Metro-style apps and the “dead end” effect

Over the past week I’ve had a small flurry of newcomers to Windows 8 come to me for help. What seems to bamboozle users more than anything else is related to the Old Windows, New Windows mismatch — specifically that when you’re in an Old Windows application and end up jumping to a New Windows app, most non-technologist users get stuck.

A good example of this is opening an picture attachment within Outlook and ending up in the Metro-style photo app. When you do this, everything disappears but t...