I remember back in the 90’s how people complained that software was too complicated and had to many options and menu items. The software industry responded, but…I’ve noticed over the past few years that software is increasingly being dumbed down for the end user to the point of being ridiculous..
For example, when I launched IE for Windows 8 for the first time on my wife’s computer, the basic menu bar (with “file”, “edit”, view”, tools”, etc) wasn’t even selected by default. Sure it was easy to right click and select, but does MS believe the average user has no need for those menu items?
Excel pivot tables. The original pivot tables summarized your data in neat labeled columns that allowed you to easily work with the data and cut and paste it into other applications such as MS Access. The current default table summarizes all of the data into a single column, without labels, making it virtually impossible to do anything with it except view the results. Great for the HR or Marketing person who occasionally needs it, but counter productive for Excel power users. Thank goodness MS had the foresight to allow users to select the “classic” pivot table as an option…
Google Chrome: A single drop down menu. Doing something like changing the home page used to be straight forward. Just tools/internet options and there it was, ready to be updated if you wanted. Now with chrome, you have to go through two or three levels to get to the appropriate menu, it’s no longer referred to as home page, and the options aren’t clear. And to add insult to injury, every day when I boot up my PC and open Chrome, it defaults to the google home page, even after I changed and made sure I saved the change. I’ve gone back to Firefox…
Windows 8: With its primary colors and row after row of rectangular boxes, it looks more like a child’s play-computer interface than an adult OS. And simple stuff like add/remove programs is now called something else and buried under two levels of menus.
I could go on. It seems the pendulum has swung completely in the other direction. In many cases, it’s been made so simple, that it’s become a hassle to customize things. As an end user, I want to be able to customize the program to fit the way I work, not just settle for the default setting that the developer thinks people want. I want menu back. I want customization back. I want control, not some watered down crap for the masses.
/rant over
