Saturday, 15 August 2015

A Window Of One's Own


It’s hard to remember what life used to be like without a PC and an internet connection. How did I find time to do all those chores like banking, application forms and research? I suppose everything just took longer, in which case I should nowadays have more time to spare for loafing about. Strangely, however, that does not seem to be the case. In accordance with Parkinson’s Law, the spare capacity has become filled with other stuff. What’s worse is, despite no longer having to queue at the Post Office to renew the TV licence and road tax, little of the time saved has been dedicated to the causes of philanthropy or self-improvement - one needs a steely determination for that: mostly it’s been squandered on online shopping, interactive social media and software-management. And while I would never blame others for my weakness in the face of temptation, in the case of software I feel entitled to some help.
The last few weeks have seen the launch of Windows 10, the latest version of an operating system for Microsoft-driven PCs. I signed up and was duly upgraded from Windows 8 which, by general accord, had been proven to be counter-intuitive, difficult to navigate, frustrating and time-consuming. Microsoft, realising that frustrated customers are likely to become ex-customers, decided to fix the problem by re-designing the operating system so that it is less gimmicky and more practical. Behind this exercise lies the principle that the system should mimic the way our brains work and, in this respect, they are making some progress. When, for example, we want to find a file it is useful to see a symbol of a file prominently displayed on the screen. But a more ambitious feature - speaking a request instead of typing it - has some way to go: when I asked “Where is the Sigmund Freud museum?” the response was “I have no results for the Sigmund Floyd museum”. My diction or theirs?
But brains don’t all work in the same way - our cranial operating systems are individually developed and honed for navigation through the complexities of whatever lives we experience. We start as infants, pressing the virtual keys of life randomly to see what will happen; we progress through childhood, exploring their functions in a more purposeful way; as teenagers we focus intensely on just a few of those functions; as adults we broaden or strengthen our interests until, in old age, we are in a position to refine them by ditching those we are disillusioned with, tired of or no longer capable of pursuing.
The Windows 10 operating system, impressive as it is, takes insufficient account of this progression. When it loads for the first time the screen fills up with gaming apps and entertainment gizmos that may be crucial to some users but are of secondary importance to others. Yes, it is possible to “personalise your Windows experience” by changing the background theme and wallpaper, but I’m sure those clever people who write the code could do better than that. What I would like to see is an operating system that comes ready-tailored so that I don’t have to spend quite so much time fathoming out what X-box is and why I don’t need it - which would leave more time for my preferred interests.
How about a version of Windows with my name on it? Surely all that’s required is some input from me - date of birth, sexual orientation, cultural and educational background, degree of curmudgeonliness, inclination to pedantry, aversion to light classical music etc. - for the developers to make my OS fully bespoke? They could include, for example, the latest Saga app which could be continuously and automatically updated as I get older: font sizes would increase, healthcare apps would be introduced to remind me of doctors’ appointments and medication schedules. I might finally get some quality loafing time - as long as I can resist the ensuing bombardment of precisely targeted advertising, that is.

No comments:

Post a Comment