Last week my folks’ laptop died, so I’ve been doing parental tech support duties. I spent a while trawling the net for a new laptop for them (it’s a whole new strange land in there…) and got it all up and running for them at the weekend.

A useful side effect has been that I’ve been able to watch some normal non-techy people getting to grips with a new windows 8 laptop.

Observations follow (with the caveat that these are just observations and might not apply to anyone else):

• Initial use of the OS was confused (not just by my folks as this was the first time I’d really used it too). On first use there isn’t much continuity with previous versions of windows. It’s like you’re starting from scratch. There are no visual cues as to how to use the OS - The removal of the start button was a big issue. I get a feeling that the metro aesthetic contributed to this. Zero affordances and the whole mixed touch/desktop thing added to the confusion.

• Requiring people to sign up for a new windows live account before being able to use or even set up the metro email app is pretty disgraceful. It’s an immediate roadblock to people who have been trained to be rightly wary of signing up for new accounts they don’t need, even though it’s eminently possible to use the mail app with existing pop/imap mail accounts.

• Existing mental models about what is Internet and what isn’t Internet are disrupted. The folks are used to the Internet being in a box called a web browser. It unsettled them to think that bits of the OS were connecting independently and seemingly autonomously. They were also concerned that it might be costing them money.

• Following on from that, browsers designed to fit in with the metro aesthetic then visually merged into desktop applications and also websites designed to fit with the metro aesthetic. A particular example that stood out was Skype.

  There were problems telling the difference between the Skype software and the Skype website in a browser. There were minimal visual differences between the application and browser windows but very different mental models were needed for use and interaction. I imagine this would be repeated with other stuff too.

• The “hot corners” functionality in the OS I can see being more usable in the long run than the old start button, but there needs to be some sort of on-boarding for users. Having previously trained users to be exacting with their mouse and to put their mouse pointer in a specific place and click, it was hard to get the concept across that chucking the mouse into the corner of the screen is the desired behaviour and would work.

  My Dad in particular would continually try to get his mouse pointer exactly on the corner point. That resulted in him clicking on the first icon on the taskbar half the time that then opened IE.

Anyhoo, there was more stuff, (scroll wheel behaviour in metro etc.) but that’s what jumped out. Hope you find it useful.