Response to Chris Pirillo's "How Real People Will Use Windows 8"

Chris Pirillo (aka lockergnome) uploaded a view entitled "How Real People Will Use Windows 8" to his Youtube channel and I noticed some flaws with it that I'd like to point out. Sadly, he has blocked me from commenting since I pointed how what a hypocrite he is, and about 200 people thumbed me up so he deleted my comment and have had me blocked ever since. 

This is the video. It's a little over 4 minutes long and what it shows is Chris' dad trying out Windows 8 for the first time on a virtual machine.

Right off the bad Chris is being very hostile with his "this is Windows 8 dad, this is it!" but he is a huge Apple fanboy so that's to be expected.

His dad seems like a really nice guy but I have to say that he is a bit less computer literate than your average Joe. He clicks the Internet Explorer icon when he tries to get back to the Metro start screen. That's a pretty, I don't want to say stupid but, strange thing to do.

The rest of the video is him focusing almost all his attention at the notification area. He did notice there isn't any start menu, but how come he doesn't hoover over the area where it used to be? If he had done that, he would have seen the start screen popping up.

I like how his dad at 2:24 says "but this is not the final version so..." and Chris says "Yeah but this is what Microsoft think is the final version" which is just a big fat lie, and he knows it. They do not think this is the final version. The Consumer Preview is just a beta. It's still almost a year left until Windows 8 is actually released and they have plenty of time to make changes. The Consumer Preview was released to do exactly this. Gather information about what people like your dad think of it so far.

Anyway there is a huge issue with this video. You are not helping your dad, like you would if he asked you about something in Windows XP or 7. All you needed to do is say "just drag the mouse to the left corner and click" and he would be back to the start menu. I bet that your dad had big problems figuring out the first version of Windows, or OS X for that matter, when he first tried it out. 

The problem here is that your dad only knows how to use his computer for very basic stuff, and it seems like he has just memorized how to do things like "if I want to check the web then I click on this spot on the desk, because that's where the Internet is". Now with Windows 8 and its revamped GUI, that little knowledge is gone and he basically has to start from scratch, but he doesn't understand this and tries to apply thee very little knowledge he has and use it in Windows 8.

I am not trying to be mean to his dad because he seems like a really nice guy and I am sure he is good at lots of stuff, but computers isn't one of his strong points.

Someone completely new to Windows would most likely fair better than your dad, because they won't try to use Windows 8 as Windows 7, Vista or XP. Someone more experiences would be able to figure it out by themselves because they wouldn't try the obvious stuff (like open IE or press the clock).

Anyway this is just a clip from a longer video. His dad does find the charm menu and manages to get back to the start screen eventually and I have to say, when he learns how to use the charms, and Chris do tell him that the Windows key brings him back to the start screen. His dad do figure stuff out eventually when he starts rearranging icons on the start screen, finds the left corner for quickly switch between apps, and so on. Unlike most people, I think this proves how user friendly Windows 8 is. It does take a bit of time getting used to, but even his dad figures it out all by himself in less than 20 minutes. That might sound like a lot, but please remember that it most likely took them much longer to figure out Windows XP or Vista or 7 or whatever.

He also says that while he do not like the look of standard metro it's probably because he is not used to it and someone seeing a computer for the first time would probably like it more.

He also say something I think is great at 1:13:37 and that's "that's kind of alright. One you know it's not so... Once you know where it is it gets a little easier". 

Anyway I could go on forever about this and I've probably bored you guys who read this to death by now. You can watch the whole video here and it's worth checking out. Chris dad is a great guy. I have no idea how his son became such a douche.