Scott Hanselman

Video: My non-technical partner tries Windows 10 for the first time

October 23, 2014 Comment on this post [23] Posted in Win10 | Win8
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You may have watch my YouTube series on being an effective user of Windows 8 and 8.1. I've made a short URL for you to give to your friends and family http://hanselman.com/windows8. It'll take you to a YouTube Playlist that includes all my best tips and tricks on using Windows. The most popular is "Learning Windows 8 in 3 minutes" but if you're looking to get yourself, or perhaps non-technical Dad and Mom up to date on Windows 8, I recommend they check out "Windows 8: The Missing Instruction Manual." It's calmly paced and explains everything they'll need to know.

A lot of people say "Windows 8 isn't intuitive." That's up for debate, I think, as there's a big difference between unfamiliar and unintuitive. A few minutes of your time and you'll feel a lot more "intuitively" about Windows.

That said, Windows 10 is coming. If you have an extra machine you can sign up for the Preview here. It's very early and I would not put this on your primary machine.

I thought it would be interesting to show my very smart, but rather non-technical wife Windows 10 for the first time. Here's an uncut video of her experience running the first build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview.

I encourage you to watch it, it's rather interesting the way that she discovers "new" features, but also learns about existing features from as far back as Windows 7. If you've ever do a usability test you'll find the interactions fascinating.

And again, do check out and share http://hanselman.com/windows8


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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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October 23, 2014 6:24
Scott:

Could you please show us hot to install windows 10 on a virtual hard drive and dual boot? I'm sure lots of us don't have an extra computer but would love to try windows 10.

Thanks,
October 23, 2014 7:11
We've come a long way since Win 3.11


- I wonder if better tiling options are needed with 2+ monitors and 4K monitors, where you might only need a corner
- I've gotten use to the tiled start screen and prefer it now
- I'd prefer the search to show results from everywhere and I could just pick the file I wanted or the internet link that made sense
- I want more dynamic tiles with more info displayed
- With users having multiple devices, I wonder what there'll be for that?
- I wonder if this is the OS that will fundamentally run on every device so apps will be cross compatible?

I guess I'll have to install this

Taki
October 23, 2014 7:45
I was waiting for the part of the video where you say:

"Ok, honey. Now say you're in cmd.exe running a batch file and you need to copy a few lines to the clipboard. How would you do that?"

:)
Sam
October 23, 2014 8:33
Funny thing, at the same time you're explaining the difference from having the minimize, maximize and close button hidden, I'm watching the video in full screen and there is no buttons in the screen ... should I freak out about it? :-)
October 23, 2014 9:03
You can snap to the corners by dragging the window to the corner you want it to snap to.
October 23, 2014 10:56
Thanks for the great video with you and your "non-technical" wife :)
October 23, 2014 11:00
Very insightful video, thanks for sharing! This is like user experience testing pr0n, just watching someone experience W10 for the first time like that.
October 23, 2014 12:01
What i found very interesting is that your wife double-clicks every time she likes to start something. Regardless if it is on a desktop link (where you have to), a start menu entry or a tile.
October 23, 2014 15:30
Hi Scott!

Very interesting video. It's refreshing to see the facts "non-technical" people take from Windows 7/8/10.

I was wondering though why so many people do not know about Windows-Left, Windows-Right, Windows-Up and Windows-Down key combinations that have also been available "a while", but instead are trying to position and size windows usings the mouse.

I'm glad to see your wife has already gotten used to rather typing the first letters of apps than to search for a menu entry or a tile. It seems a lot of people are not getting used to this at all.

Maybe it would be nice if Microsoft could add a kind of assistant that "watches" what the user does (e.g. resizing or positioning windows, searching for an app,...) and offer help how to do that quicker with a few keystrokes?

Thanks for sharing your wifes experience with us!

Best regards,
Andreas
October 23, 2014 15:37
The best line of the entire video: "Don't look at me like that, I didn't make it".
October 23, 2014 15:39
Also very much struck by the double-clicky thing. My wife goes back to Win3.1 and still double-clicks everything. Then again, she still double-spaces between sentences.

Overall, Mo's reactions seem entirely, well, normal. Shows how far UX design still has to go in the Windows space, I guess.
October 23, 2014 16:21
My wife is a brilliant nurse. Seriously. Randomly saved lots of dying people in malls and on beaches over the 34 years we've been married.

After 30 minutes working with me she couldn't understand what a folder was for in XP, Win7 or 8.

That would explain her closet.

I gave up.

This proves it. You are the man.
October 23, 2014 18:39
Andreas, Windows-Up, down, left and right do nothing in Windows 8.1 for me...
October 23, 2014 18:55
@Andreas: The Office team did that a while back and people hated it. Remember Clippy?
October 23, 2014 20:12
Super interesting video Scott. Thanks for making and sharing.
October 23, 2014 22:19
@David Woakes : Its even been adapted as a thing in linux, apparently its catching on for some people. I wish they would extend the windows desktop to have multiple workspaces natively (specifically for a keyboard oriented laptop experience (without a touchscreen))
October 24, 2014 2:22
Have you noticed when your "non-technical user" tried to grab the window and move it the first instinct was to grab it in the middle of the window or not at the top bar. I think it could be a cool feature to let people grab windows just by clicking anywhere.
October 24, 2014 12:21
Thanks Scott. Your "non-technical" wife seems to be technical wonder compared to my folks :). TBH this video just confirms how good choice I did last year by replacing their Win laptops with Android tablets. Just hoping to see more over 10in tablets in future.
October 24, 2014 23:05
Thanks Scott (and Mo) for putting the time in to make this video. It is always interesting seeing how less technical people approach things for the first time and explore.

One of the things that I noticed was how Mo double clicked shortcuts on the start menu to open them - I could see how one could get into that confusion.

Then today we had a client contact us which made me chuckle. A colleague had made a video for them and emailed them the YouTube link - they dropped an email back saying they liked the video but asked if we could do something about the echo. Turns out that they'd double clicked the link in the email so had two slightly out of sync YouTube videos playing - quite amusing!
Ian
October 24, 2014 23:27
Loved the "Heeeeyyyyy " Part we do this when code works on remote server after deployment.

October 30, 2014 19:35
Pause the video at 5:05 - A haircut from 1pm to 7pm?

I literally LOL'd
November 02, 2014 11:37
Dude. Did she seriously admit towards the end there that, before she knew about screensnap, she actually thought you were _that_ meticulously exact that you would manually split and size your windows perfectly down the middle _every_ _time_ when comparing them?

To this woman it is clear that you are either some sort of superhuman or an OCD lunatic. ;)

November 06, 2014 17:02
Oliver : "double-clicks every time" :
My users do this all the time for web links... double post galore...

Taki : ""I'd prefer the search to show results from everywhere and I could just pick the file I wanted or the internet link that made sense"" :
no this should be optionnal, it's my second gripe with Windows 8.1u1, one of the first things I disable on a clean install, i don't want internet search on every search. European privacy concerns.
(the first gripe is the f...ing Microsoft live login that MS is trying to force feed us, I gave up on OneDrive because of it, i don't wan't MS to handle my credentials, except for specialized tasks and files I explicitly put on the internet. European privacy concerns again, we were countries with nasty dictatorships and / or foreign armies once).

David Woakes : it works for me, and has worked since Windows 7 (at least Windows+Right and Windows+Left). the new thing in Windows 8.1 is Shift+Windows+Left (moves between monitors).


M2B

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.