Dave McNally Doesn’t Like XP

Living with Mac OS X: Windows XP Analysis

“Bottom line. I don’t like it.”

I hear ya. I still do like it but it’s only been a few days. Now that my beloved and very dead TiBook is gone for a week to get all kinds of healing spells cast on it, I’ll be full time on XP. A few years back I tried this with Win2K and actually liked it. Not enough to actually stick with it, but enough to think that Windows was finally getting usable.

At the same time, there are so many stupid design decisions, things that clearly indicate that whoever designed the UI of this or that little thing gave no thought to the end user or to usability research or anything else. Things which clearly are confusing. And it’s not just me. When I (sometimes loudly) point them out at work I usually get a lot of assent (“yeah, what IS up with that?”) rather than disagreement.

And i don’t think that it’s “what you’re familiar with.” When I switched to OSX, I had to learn a completely new OS and interface. It helped that I already was comfortable in UNIX/LINUX but there was a great deal to learn. And there were some big problems. But it was clear that a lot of thought went into how things worked and how interactions were designed. Apple’s famous for that kind of thing. Not everyone loves OSX, that’s for sure, but my transition to OSX was a lot more pleasant than my transition to XP is. And I really am going in with an open mind.

Anyway, there’s lots to like in XP but just as going to a Catholic school made me even more of an atheist, using Windows is making me that much more of a Mac user.

(Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s just the first week, when I get used to it I’m sure I’ll love it, yadda yadda yadda.)