The new menu on Office 2010 (i think it’s called backstage or something) is complete garbage.

The new visual studio ui is so slow on my system it’s nearly unbearable (my pc is 3 years old).

Every App looks different, WPF is only making it worse since the standard controls it has (menu and toolbar in particular) look like shit.

Every Expression Something tool has an UI that makes microsoft bob seem practical.

There are quite a few other things that are unnecessarily confusing (I hate everything network related).

And the list goes on and on.

The new windows 7 taskbar is probably one of the best (if not the best) designed pieces of UI i’ve ever had the pleasure of using.
The ribbon when used properly is excellent too.
So it’s not all bad.

Still, you can learn all of them given enough time. I would never have learned the click-and-hold thing unless someone had told me about it (in the comment section of an anti-freetard site no less). It’s in my view a serious design fail, more so considering how useful the app specific expose is.

Oh and yeah, the finder is horrible.

You’re reply has some valid points (to a certain extent), but this is the major problem that I have with your complaints: you perceive problems with OS X’s HCI and you’re primary OS is Windows? What about human interface guidelines (HIGs)? I can assure you that as many problems there are with OS X (the Finder, for starters) and out of all of the strengths that Windows has over OS X, adherence to HIGs is surely not one of them. Windows breaks pretty much every HIG principle there is (making the OS far more complicated than say, OS X). Which alludes to the main point of my post: you prefer the general/relative cluster f*ck which is the Windows UI because that is what you are used to. Ease of use and UI consistency cannot be considered Windows’ strengths (relative to OS X, at least, and even OS X is a mess in some areas), can it? Windows 7 is a huge improvement (Windows XP should die already, 7 is so much better), but still just playing catch up in terms of overall consistency (OS X is at least somewhat consistent, Windows…no).

Read (about Vista, but still somewhat applicable):
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/05/microsoft-learn-from-apple-II.ars/4

My other point still stands: there is only so much that any OS can do to make things as easy as possible for users. Beyond that, it is the user’s responsibility to overcome the learning curve that all OS’s have. Do you honestly think that you can learn all there is to learn about either OS X or Windows 7 just by using the OS? No, you can’t. That’s what books and tutorials are for. Again, go through these comments for examples of rudimentary things that people did not know how to do on OS X and learned from responses here when they could have learned all of these things by going to youtube or RTFM. http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

From my experience (working in mixed windows/mac environment for almost 10 years) the two points above are pose the major difficulties that I’ve seen windows users have when they attempt to use macs. As I mentioned in my original reply, Mac users tend to be more cross-platform savvy (out of necessity, windows rules the world).

Now, if you want to discuss something that you and I would probably agree on, lets talk about the overall ass-backwardness of the Finder….The horror….

Good luck overcoming the curve.

More so when the feature is so damn usefull. I should not have to go watch apple videos on youtube (and i’ve yet to find that being done on youtube btw) because I wouldn’t even expect something like that to exist. Not because “I’m used to windows”, but because I’m used to every other freaking interface out there.

There’s no mention of this feature on the manual either.

There is something called HCI, study it, you’ll find out why the dock click-and-hold is such bullshit. (hints: Lack of immediate response, breaks conventions on the same system and others, conflicts with drag-and-drop where you need to click and hold as well, non-discoverable)

There’s that issue, and then there is the issue of actually taking the time and making the effort to learn a new system. A new OS/foreign language that you’re trying to learn/etc/ isn’t just going to make sense on its own or magically make itself “discoverable” to you. Regardless of the a system’s ease of use (or lack thereof) there is always going to be a learning curve. I find it shocking that some people learned about Cmd+Tab or enabling right clicking or revealing a program’s open windows by click+holding its icon in the dock….and so on from reading these comments! I learned everything that I needed to learn about Windows 7 and OS X from youtube and Apple’s website. If that fails, then I buy a book.

Stop being lazy. Actually put some effort into learning an OS which is obviously new to you, AND STOP EXPECTING IT TO WORK IN THE ONLY WAY THAT IS FAMILIAR TO YOU, IE, THE WINDOWS WAY. This is a product of Windows dominance in the market. I’ve never met a Mac user that expected Windows to work like a Mac. Why? Because I’d be willing to bet that most Mac users were or have used Windows as well. Me. Solely a windows user for about 12 years before I began using Macs as well. Not the case with most Windows users. Windows is all they know and G-d forbid if another OS does (Linux, OS X) things differently.

Not to say that there aren’t problems with any OS. OS X included.

Click and hold also triggers recent history from the back button in Safari as well.

So, if at all possible/sensible you should definitely stick with the “standard” menu because for many people this _is_ The Standard. If your app works so differently that the standard menu (even with slight modifications) just doesn’t fit then you should seriously consider that maybe something is wrong with your app. However if it isn’t, then you will have to come up with a new menu – or maybe even with a new UI concept.
(maybe even with a “creative” UI *shudder*)

Interesting comments about the CUA; I’ve assumed that the File-Edit-View-etc set-up is an actual “standard” for decades now, because absolutely everybody uses it. Clearly nobody thinks very hard about *why* they use it. Chalk another one up to Kerberos’ “Cargo Cult Usability…” in a totally different area!

“so the ‘most important’ choice — File — is either useless or blatantly misleading.”
IIRC the original CUA standard essentially said that the leftmost menu item should reflect what your application is all about, so e.g. if you build an order tracking app it might be labeled “Order” – no need for “File”. Only “Edit” (second to left) and “Help” (rightmost) were more or less mandatory. In fact, the early versions of WinWord, Excel, PP had very different menu structures apart from File, Edit and Help. Later this was standardised across Office, and thus we got the full set of File – Edit – View – Insert – Format – Extras – Xxx – Window – Help (with Xxx being the one app-specific menu header).

“Tools and Options? Hah! Which is which?”
Tools is the menu header, with Options being one of the entries.

“Options” might as well be called “grab-bag.”
The official term is “junk drawer”. At home, having such a junk drawer is great if you just need a bit of wood or plastic to shimmy in somewhere or other little stuff. In an application’s menu, it _is_ “an admission of defeat”, yes. Says who ? Says Jensen Harris (MSO team):
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/01/31/520061.aspx

BTW: I have tried MSO 2010 out a little, and it is a great improvement, usability-wise. Yes, they did a couple of things wrong in 2007, but now the ribbons are well-organized. Eventually I’ll check out if they ditched the “Pournelle feature” (white text on blue background) now that Jerry himself isn’t using it anymore

Exposé looks cool the first time you use it, but it very quickly loses its appeal when you’re fumbling over which function key to hit to do the “only show this application’s windows” or whatever. The windows 7 taskbar does a much better job combining the dock and exposé into a single, discoverable, cohesive system that everyone understands as soon as they start using it.

I guarantee, Apple will be copying this behaviour in the next OSX release.