Slashdot Log In
Vista Worse For User Efficiency Than XP
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 27, 2007 01:27 PM
from the two-steps-back dept.
from the two-steps-back dept.
erikvlie writes "Pfeiffer Consulting released a report on User Interface Friction, comparing Windows Vista/Aero with Windows XP and Mac OS X. The report concludes that Vista/Aero is worse in terms of desktop operations, menu latency, and mouse precision than XP — which was and still is said to be a lot worse on those measures than Mac OS X. The report was independently financed. The IT-Enquirer editor has read the report and summarized the most important findings."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Vista Worse For User Efficiency Than XP
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 546 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Just in from bash.org (Score:5, Funny)
it is preparing 36 000 "are you sure?" windows
Well, like the song goes.... (Score:5, Funny)
Deleting this file, Cancel or Allow?
35,999 files on the disk
35,999 files on the disk....35,999 files!
Delete this file, Cancel or Allow?
35,998 files on the disk
etc.....
Re:Well, like the song goes.... (Score:5, Funny)
Delete this file, Cancel or Allow?
Cannot delete file 'File 47'
It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again.
Undoing modifications, 35952 files restored.
Re:Well, like the song goes.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This reminds me of the new Mac add [apple.com]. It's pretty funny (like most of them).
"Mac is talking to you, would you like to receive? Cancel or Allow?"
Re:I agree (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just in from bash.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just in from bash.org (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just in from bash.org (Score:4, Interesting)
How the hell did that get mod'ed interesting in a day and age when you have powershell on both XP and Vista available for use which is just as robust as bash. Furthermore, there is nothing in Vista you can't script with hooks provided. The only tool you need is powershell. The comment makes no sense whatsoever.
I use powershell to script changes to my Exchange server and I could use it exclusively if I were so inclined but I don't need to do anything to my servers often enough where it would matter.
You're right about one thing though, someone should do a comparison of efficiency in administration using a GUI vs a CLI and compare it across platforms. This is the single biggest leap in Vista that would make it attractive to corporate America. Now everything can be scripted and a group policy can govern anything the machine does. That level of control in quite difficult to attain with OS X as I don't see too many management tools for Apple products. Unix, Linux, and Windows all have very powerful native management tools, hell, the BSDs do too, I can't imagine it would be too difficult to extend them to control the GUI interface on OS X.
I bet Vista IF would be like this... (Score:4, Funny)
[ Cancel ] or [ Allow ]
Aero != productivity (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.forensic-data-svc.com/)
I'm still of the opinion that vista is a productivity booster only for the RIAA/MPAA and microsoft's stock.
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:4, Interesting)
You are pointing out Vista's flaws. (C)ancel or (A)llow?
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 06 2007, @09:13AM)
I turned of menu fade in any system I'm on, be it Windows XP, BSD -w- KDE, whatever.
All of them display menus virtually instantly like that. Depending on which (KDE, Gnome, Windows), you start to notice slowdowns at various cuttoffs, KDE and Windows tend to slow down faster with decreased memory than CPU, Gnome with decreased CPU more than memory.
That being said, if Windows has a menu fading effect turned on and OS X does not, then there is a lot of bias right there. Also, if XP's fade is set to a shorter time, that's bias too.
Also, there's system information:
Did they compare systems with identical or close to identical hardware?
Did they compare systems with identical costs?
Ex:
Both systems had e6600 Core 2 Duo CPUs with 2GB of DDR2 800 and a 200GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0GB/s drive,
or
Both systems were $1800 from the leading manufacturer (say Apple and Dell for OS X and Vista/XP respectively)
I guess what I'm getting at is I'd really rather see the methods of the experiment rather than just the conclusions. It's not that I find it all that hard to believe (well, the mouse precision seems a little odd, I've never had an issue with the mouse selecting any pixel except that which I told it to click, even on precision stuff where actual pixel mattered - I can believe the menu performance potentially).
I didn't see an actual link to the report in the article, is it pay to read, or did I just miss it?
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, no.
br> Mechanical aspects are just that - strictly mechanical. An 800dpi mouse with a crummy interface is better than a 300dpi mouse and a good interface and has nothing to do with strict user ability. This testing wasn't about ease of targeting based on mouse mechanics - it was about humans and how they make decisions. What is meant is how long you hunt around with the mouse trying to determine the next event that will serve your interests as defined by the current state of the OS, assuming the OS has accurately understood and reacted to you.
As you work with a new OS, you begin to establish a defined set of basic expectations. These are simultaneously calibrated against how reliable they appear to be to you, the wet ware. At some point, you have been trained by the system enough to move from experimentation and doubt as to what will or won't happen next, to Pavlovian reactions which are subsequently modified only as needed.
The original Mac OS was determined, by the US Govt., to take an average of 17 hours of initial use by an operator before they could be labeled trained and basically productive. In contrast, the Windows OS of that time required no less than 7 days before a hapless user was considered an asset.
Want to test yourself and your present OS? Close your eyes, or change the menus to another language and see if you can still hit the right button with the mouse as you operate the system, opening and saving files, etc. Nothing about shear mechanical accuracy or latency involved. It is just you and how well you know and trust the OS, reflecting how well the system was able to train you back when the two of you first met.
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.soli.cl/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 18 2006, @10:37AM)
I've switched to Mac almost a month ago. I would never, ever, return to Windows. I don't care about the UI (though it's elegant and efficient). The selling point to me is having a nice bash prompt right in front of me, and having good hardware support (I don't care it's "closed" hardware).
I turn on my Macbook and voila! Skype is ready for me. I can video chat with my collegues while at the same enjoying the bsd heritage.
To me Mac OS X is like Windows XP with cygwin tighly integrated minus DLL hell, registry hell and all that crap.
Intel Macs are the best thing ever invented!
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.eggytoast.com/)
You know what else has a "wow" factor? (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday August 07, @01:18PM)
Microsoft should really try for the good wow, not the bad wow.
Re:Aero != productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense, but I see a lot more built-in bias in automatically discounting any article that says you can be productive on a Mac.
Anybody worth their salt will agree that the pretty widgets, animations, etc. on OS X are nothing but eye candy. But there are plenty of solid arguments for why OS X's interface still does a better job of facilitating productivity. Here are a few that come to mind. (Note that all of these points are orthogonal to cosmetic issues such as the particular bitmap that is used to draw a button.)
The standard Mac OS widgets offer a wider range of functionality than most equivalent Windows widgets. I find that I'm much more likely to feel the need to develop custom interface elements on Windows in order to get the behavior I need for exactly this reason. This leads to less consistency among applications, since different people tend to come up with different solutions to the same problem. Cocoa has done a much better job of cutting this off at the pass. A strong example is tables and tree views on Mac OS versus Windows.
OS X's interface doesn't condescend to the user as much or demand as much attention. There's also a much stronger culture of consistency for dialog messages. When using Windows, I spend a lot more time dismissing unnecessary dialogs and trying to figure out whether to click "yes" or "no" on a confusingly-worded confirmation dialog. (Like I said, this is largely cultural, but I put a lot of blame on Microsoft for this since they set an exceedingly bad example in their own OS - it's not uncommon for me to have to read a warning from the OS itself two or three times to figure out exactly what Windows is trying to say.)
OS X's interface is much more stable. For example, the sidebar in the Finder is static. The sidebar in the Explorer is constantly rearranging itself, adding and deleting items, etc. based on what folder or whatever-the-hell it is (control panel, network places) I'm looking at. It even changes when I select items. This leads to a lot of time spent scratching one's head trying to figure out, say, where the "Create New Folder" sidebar item went, or wondering why the Desktop link went away.
On What Hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the OSX machines I have access to seem more sluggish and less responsive than my 3 year old PC running XP.
Without more details, this "it-enquirer" is no better than the print Enquirer in the checkout line.
Re:On What Hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
Let me just jump in here. I'm using OSX 10.3 so it's not the most recent release, but I'm also running it on a Dual G5 2.0GHz with 2 GB RAM, which is a pretty fast machine by any standard. OSX is an absolute dog compared to XP on a Core Duo 2.16GHz with 2 GB RAM. Granted, that is a slightly faster machine for most operations, but they are definitely in the same ballpark.
In addition, the XP system (which I am using to write this comment) is way loaded up with crap. I have about 12 icons in my little system tray, for example. The OSX machine is running, well, OSX. I don't have any additional cheese running to keep it going. But then, I don't use it as my desktop system. It is on my desk solely as a graphic arts workstation. I would have THAT software on the PC as well, except the former graphic artist was Mac-only (too afraid of technology to learn Windows) so I have the mac.
The Macintosh has provided me with little but frustration. The system locks up due to application errors more than XP does. I'm running mostly Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Photoshop has been pretty reliable, but the other two applications both manage to lock the machine up to the point where a cold boot is necessary on a semi-regular basis based on how much I am using the system.
Besides the lack of stability, there are also issues with inconsistency. I won't belabor this too much because I've gone over it frequently in the past, but there are no less than three visual styles used (Mail, iTunes, and everything else) and even menus are inconsistent. In some cases if you click a submenu in a context menu, it opens the submenu. In some cases you must hover to open it, because clicking will actually close the menu. What gives?
If you truly believe that OSX will make you more productive, then you are simply a fool, with one exception; if you want to use Apple's bundled applications. Unfortunately they are unintuitive as all hell. Apple is the only company that makes it harder to burn a DVD that just jumps in and plays than to make a DVD with animated menus. But if they do what you want, and you take the time to learn their many idiosyncrasies, it is definitely the cheapest way to get a production studio in a box.
Re:On What Hardware? (Score:4, Informative)
Almost always, when people complain about bluescreens in Windows or lockups in OS X, it's bad hardware from my experience. Nearly 100% of the time.
Re:On What Hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday May 29, @09:14PM)
If you truly believe that OSX will make you more productive, then you are simply a fool
Fool here.
First of all, if Illustrator and InDesign are taking down your whole system, something is wrong with your configuration, your OS installation, or your hardware (RAM?). Illustrator is not the most stable app (although it's not that stable on Windows either) and I expect it to crash regularly, and once in a while InDesign freaks out, but I don't think either one has ever taken down my whole OS. One place to start: if you have the misfortune of having Adobe Version Cue installed, delete everything associated with it.
While PowerPC OS X is somewhat laggier than Intel OS X (which compares favorably to XP on similar hardware), I don't find the difference dramatic, and I don't see any usability problem on my PowerPC system. It's a 1.8GHz dual G5 (3GB RAM), so my experience should be nearly identical to yours, although Tiger is more responsive than Panther in most situations.
With that out of the way, I'll tell you exactly why OS X makes me more productive (and why this summer I'll pay through the nose for a Mac Pro, whose 4 cores and ECC RAM I really don't need, rather than buying a cheaper Conroe-based commodity tower). This is personal to me. YMMV. But judge for yourself whether I'm really a "fool."
1. Terminal. OS X is the only OS that can run Adobe CS, Microsoft Office, and a full bash implementation natively and side-by-side. This is a godsend for those of us who really need to straddle both the business-computing and UNIX worlds.
2. Integrated color management. The OS's color management, while not perfect, is good enough to ensure relatively close color matching between different systems and between screen and print output, no matter what app I'm using. XP and all Linux distros I've used are a disaster in this regard. I don't know yet about WCM (the system in Vista).
3. Expose. I'm a very visual user and text-based taskbar buttons don't communicate the nature of open windows to me nearly as well as graphical previews.
4. Mail. I've never gotten along with with Outlook or any of its numerous commercial and OSS copycats because, dammit, I really want to have all messages in my 4 IMAP inboxes displayed in the same list. Mail is the *only* mail client I've ever used that will do this. (And, no, I don't want to forward all the messages to one inbox. There's a reason I have 4 of them.)
5. Logic Pro. This won't apply to you if you're not a musician. But if you are, it's a fearsomely kick-ass mega-tool (sequencer + synthesizer + lots more) and only available for OS X.
6. OS X software development culture. OSS users are always amazed that they have to pay for so many Mac apps. But the shareware culture promotes developer accountability. Independent OS X software, by and large, is an order of magnitude more professional and useful than such software on either Windows or Linux. OS X's unique development frameworks also help with this by allowing developers to concentrate on usability and features rather than basic nuts and bolts.
7. Easily comprehensible directory structure. A non-n00b Windows or Linux user could start playing with the Finder and locate *anything* important to operation of the graphical side of an OS X system within a few minutes. This makes troubleshooting a simpler and faster process, especially when compared to Windows, where neither file nor folder names are remotely comprehensible.
8. Security (yes, this is a productivity booster). No UAC; the machine rarely asks for admin rights, and when it does, you need to give a password. No time fighting malware of any sort. No instability or slowdowns from malware.
9. OS X text rendering. Compared with other OS's, it's magic. Preserves both character shapes and legibility without any visible compromise. Not only does the increased legibility improve productivity, but it also is a big part of the reason people find OS X systems so visually striking.
If I
It may also have something to do with..... (Score:5, Funny)
Original report unavailable (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Original report unavailable (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.jonaskaplan.com/ | Last Journal: Friday April 09 2004, @03:10AM)
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.lazylightning.org/)
Where? I don't see the in the article. All I see is that Windows Vista (which I won't ever be using unless they make me at work) sucks compared to XP SP2 and OS X. I don't see why or how they came to those conclusions.
Well (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.grub.net/blog/index.html | Last Journal: Wednesday June 27, @08:48AM)
An OS should be first and foremost both secure and fast. It should have a very small footprint and...
[...]
It should but does one modern OS have this?
OpenBSD [openbsd.org]
Speaking as a certified Apple fanboy... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dpbsmith.com/)
And, speaking as someone who personally perceives and is annoyed by logy, sticky, frictionlike behavior in Windows' UI... how the heck can you take an article seriously when it claims minuscule differences ("Windows XP scored 0.40 and Vista/Aero 0.52") in undefined metrics that are undoubtedly influenced by the hardware configuration?
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Vista on a PC with 1 Gig of RAM and an ordinary video card has higher "friction" than Mac OS X... isn't it possible that it would outperform a Mac if you gave it the spiffiest video card and 4 gig? Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that Vista "needs" more powerful hardware and that in a year or so, a cheap PC with Vista will have it and perform with less friction than a comparably cheap Mac? If this were true, one could justifiably criticize Microsoft for high cost of ownership, software bloat, and selling wine before its time... but it would only be a rather qualified knock on Vista.
Vista-bashing is reaching ridiculous levels (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize Slashdot will leave no stone unturned when it comes to slagging Windows, but isn't this getting just a bit carried away? There are plenty of things to criticize about Vista - substantial things - if one is so inclined. Look at the totally brain-dead backup and defrag utilities, for example; both are a major step back from their equivalents in XP. But if you really think it's a horrible OS for the reasons cited in this article, you're venturing into Ted Kaczynski-like levels of MS hatred.
Re:Vista-bashing is reaching ridiculous levels (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.hyperlogos.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday July 18, @08:19PM)
No, it's a horrible OS for the reasons you state. It fails to provide any advancement in this particular area. It's a debunking of Microsoft's lie that Vista is more responsive. Why are you opposed to that?