Despite the current dogmatic thinking to the contrary, Microsoft does do many things right… eventually. But one of the areas they tend to get wrong… frequently, is the naming of products or features.
And while there have been some very good ones like Xbox, Outlook, Word and ItelliSense, there are as many examples of where they flat out miss.
Everything from overly long and complicated names, as parodied in this video from about 10 years ago on what would happen if Microsoft re-designed the Apple iPod packaging, resulting in the “Microsoft iPod Pro 2005 XP Human Ear Professional Edition with Subscription”, to products whose names are just hard to fathom where they came from, like “Microsoft Bob”.
And I can’t help but feel they’ve missed again with “Continuum” in Windows 10.
It might just be me, but I’d love to know your thoughts as well, so let’s take a closer look:
To make my point I’m first going to ask you to suspend any previous knowledge you have of what Microsoft means by this term. Just take a moment to roll Continuum around in your head and think about the meanings or feelings it evokes for you. Ok, got an image or meanings in your mind? Great, hold those.
Now, when I think of the word “Continuum” I focus on the “continue” portion. That is, a path or direction, or range of things, and to me it means taking the next logical step, or keeping going on the path you’re on, or the next thing in a series.
Quite simply, when I think of Continuum I think of the ability to start something someplace, say reading a web article on the PC at your desk, then being able to continue reading it on your phone a little while later, say while your on the bus to work, or at the coffee shop having coffee. Or starting a new document on your tablet, and being able to continue it when you sit down at your desk and fire up your PC when you get home.
And that’s exactly not what Microsoft means when they say “Continuum”.
When Microsoft uses the term Continuum, they are referring to the ability of Windows 10 to… now this is where my brain warps, they are referring to the ability of Windows 10 to adapt to different screen sizes and input devices and give the user the appropriate look, feel and interaction that best fits the device being used.
So if you are using a smaller screen device with no mouse and keyboard then Windows 10 bumps up the big, touch focused tiles, and doesn’t even show the more mouse appropriate Desktop. But if you connect that small screen device to a larger screen with a keyboard and mouse, or install it on say a full-sized laptop, Windows 10 adapts to look and act more like what you’re used to in Windows 7 (or XP).
In fact as I pointed out in a previous post, this type of design is actually called Adaptive User Experience and comes from providing an Adaptive User Interface, and it looks like Windows 10 will do this very well.
Which begs the question, why the hell did Microsoft NOT call this “Adaptium” or “AdaptaSense” or “Adapta-pick-your-favorite-suffix-but-whatever-you-do-don’t-call-it-Continue-something”.
And sadly, and as we do so frequently, one only needs to look at the mastery of Apple to see how they handled a similar recent feature naming scenario, namely, “Taptic Feedback”.
Again, no matter what you do or don’t know about what this is, think about the term for a moment and my guess is you’ll come pretty damn close to what it actually refers to: feedback you get back from a mouse, keyboard or even a watch that comes in the form of taps, or vibrations. In fact, this type of vibration feedback is technically called, wait for it… “Haptic Feedback”.
So Apple took a feature, tweaked the real name to be both unique, as well as meaningful, and created a magical name “Taptic Feedback” which is almost as beautiful as “Retina Display”. Which, by the way, if I explained to you technically, your eyes would glaze over, but say “Retina Display” and they’ve rung Pavlov’s bell.
And so I’m left scratching my head. I get the fact that naming is tricky, you want it to help create a brand, an image or an understanding of what the thing does, and it’s got to be unique and not a term someone else is using, but Continuum? Yes I know the technical meaning of the word Continuum is “anything that goes through a gradual transition from one condition, to a different condition” but what Windows 10 does to accomplish that is it adapts, and adapts means something very clear to just about anyone.
As William Shakespeare wrote “A rose by any other name would mean something completely different”, or something like that.
clarkb... 