was not a great first experience.

I'm totally fine with Windows 10 these days, at least as far as UI goes.

[krylon]

> The basic problem with Windows 8 was that Metro apps and Win32 programs didn't mingle.

True! OTOH, I have never seen one of our users use a Metro App intentionally. At most they would run into the builtin PDF viewer if no other viewer was installed or registered to open PDFs.

One of my coworkers has a Windows phone, and he tells me on the phone the interface is very nice. But I still cannot imagine what the people at Microsoft must have been thinking...

[digi_owl]

Best i can tell, Microsoft wants to get rid of Win32. But their attempts are hopelessly hamfisted.

[WayneBro]

"Most actual users"?

How about a citation?

[V-2]

"Most" isn't probably true, but the number was quite significant, indirectly confirmed by Microsoft by backing down from some design decisions in version 8.1 (bringing the Start button back) and 10 (restoring the more traditional-looking Start menu). Userbase pressure was an obvious factor in these choices / concessions. I can't recollect anything similar in the history of Windows UX.

[agumonkey]

I consider myself experienced and unbiased, but the visual inconsistencies (animation glitches, awkward scales and proportions) drove me away from trying Win8 longer. I'd be very curious to have more details about your experience with it considering your above message.

[Zardoz84]

The thing is that windows 8 (and 8.1) was perfect for a tablet or a tablet pc user. How ever, for a normal desktop user, would feel at least strange.