Ultimately, it’s all about providing a superior user experience.

Yesterday, I had to help my partner because she couldn’t export a Google Sheets file to Excel format, save it to a USB drive, and check that everything looked good in the Microsoft 360 suite, easy right?

When she asked me for help, I immediately thought: “How hard can that be? Aren’t these basic actions? Shouldn’t it be three or four clicks?” Well, no… when I disconnected from my Mac and went to her latest generation laptop, with 16 GB of RAM, the latest Windows and the Office suite theoretically working, I found the following.

Act 1: The discomfort
When trying to download the file from Google Drive, it didn’t ask me where I wanted to save it, but directly saved it to “Downloads”, which already bothered me, because it’s an additional step that I’m going to have to take to move the file from “Downloads” to the USB drive.
Besides, my partner is anti-computer, she works in the beauty sector and prefers to use the computer as little as possible, so having to go to the file explorer, find the file and move it to the USB drive, in addition to being an extra step that could have been avoided, generates more stress for her because she is afraid of making a mistake.

Act 2: The slap to the user
I already have the file downloaded to the USB drive and I want to check if it is correctly exported and everything is in order, I proceed to click on the file and it asks me “With what program do you want to open it?”… Really? If it theoretically comes with the Office 360 suite and I remember that she activated it as soon as she got her new laptop a month ago, I don’t care if it was a mistake on her part when activating the Office suite or if I simply have to find the Microsoft Excel and indicate it as the default program, or if I have to install the programs one by one, it is absurd that I have the suite installed and theoretically working and it asks me “With what do you want to open it?”, as a daily user of computer systems I felt like I was wasting my whole life on a nonsense that should take less than a minute.
And if I think about my partner, with her little patience with technological things, with her minimal experience in handling files and installing programs on a PC, she must have had a hard time not understanding what was happening and thinking perhaps that the fault was hers and not of a bad user experience design.

Act 3: The frustration
Anyway, I tell myself “Well, breathe and install the damn… program of the fuc…. Office”, I go and open the Office 360 suite application and look for where to open Excel directly and I can’t find it, I look for where to install Excel and I can’t find it, and as I searched my desire to smash the new and expensive laptop on the head of the Windows and Office product manager or throw the laptop out the window grew, I was wondering what color my partner would prefer for their new MacBook.

Act 4: The desperation
After 1 or 2 minutes that seemed like hours, I couldn’t find where to install what I wanted and I refused to search on YouTube or ask ChatGPT for something that should be intuitive and user-friendly, I thought for a moment about downloading OpenOffice, which I disliked and offended my sense of justice because my partner paid for her Office 360 suite and deserved to have her paid suite and not a free suite, but why on earth did she pay for Office?

Act 5: Resignation
In the end I thought, I’m not going to invest another second in a clear usability error courtesy of Microsoft, so if what I want is to see that the exported file looks good I open it directly with Google Sheets and that’s it, with annoyance and a feeling of impotence, but at least I could review the exported file and see that everything was in order.

Now, let’s understand the basic level of computer knowledge that is necessary to do this and yet two totally different users, with different levels of experience with system management, found it frustrating and left us with the taste that we are stupid for not knowing how to perform such a simple task.

And what would happen if I try to do the same on my 16GB RAM Mac mini?

I’m left with annoyance and I say “it’s not possible that something so simple is so difficult, I’m going to try it on a Mac” and it goes like this:

Act 1 (And the only one): The expected
I export the file from Google Sheet as Excel and it asks me “Where do you want to save it?” I put it on the USB drive, then I go to review my exported file on the USB drive, double-click the file and it opens with Numbers which already comes by default in the Mac… total 27 seconds. END

Total time on Mac 27 seconds…. As it should be.

Now just multiply this simple action with all the daily interactions, systems that come by default with Mac and help you with simple keyboard shortcuts to view files quickly, leave notes and a thousand more things.

While Apple’s business practices of creating products designed for obsolescence are debatable, their commitment to providing an unparalleled UX and CX is undeniable. From their sleek packaging to their intuitive software, Apple consistently delivers products that are a joy to use. Their attention to detail, from the materials used to the overall design, sets a high standard for the industry. Despite the cost, the experience Apple offers is simply unmatched, making Microsoft’s offerings pale in comparison.

Windows, you’re still doing it wrong, remember “Keep it simple, stupid!”