So it appears that Microsoft has decided the Windows Explorer UI — “a foundation of the user experience of the Windows desktop” — needs a refresh, which it probably does. Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to make my experience any better.

“[...]there are over 200 commands in Explorer, customers use a small number of them with any real frequency: the top 10 commands represent 81.8% of total usage.”

So far so good. Maybe the number of elements on the UI can be stripped down a bit and things can be made simpler for power users and normal users alike.

“The telemetry data here shows that 54.5% of commands are invoked using a right-click context menu, and another 32.2% are invoked using keyboard shortcuts (“Hotkey” above) while only 10.9% come from the Command bar”

The command bar? Oh, that bar with “organize”, “share with” and “burn” buttons on? Yeah, no one needs to do that very often so maybe you should get rid of them.

What? Too sensible you say?. Instead, you’ve decided to implement a ribbon? Er…

Yes, you read that correctly, despite their research proving people don’t use that area of the interface — perhaps its something to do with it not being a waste of space? — they’re going to try and force users use it because that’s how the space was designed to be used originally. This decision can be appropriately deemed: fucking stupid.

It gets better.

“The Home tab is the heart of our new, much more streamlined Explorer experience. The commands that make up 84% of what customers do in Explorer are now all available on this one tab:”

They’ve already said previously that 80% of their users use 10 commands. Count the number of buttons/interactive areas in that small space. I got 40. Their own research suggests that 9 buttons in that band are never used at all. Why are they there? Did I mention there were tabs? Yes, you can get a tab full of more useless crap with a click of a button. Magic!

Claiming these changes make Explorer easier to use for everyone is silly. I fear for unofficial family tech support geeks everywhere.