> (in fact they broke this and that along the road, the latest and most cruitial for me is the taskbar, and I am not talking about the alignemnt, not at all, but all the other possibilities gone, starting with the option of grouping/ungrouping, but not ending there)
The way I look at it (which may be wrong!) is that companies get a 'change budget' of how much users will tolerate in terms of change (i.e. an 'emotional' budget with users rather than a cash/resource budget).
Look at the large facebook designs which recieved huge amounts of backlash from the community - while each of them pushed Facebook in the right direction, each of the changes was also very disruptive to an extent that Microsoft probably couldn't tolerate in Windows.
This time around they decided to use a lot of their 'change budget' on the taskbar, which probably means you don't want to touch other parts. IMO they should have added the option of grouping/ungrouping too before making the change, although the fact that people are complaining about taskbar grouping probably further demonstrates how careful Microsoft needs to be with design changes (Especially as you can probably see WHY Microsoft might want to remove the option of grouping/ungrouping and follow their thought process with this, which shows how easily these UI pitfalls can occur when making changes).
The way I look at it (which may be wrong!) is that companies get a 'change budget' of how much users will tolerate in terms of change (i.e. an 'emotional' budget with users rather than a cash/resource budget).
Look at the large facebook designs which recieved huge amounts of backlash from the community - while each of them pushed Facebook in the right direction, each of the changes was also very disruptive to an extent that Microsoft probably couldn't tolerate in Windows.
This time around they decided to use a lot of their 'change budget' on the taskbar, which probably means you don't want to touch other parts. IMO they should have added the option of grouping/ungrouping too before making the change, although the fact that people are complaining about taskbar grouping probably further demonstrates how careful Microsoft needs to be with design changes (Especially as you can probably see WHY Microsoft might want to remove the option of grouping/ungrouping and follow their thought process with this, which shows how easily these UI pitfalls can occur when making changes).