Hello again! So this installation of bad interface practices is one that has bugged me for quite a while. It is something that many of are so used to that we don’t question it. It is the START menu in most flavors of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
Here is what annoys me about it. When a user wants to shut down their machine, when they want to stop using the machine… they have to hit a button labeled START! It seems intuitive only because we’ve been forced to do it for so long.
Now, I’ll make this rant a short one because as you can see here, with Windows 7 and the current, yet hardly used Windows Vista, they have done away with it… FINALLY!
Umm – not sure I follow your logic that they have to hit the button Start? I agree that the buttons – especially in an emergency the stop button should be larger/easier to trigger and further away from the start button.
Tim, I know you are a mac guy these days but the pic used in the post is not of the Windows operating system… it is just intended to be something interesting to look at that implies that there is a difference between “Start” and “Stop”. 🙂
Ah yeah i missed the bit about macroshaft winblows – but your def right about reusing any sort of interface element for opposite purposes.
The real question is if they have relabeled the name of the button in the documentation. It should coincide with the ‘Windows’ key on most IBM compatible keyboards. It should be the ‘Windows Button’ in the documentation and not the ‘Start Button’.
I sure hope they have covered that LOL. Thanks for reading!
i hate people who say that this was a bad idea on microsofts part.
if you click on the START button, and go to SHUTDOWN, then you are, in the terms of what is going on, STARTING THE SHUTDOWN COMMAND. having a “start” button makes perfect sense, because no matter what you are doing, if you click that “start” button, you are STARTING whatever is within its menus: starting a program, starting the command to open a folder, starting a music file, starting a video file, starting the shutdown sequence. . . the list goes ON AND ON..
the only people who hate/dislike how there was/is a start button, are the people who do not USE the fucking OS. hence the writer using mac, hence my GUI professor using ubuntu.. stop blaming things that dont need messed with and are in their own right nearly a perfect idea.
@foxra: please refrain from profanity here. It may lead others to doubt your mental capacities.
If it were perfect, it would likely still exist. Most users don’t see shutting down as starting a process. It is technically correct, but as is the point of an operating system, to remove the processes from the users concers, labeling things as such is countering the purpose.
And just for the record, I use many operating systems, mac, windows, unix variants,… There are elements of each that I like and dislike.