Considering Usability

Windows lets you perform a huge amount of customization. It’s unlikely that two copies of Windows will look alike unless someone installed the copies recently or some draconian corporate policy mandates a particular configuration. Even so, you have to consider optimization from a usability perspective. You need to determine how well the user interface works for a particular user and what the user needs to accomplish a given task. For example, Microsoft installs theme support in Windows by default, yet themes aren’t an essential part of the user interface and many users can get along just fine without them.

Themes provide an aesthetically pleasing appearance and work environment. Adding a theme can make some users more productive because the work environment is less boring. However, themes require the installation of the Themes service. To see whether you have this service installed, open the Services console found in the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel. (The consoles in the Administrative Tools folder are special applications that help you configure Windows, your applications, or your hardware in some way.) Figure 2.3 shows how the Themes service normally appears— Microsoft sets it to start automatically.

Unfortunately, starting a service consumes memory and processing cycles, not to mention hard drive space. Consequently, when optimizing your system you have to consider whether the user productivity gained by installing theme support is worth the resources used to support themes. In some cases, you may decide to rely on a plain interface to get a speed or other performance increase.

The Themes service provided with Windows XP is also unique. Because it doesn’t contain any visual elements itself, it doesn’t show up in Task Manager. Consequently, you don’t know what the cost of using themes is unless you work with some of the specialized tools Windows provides such as System Monitor (see the “Using System Monitor” section of Chapter 7 for details). You’ll find that the Themes service uses about 1MB of RAM when it isn’t doing anything and a lot more when it is. The Themes service is always using processing cycles, but again, they don’t show up in Task Manager.

Here’s a way you can see what’s happening. Try stopping the Themes service for a while by right-clicking its entry in the Services console shown in Figure 2.3 and select Stop from the context menu. Nothing bad will happen, but you’ll notice your system is significantly faster. Compare the number of processes reported by Task Manager before you stopped the Themes service and again after you stop it. The number of processes will remain the name. To restart the Themes service, right-click its entry in the Services console and choose Start. After a few seconds, your system will regain its themes appearance and you’ll notice it slows down.

The usability of the Windows interface is subjective — one user will find a particular feature essential, while another user works fine without it. That’s why optimization is an individual task in many cases. For example, most users will agree that they can get along just fine without special effects such as zooming windows and fade effects. However, some users will find that they can’t get along without smoothed screen fonts. Even though smoothing robs the system of processing cycles and a little memory, the loss in user productivity is far greater. What you need to remember, at this point, is that nothing is free. Whenever you see a special effect on screen, the system is expending resources toprovide that special effect. Consequently, an optimized system uses special effects sparingly — only those special effects that actually make the user more productive, efficient, or simply feel better about the application environment are worthwhile. Chapter 7 discusses the effects of Windows setup decisions in more detail — pay special attention to the “Removing Gizmos from Your Systems” section of the chapter.

FIGURE 2.3 The Services console shows which services you have installed and started on your machine.