Here’s a great little tidbit at SeattlePI. It shows a copy of an old, internal Microsoft email in 2003 by none other than Mr. Bill Gates. He describes his experience in downloading a copy of Moviemaker from the Windows website. Among his frustrations:
I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.
So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).
I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.
In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.
This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
I strongly encourage you to check out the rest of his email. It’s quite entertaining, and makes Bill seem a little more endearing. Bill’s not oblivious, he knows there’s major usability issues. The thing is he’s handling 2 mile high situations, not the ground level issues that we face everyday.
But to my point. “It just works.” I know, I know, it sounds kind of cheesy, smug, and annoying. But in the end it’s true. Windows fan boys thing it’s a slogan for technically inept people who still use AOL. Windows fan boys wonder what’s the big deal about taking 2 or 3 or 10 extra steps to do the same thing on a Mac?
One case: When I want to install a program on a Mac, I drag the application to the trash. And I can empty the trash to make it permanent. Done. On Windows, I go to the Control Panel, Uninstall Programs, wait 10 seconds for the list to populate, click on the program to uninstall, and wait another 30-60 seconds for the program to finally be eradicated. I also routinely check that the program has been removed from the Start Menu to keep it clean. Now imagine all the other little, minute tasks I want to do on Windows versus a Mac.
It’s the culmination of all those ‘little things’ that makes the Mac “It Just Works” perception very appealing. I’m not back in high school with free time to hack the registry to make some software work properly. I don’t have time (or threshold of annoyance) to dig through 5 different menus or control panel options trying to figure how can I make my notebook sleep when I close the lid.
Now don’t get me wrong, I like tweaking stuff. I like customizing every last pixel of my desktop, every little option making it work exactly how I want to. But I want to spend time tweaking stuff I WANT to do, not every little thing I HAVE to do.
I’ve always been under the impression that Microsoft is very programmer driven, that the entire interface of Windows is decided by software programmers, not UI analysts, not focus groups. It certainly feels that way with the 100 options thrown in your face. I used to like getting a new cell phone, digging through the manual learning how to navigate to 20 different places to do 20 different things. Now I’ve grown up and I want stuff to work out of the box and be obvious. I really wish Microsoft would shift their focus to a more friendly, streamlined interface. Granted, Bill’s email is 5 years old, but I think Windows has not shifted far enough from those problems since then. Vista has tried, but it’s a very clunky, Frankenstein, thrown-together attempt. Hopefully the Windows guys will come around and start to “Think Different” when it comes to the UI in Windows 7 (unlikely) or the next incarnation.
