I don't know what the hell MicroSoft means by "more intuitive."

When Microsoft first began making noises about "redesigning" all their stuff, one of the bragging points was that they had "tested using hundreds of novice computer users" to find out what they would "do intuitively" when faced with something they didn't understand, and for which they had no idea of what it could do for them. Many of the test subjects were deliberately "unsophisticated juveniles" in order to emphasize what "computer illiterates" found to be "intuitive."

So "intuitive" only applies to users who know nothing about all the remarkable things that it took someone with "learned skills" to use, and anyone who even knew what to call anything requiring thought to use was excluded from the test groups. Hence anything that previously could be learned was either concealed or removed from the "new" programs.

Since all this happened at about the time they were trying to "KILL" Win98, and they had deleted almost their entire Knowledge Base that once had the answers to most significant real problems any older programs might, have in order to keep users of older systems from continually patching and fixing to keep them running, the result was:

1. Only what illiterate juveniles might find to do (largely by accident) is visible in the new programs.

2. EVERY PROGRAM must have a minimum of 700 icons, instead of useful menus, because *** like to have lots of things they can click.

3. None of the links can go to anything useful, since that might lead some *** into something "unintuitive" and we'd have to explain it.

4. All references to what you might be able to do have been removed. You should just be happy with whatever happens.

5. If you have a problem, you can talk to other ***s about it on Twitter, but Microsoft won't help you.

The basic explanation - the bottom line - is that they tried to make something that "any *** will think has enough pinball lights to make them happy."

This was followed by the understanding that they had created the "perfect software for ***s," which ultimately led an apparently sparse few to realizing "but only ***s will want it."

Of course this latter understanding was managed by developing a new marketing plan with the premise "only ***s will buy Microsoft stuff anyway, so that's who we'll sell it to."

This has been remarkably successful, since there are enormous numbers of ***s, apparently most of whom have daddies with lots of money, so for a time, Microsoft prospered.

"Intuitive" means "we put so many illegible and unintelligible icons on it that any *** will be bound to find something to be happy with if he clicks enough of them, and if he doesn't he'll get tired and take a nap and won't bother us."

Alternatively, one may say "intuitive" just means "more like what we think a Mac looks like - but we don't understand that either."

NOTE: I tried to think of a single term generic enough to be unoffensive to our PC critics, but couldn't come up with one that wouldn't offend at least someone. Substitute the appropriate term of your own choosing for ***.

John