So I gave a 13 year old tech-noob my Windows 8 PC...

...and told him to open calculator. I had him start on the Desktop. He first looks for the Start button, to no avail. Looking confused, he thinks for a second, the just starts typing "calculator" on the Desktop. After that doesn't work, he starts clicking around until he accidentally grabs the top of the screen and pins it on the side. He then clicks in the empty space and makes it to the Start screen. Then, he looks for calculator in my pinned things, and after no success, he then types "calculator" again and successfully opens the program. His first comments "well, it will take some getting use to, but it's no big deal." I then show him how the Start button actually is there, just hidden. He affirms that yeah it's no big deal, just will take some getting used to.

Later, he was watching me use my PC, and I downloaded the Wikipedia app and pinned it. After that, I put down the computer and played some Xbox with him beside me. He's very interested in history, so he picks up the computer, and goes into the Wikipedia app. He asks me how to search in the app, and I showed him how to use Charms. After that, he was using it as if he had his whole life. He searches some Wikipedia, then when he can't find what he wanted there, he goes back to Start (using the hidden button) and hit the IE icon (which sends him to the desktop) and uses it to search and find things. I show him how he could bring up the recent apps menu to quickly go back to Wikipedia, and just like that he was going back and forth, actually using the computer, Metro apps and all, to do research.

I was actually pretty thrilled, because all it took was me showing him a few simple ways to use this new OS, and he was good to go. Keep in mind that before I put him through this little experiment, he said, and I quote "I'm not sure if I can open calculator, I've never really learned how to do things like that on older computers." I know, I know, and I'm not sure how he's avoided simple technology this long, but he has.

I did this little test to see for myself how real people would use this OS; I've seen the horrors on YouTube, and while they did seem bad, the author of the video typically was standing over the person, already "mad" about Windows 8, saying "see dad how stupid this is, this is what Microsoft thinks is good." Doing that to someone does nothing but discourage, and it's not fair. Mine was fair.

What do you guys think?

I gave my ape a 13 year old computer and......nevermind

J4rrod said:

What do you guys think?

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I think Honey Boo Boo thinks her family's perfectly normal.

What do you guys think?

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I think you're right on! My IT buddy gave me his old Gateway loaded with 95 on it. He didn't instruct me on anything. With trial & error and reading the help files I learned Windows.

You can't give anyone an OS without at least some clue. How about just pointing them to the 4 corners in 8?

http://www.eightforums.com/chillout...r-related-memories-i-remember.html#post101537

I imagine that if you take someone who has never used a computer before and they learn from w8 they won't find it difficult at all. I also think you can adapt pretty quickely to Metro and all its advantages and annoyances. But I'm not sure that going back and forth from metro to desktop all the time + playing with charms and functions hidden in corners is more efficient than what we already have. It would be interresting to take a person whose only experience with computers was with w8, let him work one month and then show him a w7 (or earlier) computer. Let him try w7 one day and then ask him which one is better.

It's not that he has NO experience with older PCs, just limited. Like he's never used it to do homework. But I get what you're saying, and yes that would be very interesting.

tcman50 said:

I gave my ape a 13 year old computer and......nevermind

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Ah, shite!!!

Laugh of the day!

I fired-up my Windows 98SE box the other day for the first time in about 12-18 months.

I was LOST! Literally.

Totally un-intuitive, and absolutely NOTHING was where it 'should' have been.

Twenty minutes later, it was like old-home-week, I felt as though I'd never left.

Learning Windows 8 is no different.


**EDIT: - Now, I wonder whether Classic Shell will run in Win 98?**

Nice story!

See, that's how I feel about this, you don't plop something totally new and different without a little guidance. Every time I've shown someone how to use Windows 8, it always involved hot corners, Settings Charm, right clicking, and dragging down apps to close them. After that, it's fairly smooth sailing. I don't get why people think it's going to be horrid either. Shoot, after the OOBE screens after installing Windows, it at least shows you the important part of Windows 8 and that's the Charms bar and how to bring it up. I would guess after some time, people can figure it out without guidance by simply toying with it.

I don't think the problem with the new interface is the learning curve. (It can be for some businesses thought, imagine 1000 workers having to dig out the secrets of w8 all at once!) The problem, we have said it a million times it that Metro cannot be desactiated if we wish so and that we can't get our custom start menu back. I'll add that the main problem is that the Start screen cannot be reduced to the taskbar. Nobody is saying that's unusable or terrible or something. No. It's just the irrational decisions at Microsoft that's so baffling.

Cat said:

fired-up my Windows 98SE box the other day for the first time in about 12-18 months. I was LOST! Literally.

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Yeah! LOL. Finding your documents in the "C:/My Document" folder is quiet strange indeed. Can you imagine that Microsoft has had this common sens to make something that simple? (Sorry for the off topic post)