Windows 8 < Windows 11 (Premium)

How crazy is our world? A user experience lead from Windows 8 actually thought it was OK to publicly criticize the Windows 11 user experience. That’s ridiculous: we’re still living with the damage caused by that revolting disaster, and while the issues with the Windows 11 user experience are real, they pale in comparison to Windows 8.

And boy. Do I not want to discuss this.

It’s hard for me to even explain the PTSD-like impact that Windows 8 and the Sinofsky regime had on me. I had to confront this in early 2022 when my epic history of Windows series, Programming Windows, reached the Windows 7 and 8 eras, and I suddenly felt myself slowing down as the terribleness of those years bore down on me again.

I’m not sure how anyone else copes with the most awful things that have ever happened to them, but in my case, it involves shutting down those memories so that I can get on with life. And I had mostly blocked out the Sinofsky era, which for me was several years of illogical insanity and overt attempts to harm me personally and professionally. Imagine, if you can, what it’s like to have one of the most powerful men at Microsoft orchestrate a campaign to sideline an individual, me, because I was honest about the product he created. You really can’t. But do try.

Anyway, Sinofsky surrounded himself with unqualified people who could in no way threaten his authority. Key among these were Julie Larson-Green, who was often described as his chief lieutenant, and Jensen Harris. Both were nice enough people, and I got to know Harris a bit during those years in part because I had been indirectly responsible for him being hired by Microsoft. For example, he privately showed me the Office Ribbon before Microsoft revealed it publicly, and his later conversations with me about Windows 8 revealed, sadly, how out of touch that group had become.

As history shows us, after the success of Windows 7, this group and the teams they led collectively jumped the shark with Windows 8, a mess of undiscoverable UIs that was better tailored for the tablets they imagined we’d all be using someday rather than for the traditional PC form factors everyone really was using, and continues to use today. Windows 8 was such a disaster that Sinofsky was fired before it was even released, and the rest of the team—including Larson-Green and Harris—were sent packing within a year or so and were replaced by the “B-teamers” from Windows Phone. The people responsible for Windows 8 were completely disgraced.

Flash forward to 2021, and things have changed. Windows 10 came and went, as did the team responsible for it, replaced by Surface chief Panos Panay and Windows 11. This system has some distressing parallels with Windows 8, in that it is heavily influenced by competing mobile platforms. But because the team that made it lacks the internal influence and sheer hutzpah of the Sinofsky era—Windows just isn’t as important as it once was—it’s also less radical. Unlike with Windows 8, most users would immediately recognize Windows 11 as, well, Windows. There are bad functional regressions, for sure—the new Start menu is a key issue—but it’s at least usable. Users aren’t flocking away from the platform because it’s so bad, as they did with Windows 8.

And so it is with great distress that I discovered today that Jensen Harris has emerged this week, on Twitter, to criticize Windows 11. More specifically, Windows 11’s new Start menu and related UIs. That Windows 11 deserves this criticism is, well, obvious. But Harris, a key member of the team that ruined Windows forever, is in no place to make any such criticisms. What he did—the full-screen Start experience with no Start button and no way to return to the previous UI—isn’t just unforgivable. It is a far worse sin than anything happening today in Windows 11. Far worse.

I will briefly reply to some of his commentaries. And then I will seek counseling.

The Start menu is Microsoft’s flagship user experience. It should represent the very best UI design the company is capable of.

I agree. I also wonder why you treated it with so little respect in Windows 8, which, as noted, did not even have a Start menu or, for that matter, a Start button. And to be clear, the Windows 8 Start experience was terrible UI that in no way made sense for any Windows users, all of which approached this system from the familiar confines of a traditional form factor PC.

Today I searched for “chrome” in Windows and was shocked by the user experience.

Here, Harris displays an image of Search highlights, a distracting and pointless UI in Windows 11. Two things of note here. Search highlights is not the Start menu, it’s its own UI. Two, had Chrome been installed on his PC, the first link in the results would have been that app. Instead, Chrome is not on his PC, so what we’re seeing is another terrible thing about Windows 11 (and 10), that Microsoft would much rather have you use its own browser, Edge. Suddenly, we’re already two levels removed from Start, the topic of this Twitter rant.

It’s just really confusing.

…is what everyone said about Windows 8.

The left side looks like it was created by a designer. We could quibble about some of the design choices, but that’s not the story here. The right side looks like my Internet Explorer toolbars did in 2008.

Like me, Harris has no formal background or schooling in design, so his comments, like mine, amount to a subjective understanding of what is and is not good design. That said, I agree that Search highlights is terrible. I’ve been complaining about it for months and I always disable this feature in Windows 11.

The bigger issue here though: why are there banner ads in the Start menu? Is the amount of $ made by this wallpaper app worth cheapening the experience people have in this very high-touch piece of UI? It erodes trust—I wasn’t even searching for “wallpaper.”

Microsoft began putting ads in Windows starting with Windows 8. At that time, I called doing so a “slippery slope,” and there are few things in life I’ve been more right about. I will just point out, again, that Harris was one of those responsible for Windows 8, and is thus indirectly responsible for the escalation of ads in Windows ever since. He’s right: ads in Windows  do “erode trust.” Or, as I put it, they “cheapen Windows.” Same thing.

Great UI should help people achieve a task with minimum friction.

Said the guy who helped design Windows 8. An OS with so much UX friction that there were literally important UIs that were hidden and non-discoverable.

Design matters. Details matter. Especially in UI as iconic as the Windows Start menu. I remember the team creating a special ligature in the Segoe UI font (used in Windows) to make “S” and “t” align beautifully for the word “Start”. That’s how important Start was to Microsoft.

It was so important that they removed the Start button and the Start menu in Windows 8.

It just comes down to a question of what you prioritize. User experience needs to be architected with as much intensity as you architect your tech investments.

And that, folks, was the problem with Windows 8 in a nutshell: it had at least as many improvements to the desktop as did Windows 7, but because that team prioritized touch-first user experiences and a new (non-.NET) mobile app platform, and allowed non-designers to replace key UIs with new ones that no one liked, those advances were ignored.

Sigh.

This is like a drunk driver complaining about someone else not using a blinker. Meaning, fair enough, but look in the mirror for crying out loud. You can’t make this kind of criticism without acknowledging the much bigger mistakes you made. It’s just not right.

The doctor will see me now.