I agree. I played around with the Surface RT for over 30 mins at a Microsoft store with the intention of buying it for my parents for Christmas, and I walked away because even I couldn't effectively figure out what the "rules" were for interacting with Metro. I'm sure if I gave it more time, I could, but there is no way my parents, who still use XP, would be able to figure it out.
I wasn't sure what I needed to do to get to the "Desktop" mode where it looked like Windows 7, or how to flip back and forth, and which things I could swipe, etc. I felt like it was a big mess because a lot of the UI features that we've come to expect were not there. In contrast, the iPhone and subsequently the iPad were intuitive right off the bat.
To be fair, I'm seeing a lot of this terrible UI experience in other things as well. For example, on Chrome when you are reading a PDF, if you want to save it or zoom, it's not obvious how to do it. You need to miraculously hover over the bottom right corner and then the buttons show themselves, but there are no visual cues indicating that that's what you're supposed to do. It's fancy, but terrible UI.
The same thing occurs on Facebook, where people are just expected to know where to hover in order to show functionality. I don't know where this trend came from, but it's terrible, and I think this article is showing an extension of how we are moving away from all the visual cues and things we've learned about UX in the past 30 years. Sure, it's different but it doesn't mean it's better, especially when it forced people to hunt, peck, and guess for functionality, something that UX is supposed to get rid of.
anecdotally, my mom really likes Windows RT. Watching her use the traditional start menu, or attempting to navigate Windows Explorer to find something is an exercise in pain. She, honestly, really enjoys the full screen start menu -- easier to find the app she wants to start --, the WinRT full screen apps -- doesn't have to remember/think about window/application life cycle management. It pretty much works the way that she wanted Windows XP to work in the first place.
When I use Windows 8, on the other hand, I spend 99% of my time on the desktop, and the transition to a full screen start menu/screen is pretty jarring. But, honestly, as far as the new UI paradigms go, its not that much of a mess... Try watching a Windows user try to use a OSX for the first time. Or vice versa. Or a mac user trying to use KDE.
I think the real world analogy of the OP is a bit flawed. Babies don't instinctually know how to open a door, that is not something we are genetically programmed for. They learn by watching other people do it, and you learn by trying. There is a low penalty for trying to failing to open a door correctly -- sometimes you push instead of pull -- and that is the point of a good user interface. Does Windows 8 succeed at that? Perhaps, but its not a disaster.
A disaster would be a door that killed you if you tried to open it incorrectly.
I wasn't sure what I needed to do to get to the "Desktop" mode where it looked like Windows 7, or how to flip back and forth, and which things I could swipe, etc. I felt like it was a big mess because a lot of the UI features that we've come to expect were not there. In contrast, the iPhone and subsequently the iPad were intuitive right off the bat.
To be fair, I'm seeing a lot of this terrible UI experience in other things as well. For example, on Chrome when you are reading a PDF, if you want to save it or zoom, it's not obvious how to do it. You need to miraculously hover over the bottom right corner and then the buttons show themselves, but there are no visual cues indicating that that's what you're supposed to do. It's fancy, but terrible UI.
The same thing occurs on Facebook, where people are just expected to know where to hover in order to show functionality. I don't know where this trend came from, but it's terrible, and I think this article is showing an extension of how we are moving away from all the visual cues and things we've learned about UX in the past 30 years. Sure, it's different but it doesn't mean it's better, especially when it forced people to hunt, peck, and guess for functionality, something that UX is supposed to get rid of.