For a while some rantings about choices and the user’s problems with them have been wandering around the internet. The newest one can be found here
In an internal mail I already answered on the initial complaint:
Reading the article I have to admit that I directly thought of the Windows vs. Apple way. One side enables all possibilities (“all” hardware, “all” software, etc.), the other one tightly limits the choice but controls these to create a good experience. However I do think that the article oversimplifies the problem. It is more in the way of “good dictatorship is better than good democracy but bad dictatorship is worse than bad democracy”. Giving the user choices removes some of the responsibility from the designer (developers are also designers) and ensures that the user does not get locked up in an unusable product.
Limiting choices is a dangerous activity and has to be handled with care since users that had choices usually do not just want to give them up. So if a product does not get a complete overhaul (like Windows now did) and is marketed in a suitable way the user will end up unhappy. Jobs said about the iPod recording in Paris last year “We are very careful about what features we add because we can’t take them away.â€
Taking away choices is not the real solution either, the key is to limit choices to the crucial choices (like the article tries to communicate) and then inform the user about the choices. Choices give the user also the feeling of being in control, which is an important factor, so that informing the user and giving choices that the user understands will help a lot. The other thing is that many of us know that the decisions where both alternatives are equal are the hardest ones. One thinks “Do I want pizza or sushi…?” and cannot make up the mind since both have their pros and cons.
Having choices between two options, whereof I can directly spot what I want to do is however a good thing. The user usually knows if they want to “log off/hibernate/sleep” or “turn the machine off” or “restart”. Therefore they will not have a hard decision to decide there and will experience the choices as functionality. Giving such simple choices is therefore good and necessary. But yes, it is a grey zone and as any decision, we as designers need to put some thought into them.
And finally I should end this post with an adaptation of one of my teacher’s favourite quote by Edward Tufte:
As the counterpart to the OSX issue, here’s one for the vista
One thing you assumed (and correctly from your view as an experienced user, but not necessarily correct for other people) is that they DON’T know what they want the machine to do, in particular as the above article points out, a lot of people don’t know the difference between hibernate and sleep. I can voucher for this as *I* don’t know the difference, mainly because I have not been bothered enough to go out of my way to find out, as I don’t tend to choose to sleep or hibernate my machine, that is the status they tend to put themselves into.
Jobs is right (as always ;)) in saying to be careful of what you put on, as once it’s on, it’s hard to take it off.
Yeah, Joel on Vista kicked off the whole discussion… Seems like I was a bit unclear with what I wrote about his post. I think that it is perfectly valid to resolve complexity and remove choices. Where I however disagree is when he starts to argue that “nobody ever needs restart”. This is a personal problem of mine which comes up from the small harddrive which forces me to restart every couple of days since I usually just close the lid. There I don’t want to switch it off and on – I want to restart. And I think that every user understands the difference between “switch off” and “restart”. On the other side I fully agree with “hibernate” and “sleep”, not only because I don’t have a clue about the difference between those two but just only close the lid and that should be enough. If it works, I’m fine and don’t worry what happens internally. Same with “log off”, “switch user” and “lock screen”… I’d dare to claim that the latter ones can be combined.
My point is that we should give the user the chance to decide but give informed decisions. Which means that the user has to be able to understand what one option does and what the alternatives do. I just do not like Joel’s pont about hiding all the different thing at different places and removing rigorously. In my personal opinion that’s just following the books without thinking what someone is doing. A common problem.
And just for the cause I shoud put here a link to an interview with Jonathan Ive, whci explains the difference of Apple and others pretty well. And that also explains why OS X sucks less.
I also agree with you that not all of what Joel points out are valid, or practical. I just linked that article to show that vista has the same issue as well, rather than what should be done about it.
What should be done about it? I agree with the hibernate/sleep thing. I’ve yet to set my PC/mac/desktop/laptop to sleep/hibernate. The option just isn’t required is it? Your point above restart is very valid, and I too think that there is a need for different options between switching it off and restarting it. However, I think the new menu on the vista is a little sillier with the power and lock button seperate from the rest.
On a related topic, here is something that has bugged me personally for as long as I have owned my Vaio, and well, as long as I have been interacting with Windows XP. This is my pet hate about XP. You know when you go to switch your computer off, it comes up with a new window giving you the option to either restart, shutdown or sleep(?), and the rest of the window goes black and white??? I HATE THAT!! it is SO depressing to watch the window loose life, as if we should feel guilty for killing it (and I DO feel something, whether that’s guilt or just annoyance I don’t know). Computers shouldn’t make you feel guilty for doing anything, particularly not for switching it off!
or maybe it’s just me… I’ll go take my medication now.
“I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid.” – HAL
I personally think that it is OK for computers making us feel something. Any other living being and object also do so. I actually think that the greying out of the background is a good design choice since it focusses you on the foreground and prevents you to overlook the window. However is no B&W needed for that but a simple decrease of the colour intensity should work…
Also do I think that the case of having options at two places is not so easy to dismiss. What Vista is attempting to do is to provide a fast access to the important features (the ones that are used most) while still giving access to all possibilities. This is in general no bad idea and the fact that the layout puts these options directly next to each other is the actualy problem.
The conclusion of my point is IMHO that Joel was criticising and oversimplificating a design decision in an unsuitable way. I agree that the decision was not the luckiest one and the way they got there might have some impact on the result, but just rigorously slashing options can hardly be called “solution”.