Tibor SzászInteraction matters

Microsoft, scary things must look SCARY!

According to the video above Microsoft made it super easy for anybody to fuck up their system. While the features are cool and makes maintaining Windows 8 a breeze, but the interaction design is horrible.

Scary things must look scary if you don't intend to scam somebody!

Microsoft thought that naming the "reinstall Windows 8" feature "Refresh" and the "formatting of the hard drive, then reinstall" feature "Restart" would be nice to users and super smart. No this is not cool, not even smart, you trick people. Even one lost document, photo or video because of an untrained user (there are some out there) is too much.

I've seen in the video that there are texts that describe what "Refresh" and "Restart" does, but this will only make people think who read them at least once.People don't read. Any PC case has a reset button on the front. Where the name "refresh" might sound familiar from? Look at your browser bar. The two words sounds too familiar for users furthermore, so they will follow their basic instincts that tells them "what could possibly go wrong".

Here is a little collection of things that makes people think. They are designed, evolved to make you stop whatever you are doing and focus on the situation.

The yellow signs needs no descriptions. If you see an object that has a yellow skull printed on the side you probably shouldn't drink it, nor open it if you don't know what you are doing. You wouldn't touch a fence that has a sign on it where a body is laying on the floor hit by a lightning.

Nature is smart. Some creatures of nature has evolved to communicate just by appearance. The message is "It will be bad for you if you mess with me." Color is information and animals knows it. It if it looks odd, most of them will avoid it.

Finally, there are good reasons to intentionally slow down people. This gives them time to think or prevents them doing something terrible they would otherwise. An accidentally launched missile could start WW3.

The moral of the story is that it is not always good to be super helpful and make everything super easy.