Choices != Headaches
Joel Spolsky certainly knows his stuff when it comes to developing, I can't think of a single occasion when I've disagreed with something he's said, until today.
When I read this article I agreed completely with Joel that the Vista power off/sleep etc buttons are incredibly complicated - there's way too many. The "b'bye" button sounds like an excellent idea. But is it?
What Joel is talking about is actually adding another feature, let's call it the "Bye Button" feature. Then he's suggesting that MS Windows detect if the machine's hardware is suitable for the Bye Button feature, if this is the case then Windows should replace the existing login buttons on the start menu with the new Bye Button. Then of course you need some setting somewhere that the user can toggle to have the old buttons back. Finally you need to sit back and wait for the millions of support calls as users wonder where their log off button, a button they've used for years, has gone.
Then, I took another look at the Vista button Joel is talking about (for the sake of consistency and fairness I've used the same image he did (I hope that's OK :) )
And here's what I think the problem is - Joel came at this as a developer looking to see how the power/sleep buttons work.
Pretend for a moment that you're not analyzing the buttons on the start menu, but instead you're hoping to achieve the following tasks.
Locking the desktop/switching users or, as an inexperienced user, I want to walk away from the computer, but I don't want other people to be able to see what I'm working on
To me, this makes little sense - and I've yet to click this button. I imagine Joel feels the same. But I would bet a lot of money that there will be millions of users all round the world who will use this button many times throughout the day and yet wouldn't be able to draw it for you from memory. To me, it implies security, to them, it means "lock". And that's all it means, the thought process ends there - "I want to lock the computer" "There's the lock button" "The computer is now locked". So expected and predictable that they'll do it without noticing.
Turning off/sleeping/hibernating or whatever else your last OS called it or, as an inexperienced user, you just want the thing to turn off so you don't waste power
Look familiar? This is the off/on button, the thing is on - it'll turn it off. Pretty basic assumption, and they'd be right. The beauty of this is that this button takes into consideration that the user simply doesn't care what the machine is doing in it's off-state, just so long as it goes off.
I'm a power user and I don't want the PC to sleep I want it to turn straight off or I'm a normal user and a power user has told me to 'hibernate the PC'.
This is where I think MS really did well - they've managed to find a solution that doesn't interfere with less confident users' experiences but still offers *all* the power/session options other OS offer.
On the right of the two buttons we have a nondescript arrow on a much smaller button. I think this is very clever - the button is only ever going to be pressed by power users. We know it's something related to power/sessions, so it stands to reason that's where the other power and session options are.
So instead of a single button that will confuse the majority of users, Vista has a solution so well adapted to it's end users' needs that the only users who will feel any pain while choosing their option is those more experienced users who are analyzing Vista's start menu.
So, on this occasion, well done MS.
Comments
November 22, 2006 9:55 AM
They changed the behvouir of a well known button (the power/shutdown symbol) and I don't think it is a clever move. When I first tried Windows I saw that power button and clicked it thinking it was going to turn off my computer. Instead it went to sleep. I didn't want that. I rarely set my computer to sleep (OS X, my main OS, boots so fast it doesn't need sleep.)
Another point is that sleeping computers consume power and there has been a backlash against all consumer devices that sleep instead of turn off.
For power users I'd like it if MS let me revert the behavouir of that power button to shutdown and not sleep.
November 22, 2006 11:23 AM
Hey Paul,
http://blogs.vertigosoftware.com/ericc/archive/2006/09/11/3615.aspx
From the control panel you can change what all of the buttons do :)
I was under the impression OS X *never* turns the machine off? (Unless required or you specifically tell it to).
Both OS X and Vista hibernate the machine if it's been in sleep for ~30 minutes (I'm not 100% about the length of time).
Sleeping consumes less power, but it still consumes *some* power, so for laptops they should be OK sleeping for a little while but will need to be hibernated eventually.
November 22, 2006 11:26 AM
Sorry, missed your point about the device standby backlash - yes, I've certainly seen this. I suppose what we're discussing here is usability, but you're completely right, sleeping for anymore than a few minutes is just wasting power.
I think most of the concern was from TVs left on standby for hours during the night and that it would be very simple to have them automatically turn off after 30 minutes or so on standby. Or at least that's the impression I got :-)
November 22, 2006 10:53 PM
I picked up on the same article and agreed with Joel - but you've convinced me...it is a pretty decent feature implementation - given the constraint of supporting two levels of user expectation.
To be honest, OSX is much worse at shut down options that Vista. If I want to quickly lock my screen (rather than have the default lock from sleep option), I have to go into the preferences of keychain, and display keychain status in the menubar and *then* I can lock the screen...it's such an obscure method, it took me 4 years (or however long osxhas been around) to discover it.
March 15, 2007 11:01 AM
I might be missing the point here, this being a post about the graphical semantic design of the various shutdown/sleep-modes - but you mention power-users, Matt. Obviously, all of us who read your blog, are. :)
I've been missing the "Ask me what to do" option of e.g. clicking your power-button (in Start Menu as well as on the hardware). Everybody's tried accidentally hitting your power-button and the whole thing shutting down and there's nothing you can do.
But: I'm a keyboard-shortcut-fanatic, and still want to be able to quickly shut down the thing. So, here's my setup: I've virtually disabled all button-actions. If I want to shut down, I either close all windows or hit WinKey+d (show desktop). Alt+F4 gives me good old beloved "ask me what to do", page-down gives me shut down, it being the bottommost option and Enter finishes the job.
Only other thing I ever want to do is lock my computer (e.g. right now, lunch-time), so after this post I'm hitting WinKey+L.
I hope I'm not way off - just felt like sharing power-user-mojo! :-)
April 17, 2008 4:06 AM
Matt, I think your article misses the point. What you get from Joel's design is something that works in all cases. There's nothing I would miss as a power user, and of course it is more simple for everyone else. When you say "a single button that will confuse the majority of users", you are caught doing intellectual dishonesty, unless you truly can't see it through the eyes of the average user.