Start menus take a bashing
This issue Ken Rigsby wants to whack his. . .
Did you know that the Windows Start menu is 22 years old next month? I remember vividly the first time I encountered it, in Windows 95. I’d just upgraded from Windows 3.1 and, while I’d read a bit about the latest operating system in magazines and newspapers, I didn’t really know what to expect.
Then Windows 95 booted on my PC, the mouse pointer appeared and there was the Start button. I clicked it. For the first time ever the Start menu appeared on my screen and suddenly it seemed obvious that there should be a Start menu. Of course there should be a Start menu! Where had the Start menu been all my life? I fell instantly in love with the Start menu.
That feeling has never gone away, even though the Start menu itself disappeared in Windows 8. Faced with a huge public backlash, Microsoft slapped a Start button back into Windows 8.1. However, we had to wait until Window 10 for the proper Start menu to reappear.
Well. I say ‘proper menu’. While practically everyone welcomed the return of the Start menu in Windows 10, its design makes it obvious that Microsoft never really wanted to bring it backback. In fact, the company basically took Windows 8’s Start screen, shrunk it a bit and called it the Start menu.
Yes, Windows 10’s Start menu does have a bona fide, scrollable list of every program and utility installed on my PC, but this is buried under a bunch of ‘dynamic’ sections that just keep changing. You know the ones – ‘Recently added’, ‘Most used’ and Suggested. ‘Recently added’ is occasionally useful, but I preferred the old Start menu’s way of doing things. By which I mean highlighting new items in a different colour, instead of constantly shuffling things around at the top – that’s just distracting.
‘Most used’ is worse. In theory it’s fine: one-click shortcuts to the items that I use most. In practice, though, it’s infuriating. In any one week I use dozens of apps, so the chances that the one I want will be in this small group are slim. In fact, I’ve basically stopped looking there because it’s too unpredictable. As for the Suggested section, it’s basically an ever-changing advert — and I’ve never once seen a suggestion that I’d actually want to use.
All of this and so far I’ve ranted only about the left-hand side of the modern Start menumenu. On the right-hand — arrrrgh! Just. Stop. Moving. Please! I’m talking about ‘live’ tiles: those little squares that are so unhappy with their lot as boring old icons that they act up by updating their contents every few seconds, rotating new information into view.
It probably seemed like a good idea to Microsoft’s programmers but to me, as a humble user, it feels like a game of desktop Whack-a-mole: “Look, Ken, over here! No, over here! Yoohoo Ken, this way now!”. Microsoft calls this feature ‘Life at a glance’, but its effect is hypnotic – so ‘Stifle a trance’ might be a better name.
I know that it’s possible to stop or limit aspects of the modern Start menu’s erratic behaviour, but that’s not my point. Windows 95’s Start menu was a revelation. It felt innovative yet obvious. Brand new yet instantly familiar. It existed to help me find what I needed, not to serve up a dozen different things that it thought worthy of my attention. It was joyous precisely because of its simplicity. So while Microsoft did bring back the Start menu, it’s just not the Start menu I fell in love with.
Live tiles feel like a game of Whack-aMole: ‘Look, Ken, over here! No, over here! Yoohoo Ken, this way now!
Is your Start menu just as frustrating? Let us know at letters@computeractive.co.uk