Well, except the article and the argument aren't what we were talking about.
You were talking about % of users using an option and the cost of using it, to which I argued that it's quite difficult even with perfect telemetry to know whether people are not using an option because they don't want to use it or they just cannot find it. Telemetry data like this just tells you N% of users do X; you don't know why just from the fact that they do it. The user base for my product does X which is contrary to the intended design all the time, and we don't know why until we get to one on one discussions as to why they tried it that way, and even that is very difficult data to get.
Your article here is not really related, it's about choices in UI that are confusing (and also cannot be enabled/disabled from the UI), and in fact I even understand this point to undermine the first; even if Microsoft continues to do large amounts of user testing, are they doing anything meaningful with the data if they continue to have too many choices?
I don't think there's a lot of sense to speculate on why Microsoft made a choice unless they publish a claim as to why they made a choice; we can point to data and anecdata endlessly to support positions but it doesn't actually make a case for the affirmative in either way.
What I am to say is that even with user testing, countless options, and so on, at best you can say that on a vanilla installation, N% of a sample group did X. With extrapolating statistical math, you can assume with a margin of error that if N% of users from Z sample set did X, then Y% of users will likely do the same with some margin of error.
From anecdata I can know from other persons who call themselves Windows power users and/or technical persons, I know that the common response to most Windows changes is not that it's good or bad, but that you just learn to deal with it after awhile. Personally I take this as more negative, that is it's not active adoption it's begrudging acceptance, but that's a personal take.
> Your article here is not really related, it's about choices in UI that are confusing
But remove any of the shutdown options, and someone who uses it will complain saying that it's the perfect one for them.
> know that the common response to most Windows changes is not that it's good or bad, but that you just learn to deal with it after awhile.
So what's the alternative, not changing nothing ever? We would still have the Windows 3.1 interface (no taskbar) according to this logic, I'm sure the transition from the 3.1 model to the Windows 95 model was extremely disrupting to Windows 3.1 users who had muscle memory for it. Yet in retrospect it was the correct choice. Should Windows 95 kept as an alternative the Windows 3.1 interface? Forever? Should it still be present in Windows 11 just because there are 10 users who loved it?
I got your point about hidden features and removing them, I sometimes discover wonderful features in software I've been using for years, but at the same time, I accept that progress also means losing things sometimes. You get 10 new features or improvements, you lose 2. Other say "no, I can't lose nothing, I will chose the existing 2 features versus the 10 new ones". That's ok too, they can keep using Windows 10.
You were talking about % of users using an option and the cost of using it, to which I argued that it's quite difficult even with perfect telemetry to know whether people are not using an option because they don't want to use it or they just cannot find it. Telemetry data like this just tells you N% of users do X; you don't know why just from the fact that they do it. The user base for my product does X which is contrary to the intended design all the time, and we don't know why until we get to one on one discussions as to why they tried it that way, and even that is very difficult data to get.
Your article here is not really related, it's about choices in UI that are confusing (and also cannot be enabled/disabled from the UI), and in fact I even understand this point to undermine the first; even if Microsoft continues to do large amounts of user testing, are they doing anything meaningful with the data if they continue to have too many choices?
I don't think there's a lot of sense to speculate on why Microsoft made a choice unless they publish a claim as to why they made a choice; we can point to data and anecdata endlessly to support positions but it doesn't actually make a case for the affirmative in either way.
What I am to say is that even with user testing, countless options, and so on, at best you can say that on a vanilla installation, N% of a sample group did X. With extrapolating statistical math, you can assume with a margin of error that if N% of users from Z sample set did X, then Y% of users will likely do the same with some margin of error.
From anecdata I can know from other persons who call themselves Windows power users and/or technical persons, I know that the common response to most Windows changes is not that it's good or bad, but that you just learn to deal with it after awhile. Personally I take this as more negative, that is it's not active adoption it's begrudging acceptance, but that's a personal take.