The principles of Microsoft Metro UI decoded

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Scott Barnes

The phrase “authentically digital” makes me want to barf rainbow pixels. This was a quote pulled from a Windows Phone 7 reviewer when he first got a hold of the said phone. At first you could arguably rail against the concept of what Authentically Digital means and simply lock it into the yet another marketing fluff to jazz a situation in an unnecessary way.

I did, until I sat back and thought about it more.

Issues Presented.

Metro in itself has its own design language attached, they cite a bunch of commandments that the overall experience is to respect and adhere that is to say, someone has actually sat down and thought the concept through (rare inside Microsoft UX). I like what the story is pitching and I agree in most parts with the laws of Metro that is to say, I am partially onboard but not completely.

I’m on board with what Metro could be, but am not excited about where it’s at right now. I state this as I think the future around software is going through what the fashion industry has done for generations – a cultural rebirth / reboot.

Looking back at Retro not metro.

Looking at the past, back in the late 90′s the world was filled with bold flat looking user interfaces that made use of a limited color palette given the said video capabilities back then wasn’t exactly the greatest on earth. EGA was all the rage and we were seeing hints of VGA whilst hating the idea that CGA was our first real cut at graphics.

EGA eventually faded out and we found ourselves in the VGA world (color TV vs. black n white if you will), life was grand and with 32bit color vs. 16bit color wars coming to a conclusion the worlds creative space moved forward leaps and bounds. Photoshop users found themselves creating some seriously wicked UI, stuff that made you at the time thank the UI gods for plug-ins like alien ware etc as they gave birth to what I now call the glow/bevel revolution in user interface design.

Chrome inside software started to take on an interesting approach, I actually think you could probably trace its origins of birth in terms of creative new waves back to products like Winamp & Windows Media player skins. The idea that you could take a few assets and feed them into mainstream products like this and in turn create this experience on the desktop that wasn’t a typical application was interesting (not to mention Macromedia Director’s influence here either).

I think we all simply got on a user interface sugar induced high, we effectively went through our awkward 80′s fashion stage, where crazy weird looking outfits / music etc was pretty much served up to the world to gorge on. This feast of weird UI has probably started to wind down to thanks to the evolution of web applications, more importantly what they in turn taught us slowly.

Web taught the desktop how to design.

The first lesson we have learnt about design in user interface from the web is simple – less is more. Apple knocks this out of the park extremely well and I’d argue Apple wasn’t its creator, the Web 2.0 crowd as they use to be know was. The Web 2.0 crowd found ways to simply keep the UI basic to the point and yet visually engaging but with minimalist views in mind. It worked, and continues to work to this day – even on Apple.com

Companies like Microsoft have seen this approach to designing user interface and came to a fairly swift rationale that if one were to create a platform for developers & designers to work in a fashion much like the web, well desktop applications themselves could take on an entirely new approach.

History lesson is over.

I now look at Metro thinking back on the past evolution and can’t but help think that we’re going back to a reboot of EGA world, in that we are looking for an alternative to design in order to attract / differentiate from the past. Innovation is a scarce commodity in today’s software business, so we in turn are looking at ways to re-energize our thinking around software design but in a way that doesn’t create a cognitive overload – be radical, be daring but don’t be disruptive to process/task.

Inside Microsoft what I can presume, the ECG group found a way to hijack existing patterns in terms of user recognition and make use of modern signage found inside bus station, railways, elevator marshal areas etc and declared this to be the way out of the excess UI scourge.

I like it, I like this source of inspiration but my first instinct was simple – I hope your main source of success isn’t the reliance on typography, especially in this 7second attention economy of today. Sure enough, there it is, the reliance in Windows phone 7. Large typography taking over areas of where chrome used to live in order to fix what chrome once did. The removal of color / boundary textures in order to create large empty space filled with 70px+ Typography with half-seen half-hidden typography is what Microsoft’s vision of tomorrow looks like.

Metro isn’t Wp7, Metro is Microsoft Future Vision.

My immediate reaction to seeing the phone (before the public did) back inside Microsoft was "are you guys high, this is not what we should be doing, we are close but keep at it, you’re nearly there! don’t rush this!". This reaction was the equivalent of me looking at a Category 5 Tornado, demanding it turn around and seek another town to smash to bits – brave, forward thinking but foolish.

This phone has to ship, its already had two code resets, get it done, fix it later is pretty much the realistic vision behind Windows Phone 7 – NOT – Metro.

Disbelief?

Take a look at what the Industry Innovation Group has produced via a company called Oh, Hello. In this vision of tomorrow’s software (2019 to be exact) you’ll see a strong reliance on the metro laws of design.

The Principles of Metro vs. Microsoft Future Vision.

In order to start a conversation around Metro in the near future, one has to identify with the level of thinking associated with its creation. Below is the principles of metro – more to the point, these are the design objectives and creative brief if you will on what one should approach metro with.

Clean, Light, Open, Fast

Feels Fast and Responsive
Focus on Primary Tasks
Do a Lot with Very Little
Fierce Reduction of Unnecessary Elements
Delightful Use of Whitespace
Full Bleed Canvas

You could essentially distill these points down to one word – minimalist. Take a minimalist approach to your user interface and the rewards are simple – sense of responsiveness in user interface, reliance on less information (which in turn increases decision response in the end user) and a reduction in creative noise (distracting elements that add no value other than it was cool at the time).

In Figure 1, we I’d strongly argue you could adhere to these principles. This image is from the Microsoft Sustainability video, but inside it you’ve got a situation which respects the concept of Metro as after all given the wide open brief here under one principle you could argue either side of this.

Personally, I find the UI in question approachable. It makes use of a minimalist approach, provides the end user with a central point of focus. Chrome is in place, but its not intrusive and isn’t over bearing. Reliance on typography is there, but at the same time it approaches in a manner that befits the task at hand.

Microsoft’s vision of this principle comes out via the phone user interface above (Figure 2). I’m not convinced here that this I the right approach to minimalism. I state this, as the iconography within the UI is inconsistent – some are contained others are just glyphs indicating state?. The containment within the actual message isn’t as clear in terms of spacing – it feels as if the user interface is willing to sacrifice content in order to project who the message is from (Frank Miller). The subject itself has a lower visual priority along with the attachment within – more to the point, the attachment has no apparent containment line in place to highlight the message has an attachment?

Microsoft’s original vision of device’s future has a different look to where Windows Phone 7 today. Yet I’d state that the original vision is more in line with the principles than actual Windows Phone 7. It initially has struck a balance between the objectives provided.

The iconography is consistent and contained, typography is balanced and invites the users attention on important specifics – What happened, where and oh by the way more below… and lastly it makes use of visuals such as the photo of the said person. The UI also leverages the power of peripheral vision to give the user a sense of spatial awareness in that, its subtle but takes on the look and feel of an “airport” scenario.

Is this the best UI for a device today? No, but it’s approach is more in tune with the first principle then arguably the current Windows Phone 7’s approach which is reliance of fierce amounts of whitespace, reduction in iconography to the point where they clearly have a secondary reliance and lastly emphasis on parts of the UI which I’d argue as having the lowest importance (i.e. the screen before would of indicated who the message is from, now I’m more focused on what the message is about!).

Celebrate Typography

Type is Beautiful, Not Just Legible
Clear, Straightforward Information Design
Uncompromising Sensitivity to Weight, Balance and Scale

I love a good font as the next designer. I hoard these like my icons, in fact It’s a disease and if you’re a font lover a must see video is Helvetica. That being said, there is a balance between text and imagery, this balance is one struck often daily in a variety of mediums – mainly advertising.

Imagery will grab your attention first as it taps into a primitive component within your brain, the part that works without your realizing its working. The reason being is your brain often is in auto-pilot, constantly scanning for patterns in your every day environment. It’s programmed to identify with three primative checks, fear, food and sex. Imagery can tap into these striaght away, as if you have an image of an attractive person looking down at a beverage you can’t but help first think “that’ person’s cute (attractive bias) and what are they looking at? oh its food!…” All this happens despite there being text on the said image prior to your brain actually taking time to analyse the said image. To put it bluntly, we do judge a book by its cover with extrem amount of prejudice. We are shallow, we do prefer to view attractive people over ugly unless we are conveying a fear focused point “If you smoke, your teeth will turn into this guys – eewwww” (Notice why anti-cigarette companies don’t use attractive people?)

Back to the point at hand, celebrating typography. The flaw in this beast despite my passion for fonts, is that given we are living in a 7 second attention economy (we scan faster than we have before) reliance on typography can be a slippery slope.

In Figure 6, a typical futuristic newspaper that has multi-touch (oh but I dream), you’ll notice the various levels of usage of typography (no secret to news papers today). The headings on purpose approach the user with both different font types, font weight, uppercase vs lowercase and for those of you out there really paying attention, at times different kerning / spacing.

The point being, the objective is that typography is in actuality processed first via your brain as a glyph, a pattern to decode. You’ve all seen that link online somewhere where the wrod is jumbled in a way that you first are able to read but then straight away identify the spelling / order of the siad words. The fact I just did it then along with poor grammar / spelling within this blog, indicates you agree to that point. You are forgiving majority of the time towards this as given you’ve established a base understanding of the english language and combine that with your attention span being so fast paced – you are more focused on absorbing the information than picking apart how it got to you.

Typography can work in favor of this, but it comes at a price between balancing imagery / glyphs with words.

The above image (Figure 7) is an example of Metro in the wild. Typography here is in not to bad of a shape, except for a few things. The first being the “Pictures” text is making use of a large amount of the canvas, to the point where the background image and heading are probably duking it out for your attention. The second part of this is the part that irritates me the most, in that the size of the secondary heading with the list items is quite close in terms of scale. Aside from the font weight being a little bolder, there is no real sense of separation here compared to what it should or could be if one was to respect the principle of celebrating typography.

Is Segoe UI the vision of the only font allowed? I hope not. Is the font weight “light” and “regular” the only two weights attached to the UI? what relevance does the background hold to the area – pictures? ok, flimsy at best contextual relevance but in comparison to the Figure 3 above a subtle usage of watermarks etc. to tap into your peripheral vision would provide you more basis to grapple onto – pattern wise that is. Take these opinions and combine the reality that there is no sense of containment and I’m just not convinced this is in tune with the principle. It’s like the designers of metro on windows phone 7 took 5% of the objectives and just ran with it.

Comparisons between Figure7 and Figure8, the contrast in usage of typography is different but yet both using the same one and only font – Segoe UI. The introduction of color helps you separate the elements within the user interface, the difference in scale is obvious along with weight and transforms (uppercase / lowercase). Almost 80% of this User Interface is typography driven yet the difference in both is what I hope to be obvious.

Don’t despair, it’s not all dark and gloom for the Windows Phone 7 future. Figure 9 (Above) is probably one of the strongest hints of “yes!” moment for the siad phone I could find. Typography is used but add visual elements and approach the design of typography slightly differently and you may just have a stake in this principle. The downside is the choice of color, orange and light gray on white is ok for situations that have increased scale, but on a device where lighting can be hit/miss, probably need to approach this with more bolder colors. The picture in the background also creeps into your field of view over the text, especially in the far right panel.

Alive in motion

Feels Responsive and Alive
Creates a System
Gives Context to Improve Usability
Transition Between UI is as Important as the Design of the UI
Adds Dimension and Depth

I can’t really talk to these principles via text on a blog, but what I would say is that the Windows Phone attacks this relatively ok. I still think the FlipToBack transition is to tacky and the reality between how the screens transition in and out at times isn’t as attractive as for example the iPhone (ie I really dig how the iphone zooms the UI back and to the front?). The usage of kinetic scrolling is also one that gives you the sense of control, like there are some really well oiled ball bearings under the UI’s plane that if you flick it up, down, right or left the sense of velocity and friction is there.

If you zoom in and out of the UI, the sense that the UI will expand and contract in a fluid nature also gives you the element of discovery (Progressive disclosure) but can also give you a sense of less work attached.

Taking Figure 11 & Figure 12 (start and end) one could imagine a lot of possibilities here in terms of the transition were to work. The reality that Reptile Node expands out to give way to types of reptiles is hopefully obvious whilst at the same time the focus is on reptile is also in place (via a simple gradient / drop shadow to illustrate depth). Everything could snap together in under a second or maybe two but it’s something you approach with a degree of purpose driven direction. The direction is “keep your eye on what I’m about to change, but make note of these other areas I’m now introducing” – you have to move with the right speed, right transition effect and at the same time don’t distract to heavily in areas that aren’t important.

Content, Not Chrome

Delight through Content Instead of Decoration
Reduce Visuals that are Not Content
Content is the UI
Direct interaction with the Content

Chrome is important as content. I dare anyone to provide any hint of scientific data to highlight the negative effects of grouping in user interface design. Chrome can be over used, but at the same time it can be a life saver especially when the content becomes over bearing (most line of business applications today suffer from this).

Having chrome serves a purpose, that is to provide the end user a boundary of content within a larger canvas. An example is below

I could list more examples but because I’m taking advantage of Microsoft Sustainability video, I figure this would be sufficient examples of how chrome is able to breakup the user interface into contextual relevance. Chrome provides a boundary, the areas of control if you will in order to separate content into piles of semantic action(s). Specifically in Figure 15, the brown chrome is much like your dashboard on the car ie you’re main focus is the road ahead, that’s your content of focus but at the same time having access to other pieces of information can be vital to your successful outcome. Chrome also provides you access to actions in which you can carry out other principles of human interaction – e.g., adjustment of window placement and separation from within other areas offers the end user a chance of tucking the UI into an area for later resurrection (perspective memory).

Windows Phone 7 for example prefers to levearge the power of Typography and background imagery as its “chrome” of choice. I’m in stern disagreement with this as the phone itself projects what I can only describe as uncontained vast piles of emptiness and less on actual content. The biggest culprit of all for me is the actual Outlook client within the said phone.

The Outlook UI for me is like this itch I have to scratch, I want the messages to have subtle separation and lastly I want the typography to have a balance between “chrome” and “whitespace”.

Chrome can also not just be about the outer regions of a window/UI, it has to do with the internal components of the user interface – especially in the input areas. The above (Figure 17) is an example of Windows Phone 7 / Metro keyboard(s). At first glance they are simple, clean and open, but the part that captures my attention the most is the lack of chrome or more to the point separation. I say lack, as the purpose of chrome here would be to simulate tactile touch without actually giving you tactile touch. The keyboard to the right has ok height, but the width feels cramped and when I type on the said device It feels like I’m going to accidently hit the other keys (so I’m now more cautious as a result).

The above (Figure 18) offers the same concept but now with “chrome” if you will. Nice even spacing, solid use of principles of the Typography and clear defined separation in terms of actions below.

iPhone has found a way to also strike a balance between chrome and the previous stated principles. The thing that struck me the most about the two keyboards is not which is better, but more how the same problem was thought about differently. Firstly as you type an enlarged character shows – indicating you hit that character (reward), secondly the actual keys have a similar scale in terms of height/width proportions yet the key itself having a drop shadow (indicates depth) to me is more inviting to touch then a flat – (its like which do you prefer? a holographic keyboard or one with tactile touch, physical embodiment?). If you were to also combine both sound and vibration as the user types it can also help trick the end users sense into a comfortable input.

I digress from Chrome, but the point I’m making is chrome serves a purpose and don’t be quick to declare the principles of Metro as being the “yes!” moment as I’d argue the jury is still not able to formulate a definitive answer either way.

Authentically Digital

Design for the Form Factor
Don’t Try to be What It’s NOT
Be Direct

I can’t talk to this to much other than to say this isn’t a principle its more marketing fluff (the only one with a tenuous at best attachment to design principles would be “design for the form factor” meaning don’t try and scale down a desktop user interface into a device. Make the user interface react to the device not the other way around.

Summary

Metro is a concept, Microsoft has had a number of goes at this concept and I for one am not on board with its current incarnation inside the Windows Phone 7 device. I think the team have lost sight of the principles they themselves have put forward and given the Industry Innovation Group have painted the above picture as to what’s possible, it’s not like the company itself hasn’t a clue. There is a balance to be struck here between what Metro could be and is today. There are parts of Windows Phone 7 that are attractive and then there are parts where I feel it’s either been rushed or engineering overtook design in terms of reasons for what is going on the way it is (maybe the design team couldn’t be bothered arguing to have more time/money spent on propping up areas where it falls short).

People around the world will have mixed opinions about what metro is or isn’t and lastly what makes a good design vs what doesn’t. We each pass our own judgement on what is attractive and what isn’t that’s nothing new to you. What is new to you is the rationale that software design is taking a step back into the past in order to propel itself into the future. That is, the industry is rebooting itself again but this time the focus is on simplicity and by approaching metro with the Microsoft Future’s vision vs the Windows Phone 7 today, I have high hopes for this proposed design language.

If the future is taking Zune Desktop + Windows Phone 7 today and simply rinse / repeating, then all this will become is a design fad, one that really doesn’t offer much depth other than limited respite from the typical desktop / device UI we’ve become used to. If this is enough, then in reality all it takes is a newer design methodology to hit our computer screens and we’re off chasing the next evolution without consistency in our approach (we simply are just chasing shiny objects).

I’ve got a limited time on this earth and I’d like to live in a world where the future is about breaking down large amounts of unreadable / unattractive information into parts that propel our race forward and not stifle it into bureaucratic filled celebrations of mediocrity.

Apple as a company has kick started a design evolution, and say what you will about the brand but the iphone has dared everyone to simply approach things differently. Windows Phone team were paralyzed at times with a sense of “not good enough” when it came to releasing the vnext phone, it went through a number of UI and code resets to get it to the point it’s at now. It had everything to do with the iPhone, it had to dominate its market share again and it had to attract consumers in a more direct fashion. It may not have the entire world locked to the device, but it’s made a strong amount of interruption into what’s possible. It did not do this via the Metro design language, they simply made up their own internally (who knows what that really looks like under the covers).

Microsoft has responded and declared metro design as its alternative to the Apple culture, the question really now is can the company maintain the right amount of discipline required in order to respect the proposed principles.

I’d argue so far, they haven’t but I am hopeful of Windows 8.

Lead with design, engineer second.

MVP – Most Valuable Professional. Is it or isn’t it?

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Scott Barnes

David Woods wrote a blog post earlier this week which he outlines his thoughts on the MVP Program(s) at Microsoft – specifically the lack of value he finds in it.

Here are some notes if you will on some types of questions I’ve witnessed or have sensed gone unasked over the years inside Microsoft.

Is the MVP Program useful?

It is and isn’t. Its an important concept to have attached to a Product within any company, as the idea in itself is righteous. An MVP is someone who can influence others to explore a given product within Microsoft and that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. The MVP doesn’t have to be the worlds best expert at the said product, in fact a lot of MVP’s are far from that – they are however someone with whom makes an impact within the community.

Impact and influence is why the MVP Program is useful, now the problem with it today is that it’s not consistent in its approach and lastly there are quite a lot of “fanbois” in the program that can at times disarm the program’s true potential – as everyone may paint all with the same brush “bah, bunch of Microsoft yes men, who cares about them..”

MVP Program is broken because Product Teams never tell you anything.

Yup, they often will keep you in the dark about the product’s next roadmaps and at times treat you as if you were just a TechEd/MIX attendee instead of an MVP. It’s nothing personal, it’s nothing to do with you as a group it has everything to do with the word momentum.

Inside Microsoft when you own a product, you have to fight to get a launch buzz going. You fight because every other team inside the company is pretty much either getting ready to ship or talking about what could potentially ship. You in turn have to fight your way to the top of the headline heap for tech buzz.

I state this as when you have to go through this, telling an MVP is somewhat harmful to your upcoming surprise party as all it takes is an MVP to give Mary Jo / Tim Anderson (Tech Journalists) a heads up and boom not only did the surprise party fall flat but you’ve also given your competitors for the said product a heads up on talking points.

Talking points are important for competitors to know ahead of time, as when the journalists etc. get the said product briefing they in turn look for quotes / sound bytes from the said competitor (just like a political campaign). It pays to be ready.

That’s at the core of why you are probably kept in the dark about products. You got an MVP nomination because you can influence, nobody actually said you’re the chosen one and that all state secrets within Microsoft will fall before you. You need to make peace with that and more importantly you also need to understand that even Microsoft staff don’t get as much information as you do, so that is the reality an MVP today probably needs to come to grips with.

Not true, for example XYZ product team tell me stuff all the time!

Yeah, I don’t doubt that each product team has their own unique communication pattern with the said products MVP’s. It comes really back to your individual relationships with the said product team. It also comes back to the competitive threat levels attached to the Product(s) you evangelize.

An example is that in 2009 the MVP summit within Redmond, the Windows Mobile team kept their cards close to their chest and it this really pissed off the Mobile MVP’s. I remember at the time thinking “yeah, that’s not a fun team to be in right now” but to be fair, Windows Phone 7 needed to be kept locked down as much as it could be. It was a dangerous secret to let loose given its importance to the device market. Some knew, most didn’t and it was a deliberate decision.

At the same summit, we also wanted to keep features within Silverlight/Expression secret. I remember our team made a point of keeping everyone in the dark. Then Scott Guthrie got on stage and pretty much told everyone everything, so we then in turn went “well, he’s the executive in charge, I guess its out now” so we in turn reacted to this and started the communication pipelines again.

That same year, 3 MVP’s also leaked information around the products and as a result at the time of the summit journalists pickedup on the information and ran with some stories – again, partially deflating the momentum we worked months building behind the scenes for MIX?

I also in that same time fought to NOT have those three MVP’s banned from the program for the said leaks – despite the witch hunt within gunning for them. My rationale was simple, they are excited about the product why do we punish them? isn’t this what we are supposed to do ? Two MVP’s were warned one was banned (simply because he named Kittyhawk aka now as Visual Studio Lightswitch publicly).

Do MVP’s influence the features then?

In my experience they do. It’s not always obvious but there is definitely influence from MVP’s in most Microsoft Products. The problem I see in this question is I think MVP’s want a direct “you created this xyz feature, well done guys” moment. In reality it can be a small tiny spark of an idea that an MVP threw out there into the void, the teams then digest the concept and come up with some ideas similar to it etc – next thing you know, you have functional specs written and maybe the next release or thereafter, the said spark mutates into a feature.

Point is, you’d be surprised at what influence occurs via the MVP program and how it translates into a feature, its just not always obvious.

Give me an example of MVP influence?

One year, I had an MVP stay with me for a week in Redmond. He at the time didn’t’ feel as if he got much value out of the MVP summit and had a lot of questions regarding the future of ASP.NET and problems within. I figured, this guy is an MVP who is deserving (he’s good at what he does, he does a lot for the community and most of all he’s quite a humble person to know), so with that, I personally walked him around to as many people within Microsoft campus as I could at the time. We had meetings with the ASP.NET teams and he hung out with the devdiv product managers as well.

I remember one question he asked was “which should I talk about, WebForms or MVC?” and our typical response to that question was “It depends”. This wasn’t helpful for him, so we talked it out more and as a result I watched my team members at the time see first hand that “it depends” response, was bogus. They could see this guy in front of him giving them the raw data that basically WebForms and MVC adoption decisions were a confusing story.

It’s also worth pointing out that during his time with the ASP.NET team a few specs were written based off the chat and as a result I think he made impact beyond what he or I could really measure first hand?

This MVP now works for Microsoft and I think him seeing first hand the internal culture within Microsoft campus influenced not only his expectations of Microsoft but also is likely to have ripple effects for quite some time.

Nobody knew this happened, so my point stands – influence at times isn’t always as obvious and that’s why the MVP program is healthy, despite its many flaws.

Can you help me then to become an MVP?

I’ve personally been asked a few times to become an MVP since leaving Microsoft and I’ve turned them down. I don’t think I’m better than the program etc, I just don’t think I add value as to me an MVP is someone who is actually genuinely surprised at the recognition. If they wanted to make me an MVP, then it better be because I had influence or did something for the greater good.

Asking or proactively making yourself loud and obvious so that you can game the concept of becoming an MVP for me personally sours the program’s potential. It’s not about having the MVP badge on your resume, it’s about doing all the requirements of an MVP because you firstly enjoy it regardless of the title and secondly you create a two way dialogue with the very people your influencing. I grow weary of seeing the same muffin eaters at the same conferences talking the same crap over and over just so that they in turn can get the local Microsoft Evangelist’s attention in order to get a MVP nomination.

Don’t get me wrong, that formula will yield you a nomination but for me it’s the Microsoft folks who are proactive about the product that one day get an email / tweet about them being nominated as an MVP – to then have this expression of “really, wow, I hadn’t thought I meet the grade”.

Humility is needed more in the MVP ranks and ass kissing / cheer leading within the program is something that needs to be weeded out. An MVP should be also someone who’s not afraid to say “this sux, but this rox” in the same breathe.

Blind loyalty in a MVP is useless.

Never listen to critics, as they are never going to be happy with you, that’s why they’re critics. Never listen to your fans, as they are to busy being happy with everything you say. Listen to the ones that haven’t made up their mind, they in turn will help you more!

How should the MVP Program be reformed?

Don’t know, all I do know is that its broken at this point. I think it has to do with Microsoft Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) has lost its way since Walid (CVP) took over years ago. The DPE guys are all over the place and often their budgets are cut so short that boarding a plane can be an exercise of begging / frustration. I spent over $50k+ in my first year at Microsoft in travel + expenses alone, even though at the time our T&E budget was around $20k per person. I think its now much less.

Evangelism is important to the MVP program, as they are the ones who should find ways to work with the MVP’s in order to scale the evangelism rhythms. I just don’t’ see that right now.

Its broken, and it needs investigation as to why it’s broken in order to reform it. I think the answers are to few to formulate an actual plan right now.

What happens when you bring the UX person in last.

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Scott Barnes

How many of you have been to a conference that has a UX/UI Person on stage discussing the mystic art of software development and design? In that said session they at some point raise the slide that outlines you should engage a UX person early and think about UI/UX from the start.

How many of you then go back to your respective cubicles, nodding in agreement but then immediately go into a new project ignoring the said suggestion?

Don’t lie, I see you looking back in a nervous manner and shouting out reasons like “Well, we didn’t have the budget” or “My boss wouldn’t …” etc.

Meet Mr Wolf

Just like in Pulp Fiction, a guy like me is called in after the crime has been committed. I’m the guy you bring in after you accidently killed someone and its my job to navigate the mess in order to get you back to your life without prison time. If I succeed, you don’t’ spend the rest of your life in jail if I fail, well, learn how to fight using prison rules.

When I come into a team in this situation, the thing that I notice the most is they are looking for guidance around a plan, in that it’s a case of me analyzing the situation, asking a series of specific questions relating to the said scene and then giving them a task list to execute on – whilst being clear to stick to my rules or well, good luck in jail.

The problem with this approach at times is that you have usually one or two people in the room who ask for your help but at the same time are giving your orders on how to clean the mess up quicker – each time they do this they in turn increase their chances of prison time.

It’s a hard balance to participate in from my perspective as I have to figure out a way to firstly give a design and experience to the software’s targeted end users in a way that isn’t just a screen after screen of tree controls and datagrids whilst at the same time having a low impact to the codebase and lastly but more importantly doing it within a very tight timeframe/budget?

Its hard work and you know what, its going to cost you so don’t whine about it.

Had you called me from the start, it would have been a completely different outcome and yes, you’ve heard this thousands of times at whatever conference you last attended – engage a UX person early and let them direct the screens overall compensations – design first engineer second.

I personally have been pulled into over 30+ projects in the last year that have this exact situation unfolding before me, in that it’s the last two sprints of a project, I’m playing a massive game of UX Tetris with WPF/Silverlight or Wp7 and I’m constantly being harassed on time/budget questions.

It sux but that’s the reality of the role I play in this business, the guy who can code and design at the same time. Its why I charge the amounts I do and sure the price attracts attention but in truth If you follow my rules and approach you will come out with a finished result. If you interject along the way with the way you think it should be done, fine, I’ll do it your way but if it fails – given the inexperience so far, it will – then to be fair, you were warned.

My way or the wrong way.

The way I approach situations where I’m brought in at the last hour is via the following routine.

The Primitives. In every application you have what I call the primitives, in that these are the buttons, modal windows, textbox’s, scrollbars, checkboxes etc. .. the stuff you get out of the box for free with .NET. My first attack posture is to start building out a resource dictionary library for you to bootstrap your UI against. In that for example TextBox and Button controls I start putting into what I call the UI-Shirt-Sizes, Large, Medium and Small. If your form in question requires the user enter 15chars min/max, who cares, the end user is open to the idea that this textbox is a small one that magically doesn’t let me type more than those pre-defined characters.

If your software has a large sentence like “Find a users profile” labels on buttons – guess what I’m going to do, re-label that as “Find..” keep it simple less extraneous cognitive load and more assume the user has used software before they picked up yours.
The Layout. Chances are you’ve probably put together a UI that I can only describe as a DataGrid orgy followed by copious amounts of Modal windows and screens that probably looks like the dashboard of a Qantas Jet in terms of fields/inputs etc. Just for giggles, I’m also likely to find a TreeGrid control because of some random hierarchy based navigational weird mutation of a need (you know who you are, there’s no shame in admitting that)
I’m going to simplify this down to the point where the data flows in a fashion that makes sense to the outcome of the screens purpose. I’m also going to look for ways to make use of a party trick called “progressive disclosure” as you do want the user to feel like they stand a chance at success should they use your software don’t you?

This is what I call the hostage negotiation in that chances are there is an entity in the room that is locked on the way it works at the moment and its my job to find a way to get you to release parts of the UI so I can find a happy resolution to the situation. I’m going to ask you to give me a little control over how the UI comes together and in return I’ll turn the lights back on followed by some pizza. We need to build trust and you got to work with me on this one, I can make good on some promises if you do!
The Validations. I have seen some crazy ways that developers have approached the simplistic concept of alerting the user that they did something wrong. What I have noticed the most is its kind of OnChange vs OnSubmit mode of approach. The reality is validation isn’t that, as you have the “Hey before we show you this form, here’s where you need to focus”, “Hey I just noticed you filled out that field wrong, can you fix it”, “Hey I am about to send this data off and noticed the form isn’t really done yet?” and lastly “hey I know at the time you sent this the form felt like it was good, but the server just called me and told me its wrong, so can you go fix” .. point is, IDataErrorInfo implementation is only going to work so far.
I focus on this area is this is where at times bugs tend to get brought up and it can be a case of where the most effort can be spent trying to undo user fail. Its important that one approaches this in a way that makes sense to the end user and you also find ways to decode the error in a meaningful way – not one that aims to reduce the user to a dribbling mess of “I don’t speak computer geek?”

Validation styling and alert states are crucial.
The BackgroundWorker. Its not about just fixing the UI look and user experience fail points its also about shift the work into areas that make the application feel snappy. In WPF the UI Thread is an absolute pain in the butt when you at times talk to WCF – in that I have seen a lot of apps that keep the entire workload under the one thread only. In Silverlight this can be a fairly low risk situation given Async works ok, but in WPF it means your application grinds to a halt until the service layer comes back from the dead. It also isn’t just a threading issue its also a latency issue as well.
Latency is a buzz killer in making the user feel like the application is responsive, it creates this effect in which the user punishes themselves and attempts to pay their debt by trying again and again etc if left unchecked. Its situations like this I look for ways in making the user aware that they did a good job but at the same time finding ways to NOT remind them of time – as time is the enemy given each millisecond you are banking hate debt with the user?

This is where I look for ways to use some slight of hand techniques to convince the user there isn’t a problem and everything is fast / efficient in the software. I also may lie to the user if I can eg Please wait while Security authenticates you” – damn those Security Nazi’s I agree, it sux but what can you do – its actually an effective way to pacify users as you all collectively shake your fist at IT Department for always riding you about security – when I reality I’m waiting for blah service to wake up from its slumber?

Point is, find a common villain to throw under a bus or find a way to keep peoples attention away from their watch (eg: Now herding llamas for the great stampede …< MAXIS do this in their games, it works)

I’ll leave there as this is turning into a tomb of gospel around how I approach my job, but the point is that I do have a process and there is a method to my madness. I’ve been in a lot of fire drills with WPF/Silverlight and WP7 and I’ve now settled on some patterns that have produced results around nice UI/UX and customers happy.

The reality is this though, you could of saved yourself minimum double through to quadruple the amount of money it cost by bringing me in early instead of late. I can’t say it enough, engage early and upfront you will save, you may be skeptical htats fine, but either way a person like me gets paid – its just a matter of how much?

The rise and fall of Microsoft’s UX platform – Part 4

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Scott Barnes

WPF Time of Death.

Time to call it, December 2nd 2010. Seriously, I have thought about the Silverlight Firestarter event for a few weeks now with a focus on reading how the rest of the world kind of digests the vNext of Silverlight.

Its very clear if you read between the lines that Silverlight is shaping up to replace the WPF workload, and whilst Microsoft will roll out the engineers + shipping routine its pretty much all they aren’t doing before WPF is officially declared dead. Shipping is realistically the one thing they have left and even that’s looking a bit sketchy and cumbersome to watch.

It’s clear with Silverlight5 my old comrades in arms at Redmond have even stopped paying lip service to the x-platform discussion with many of the new features being Windows specific. It’s also clear given Windows Phone 7 failing in the market that now is not the time to give Microsoft’s biggest competitor, Apple momentum or face an internal career firing squad.

WPF has enormous amount of hidden potential, its not marketed but its there. It’s not a bad desktop platform to build against and majority of the issues that I have personally faced with the product are due to basically quality assurance sloppiness. Its still got work-around solutions though, so you in turn forgive it’s sins.

Technically being ok is not enough though, you need to go wide and far in promoting its existence and the return on investment you could potentially yield from the platform. That’s not happening and its also clear that there’s zero paid community evangelism efforts in market right now to uphold this line of thinking.

An example, Where is the WPF fire starter Microsoft? where is any event for that matter that focuses on exploring the bounty of WPF?

Scott Guthrie’s blog is typically a marketing announcement channel given his geek-fame over the years. It’s often we in marketing would joke (sarcasm) “its a good thing we have ScottGu’s blog, as boy we almost needed an official marketing site for Silverlight” – jokes aside, Scott doesn’t talk about WPF at all (check out the below tag cloud)

WPFDead

If i were to audit Microsoft today online and tally up WPF vs. Silverlight, which would win? Argue with the notion that something is dead or isn’t but its definitely clear that WPF hasn’t a bright future as its technology cousin – Silverlight.

Windows Phone 7 – Fail.

I have predicted that I think WP7 is going to not win consumers over but I figured that it would take a couple of years before that is realized. Hearing reports that the device has small units of sale and now some resellers are slashing prices in a hope to stimulate the market to buy, is just downright disappointing.

Its not that the phone is bad, its actually got a load of potential. As whilst I’m a WPF fan at heart, I do still also enjoy working with Silverlight (which has this kind of polarizing effect on me). I just think that the Metro User Interface is simply killing the products potential.

It’s important to call that out, given this is the “face” of the brand. It looks tacky, not well thought out and clearly lacks usability principles needed to navigate a small device. It puts to much emphasis on typography and downplays visual elements to provide structure and grouping to the components within (ie Extraneous Cognitive Load).

The keyboard is to primitive and the keys are narrow. I’ve sat down and looked at the iPhone and Wp7 keyboards and for me the WP7 looks like a prototype version of the concept. The keys don’t necessarily guide you to aim for the middle, where as the iPhone keys are spaced but at the same time the hit area isn’t exactly confined to that space. You in turn are more likely to focus on your target even though the spacing is artificial.

Typography is weak and at times doesn’t even do the basics – in outlook a list of bold means new, unbold means read, yet you still don’t even get this? The menu system is a endless vertical nightmare, as whilst its great to list things its important to also balance out your screen between scrolling and displaying. I find the constant scrolling down to be cumbersome and annoying especially when you’re debugging an Application you’re writing for the phone.

I could list more and I’ll be talking 1:1 with Wp7 Product Management, but i think my point here is made, this phone needs more energy and focus. It has enormous potential ahead of it but for the space price or thereabouts as its biggest 800lb gorilla competitor is simply unrealistic. Lower the price or fix the UI, make a choice as the UX for Microsoft is dying as-is. Which brings me to my next point.

Designers aren’t interested anymore.

If you look at the AppStore market place, majority of the apps are visually engaging and have definitely some design bloodlines in the room. If you look at the Microsoft marketplace its pretty clear that designers aren’t in the room in large quantities.

No designers means wasted technology, wasted technology means some team internally right now is coming up with the “fix” for this (which in their minds is an engineering problem not an engagement problem). The reality is you can throw all the tools you want at this problem as well as the platforms, but unless you truly evangelize in a non-aggressive way to this market. You’re just wasting good money on technology that goes nowhere.

If you were to compare 2007/2008 Evangelism efforts to present, You would see this massive disconnect between strong in your face marketing to the art community to today being a bunch of engineers high fiving one another about how awesome things are. The reality is, unless you can add some design blood lines to this new UX driven world, your technology hasn’t moved forward, you’re just rebadging old technology with much weirder UI.

Summary

Silverlight 5 is WPF’s new replacement, and I really don’t have that much of a problem with this other than if you’re going to make this the vNext desktop focus, then commit. Don’t do it half-assed, get those 200+ engineers and get your butts into gear and open it up more. If you aren’t going to do this, then take 100+ engineers out of that 200 and get them to focus on doing more with WPF so that the two are more aligned to save cross-targeting related issues – as news flash Redmond, nobody really thinks that far ahead as to which technology is likely to give them an outcome they desire. Choosing Silverlight first then hitting a wall and retreating back to WPF is unrealistic as it means people need to know its faults completely end to end and how these map to their business constraints upfront? sorry no.

Windows Phone 7 needs something. It needs a more structured approach to user experience and it needs to solve WPF and Silverlights initial problem – how to get designers to the cause. Unless Microsoft gets off their butts and re-invest into the designer focused communities, these products are destined to follow the same non-starters as previous incarnations of the Windows Phone operating systems as well as the low saturation levels in the wild of both Silverlight/WPF publically.

“There are certainly some functionality shortfalls, and we are going to work to address them,” – Joe Belfiore / Microsoft.

Microsoft needs to get back to evangelism 101 and more importantly the notion that just because you ship doesn’t mean you’re committed to the future. Creating features and releasing them isn’t enough, unless you broadcast and win the hearts & minds over all you’re effectively doing is having a bunch of engineers in Redmond high five one another over a release that could be epic if it got momentum – FAIL.

Silverlight and HTML5, Rainbows, Sunshine and Bullshit.

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Scott Barnes

I look at all the hysteria around technolgyX vs. technologyY and immediately tend to ignore anything said within the blog posts or news articles. It’s not important enough to get all worked up about, as the real core element of these arguments is which is going to be popular vs. which isn’t?

Take the current week or so around HTML5 vs. Silverlight. The reality is most plug-in or desktop centric developers who are content with the status quo probably aren’t even going to be interested in HTML5 unless someone pays them a nice hefty sum of money to do so – if and only when – their current work stream dries up.

The reality of the conversation around these two titans of technology isn’t which is better, its more to the core essence of the argument – which is Microsoft going to favor. It’s an important point to make as when the rainbows and sunshine circle jerks are over, someone has to stand before an Bob Muglia and declare where they are going to spend the budgets for the next fiscal and why.

Windows Phone 7 is obviously going to take the lions share next fiscal, Internet Explorer 9 will also have a hefty amount attached to it as well. This in turn creates a ripple effect downstream as once the budget lines are declared internally it then generates bounty / career opportunities as well. It doesn’t stop there, being seen to be on the winning product of the month is a easy career booster but more importantly it also at times can determine where the Evangelism teams worldwide are to spend the bulk of their energy.

I’ll be fair, Evangelism inside Microsoft has a purpose and that is to be ahead of the technology release waves, in that their job is to get the crowd world wide excited ahead of a release. It then falls back to the marketing / sales pipelines to then sustain that excitement once the Evangelism squads have had their mission re-routed.

The playbook

Here lies the problem with this playbook. The first is that Sales/Marketing folks aren’t really goaled too heavily on Market share centric metrics – they are rewarded more for Revenue share focused metrics. Silverlight has zero revenue share, Internet Explorer has zero revenue share but Windows Phone 7 has revenue share.

Here lies the dilemma though. On one hand you have a product that has a number attached to it that can get sales / marketing teams excited. In order to be effective in promotion of this product they need to excite the wider mass around it – which in turn means free Silverlight marketing. The downside is that Internet Explorer 9 is important as well so Microsoft has to give some focus to the HTML5 cause.

Do you start to see the problems with that? it requires a consistent unique clear strategy on how to separate the two concepts from one another.

This is pretty much why BobMu came out and stated what he said but kind of fumbled it not only once but twice in the process. The reality is that Microsoft will want to slightly turn down the volume on Silverlight so that IE9 can get its share of the spotlight. In order to wind the volume down, you got to start saying things like Silverlight + Mobility over and over while turning up the volume on Internet Explorer 9 + HTML5 + Applications a bit louder than before.

Silverlight gets thrown under a bus.

I have been mucking around with this, and I probably shouldn’t via twitter. That being said, Silverlight isn’t a dead technology – yet – it’s still got legs as whilst Microsoft’s intent is obviously crank Internet Explorer 9 + HTML5 volume pretty loud as well as Windows Phone 7 – the reality is out of the 600k Silverlight developers and plethora of WPF developers left uncounted, they pretty much couldn’t give a rats ass about HTML5 in the first place.

I wouldn’t necessarily declare HTML5 the victor simply because Microsoft said so. I’d look at this more of a case of wait and see, in that sure Microsoft will market the crap out of IE9 but in reality this product is a stillborn brand in the first place and furthermore HTML5 is nowhere near ready for prime time adoption.

All this will do however is scare the crap out of business decision makers who don’t know better. Technical decision makers may or may not be shy about Silverlight and it really comes back to how Microsoft can redeem themselves beyond their current fumblings – (I’m hopeful Scott Guthrie this week at DevConnections will do a better job at his Commitment speech than BobMu alongside leaking some hints around what Silverlight 5 is going to have to ensure people are focused on the actionable elements within such a commitment speech).

In summary.

HTML5 vs. Silverlight is going to be a hot topic until Microsoft tips its hand on which one it favors the most but right now you won’t get that from the company as to do so means sacrificing two legacy brands that are filled with enough hate debt to cause major hurt amongst the masses.

Windows Phone 7 has to overcome Windows Phone 6.5 and below legacy related issues that aren’t technical but more conceptual.

Internet Explorer 9 has to overcome everything from the IE6 disaster through to the IE7 and IE8 disasters all the while showing that they aren’t interested in the Embrace & Extend forking that its historically been known to do. This one brand has caused more negativity for Microsoft as a brand than any other product since Office + Clippy.

You’re going to see Evangelists etc talk about "choice" and "it depends" as that’s all they can really throw at you right now, bottom line for you to think about is not which tech is better but where do you think Microsoft will place its bets next. As once they decide, one of the two will end up in the heap alongside WinForms, WebForms and sadly – *sob* WPF.

The only way I can see Silverlight teams putting out this tire fire is if they release the Silverlight5 roadmap now, it will add weight to the usual fluff commitment pledge as well is giving all a better understanding of how things to come are supposed to connect with one another.

I would like to see a better focused strategy around how Microsoft UX Platform looks tomorrow as the old 2007 one is kind of a bit rusty now given all the new technology variables at play.

WPF has no Product Manager.

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Scott Barnes

WPF has a lot of potential going for it, it’s one of these products that you absolutely hate upfront when you first start on its learning curve but over time you grow to love it dearly as it unleashes a lot of creative potential within you early.

There’s been a lot of talk recently around its futures, namely by myself but also in various forums, discussion lists and so on. It’s both healthy but at the same time it’s not being heard by the right people internally within Microsoft.

WPF has a few problems to sort out, firstly there is what I call the convincing phase, in that getting people to initial embrace the latest version of .NET 4.0 is a challenge unto itself – which has next to no marketing attached. The second challenge, is the ask that folks get behind the learning curve / investment of adopting WPF instead of Silverlight for desktop based solutions. It’s a challenge because Silverlight Out of Browser has confused a little on which is best for what and where. The last but most important challenge of all is the learning curve attached to WPF, as it’s somewhat a very chaotic and noisy Google search to undertake.

Why adopt WPF?

In 2007, I was an Evangelist for Microsoft via Australia for this question. I’d probably give you some prescribed marketing spin that went something like this:

“WPF is for ultimate experience, Silverlight is for great experiences and lastly AJAX/HTML is for good experiences”

I’d then throw up a slide and show you the three pillars of Microsoft UX Platform and how we as a company are investing big into the futures of developer & designer productivity. Its obvious that was a lie, and apologies to any who bought it – as even I bought it.

The reality behind why adopt WPF is simple, you have full control over your user experience on a Windows based PC (both Windows XP and Vista/Windows7). You have more ubiquity (70% of Windows machines today – have at least .NET 3.5 installed) than Silverlight and in many ways typically have more support around API’s then Silverlight. You have a much more engaging interop story (ie access to the quasi 3D now in WPF but should you want to go big, you can again via interop do more). You have now a descent amount of download size as well, roughly ~40mb give or take to deploy with.

I could list a whole bunch more reasons, but the end summary is that WPF has a lot of positives attached to it today than people typically think or know?

If it’s so good, Why is WPF dying then?

I’ve thought about this question a lot since leaving the WPF/Silverlight teams. I’ve blogged about the fact I think its dead, I’ve explained many times over the reasons why there is internal politics getting in the way but ultimately what it comes back to is simply a Product Management problem. As a former Product Manager of this product, I simply wasn’t doing my job for WPF. I ignored it, it was easy to do so as Silverlight was the main star in this theater.

WPF isn’t being evangelized anymore, it has zero marketing and more importantly the development team within Microsoft are tasked with all of this as well as partner hand holding and actually development of the said product. Scott Guthrie can throw a random 200+ engineers are working on it all he likes, but ask anyone internally if I’m lying about who does what and where, and I will guarantee you the bulk of the work falls into the hands of the WPF Engineering team to do it all solo.

Point and case, Evernote this week blogged about how they abandoned WPF and went C++ instead, citing performance reasons etc. as the reason(s) why. Fair enough, but what struck me is odd was that none of the usual suspects where jumping ahead of this PR issue, in that typically you see something like this you quickly put some spin on it, reassure the masses with your said messaging framework and rinse/repeat until you get downright annoying about how good WPF is still.

Didn’t happen.

Still not convinced? take Windows 7 Launch. I remember seeing an internal memo about how the said campaign was going to work and more importantly how $300million+ in marketing budget was going to be spent convincing the world that Windows 7 is a good bet this time round. “I’m a PC” was born.

I also remember sitting in a team meeting discussing what story we would pitch for WPF/Silverlight around Windows 7? we soon learnt that Windows 7 had the same developer story as it did Windows Vista. This then resulted in the team deciding that since there was nothing new or shiny to talk about, we’d just leave it be.

This frustrated a colleague and myself. The reason being is that who said Windows Vista + WPF got traction? who said we still couldn’t use the same goals as we did back then! I mean our team even re-branded .NET logo to fit into a more up to date branding strategy.

We simply didn’t go out there and market .NET 4.0 or 3.5 along with Windows 7. We should have been hitting the usual channels, promoting how with WPF you can get blah blah potential out the door. We should have been investing heavily into adoption channels, ensuring the future of tomorrows .NET developer was embracing Windows as well as the potential for cross-platform, cross-device and cross-browser technologies.

Learn once today, Use many tomorrow – or a cheesy tag line like that should have been conjured.

Instead Silverlight is and now Wp7 are being pushed as the sole future(s) of Microsoft. It’s no wonder the Windows team aren’t on board with DevDiv, as when you take a step back and look at what they have to leverage from the developer community – then you are left with a solution that basically works in all other platforms as well as their own? the only chance you get of keeping that genie in the bottle is to bake features that are Windows Specific into place – yet this won’t bode well as that level of adjustment to an existing agnostic product won’t happen as it simply deposits large amount(s) of hate debt into the bank from developers world wide (embrace and extend is a known tactic of Microsoft that breeds distrust and disagreement)

WPF needs Product Management 101

PDC has finally got one session in its talk agenda that is focused on WPF. It took the guy in charge of WPF’s development teams to step up and do Microsoft Developer/Platform Evangelism Team(s) (DPE) job. Rob is an awesome guy and I have a deep amount of respect for his work, it just seems downright disappointing that he’s got to focus on a session talk instead of sitting in a bubble thinking up better ways to develop WPF’s future(s).

MIX and TechEd for the last 2 years has had little next to none (I can think of anyway) WPF discussions happening, essentially Microsoft is putting WPF on its ignore list.

What needs to happen is Product Management 101, there needs to be an actual WPF Product Manager dedicated to its future. At the moment that role fits under the Silverlight Team at best, and is thinly spread between Silverlight, Windows Phone 7 and any if not all Rich Platform compete issues ranging from Adobe centric through to the threat of HTML5. There is no one person really owning this problem, just a few directors appearing to.

Product Management is about protecting the brand, it’s about sitting down with partners and figuring out what features worked vs what didn’t. It’s about thinking about how your competitors are doing xyz and then coming up with ways to differentiate from them. It’s about working with community leads (corporate and street evangelists) ensuring they understand your vision for the future of the said product. It’s about crafting a marketing channel (web page, blog etc) that echoes your reasons for why it exists, where its heading and what successes and failures its had. It’s about investing in learning material on features that are rated the hardest and letting developers discover the ones on their own that are less harder (it plays into the psychology of learning, if you learn something that is a little hard but tad easy, your confidence levels rise). It’s about ensuring others are inspired by your products vision and compete with one another to create beautiful experiences that go beyond your initial baseline of expectations.

None of this exists today. It all sits in the hands of the engineering team who are doing all this and actually coding at the same time.

Scott Guthrie said there were 200+ engineers working on WPF & Silverlight. How many are working on WPF and more importantly how many people are marketing WPF & .NET 4.0 today? If its more than one, then tell me, what have they done lately?

As I seem to be the most vocal guy on the planet right now about WPF and nobody has challenged me head-on in proving me wrong?

I’ve often thought about what I’d say if someone actually asked me to move back to Microsoft Corp and take on this role? my first answer would be – I want to sit next to the development teams and I want a ring fenced budget that I spend solely on WPF, give me those and I’ll do the job again, only this time I’ll execute more precisely.

Ruby On Rails has less to work with and they’ve kicked Microsoft’s butt so badly now, that its now considered a competitive threat! do more with less I guess?

Windows Phone 7 – Where is Don Draper when you need him?

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Scott Barnes

I’m looking at the latest in many of bad experiences found on Microsoft.com regarding the new improved Windows Phone 7. My first thoughts are, I guess the budget was low this year for the website but then thinking on it i’m probably going to wager that around $200-$500k USD was probably spent on this site via some internal global vendor.

Let me deconstruct the site so you can maybe get a sense of what I see (Lots of visuals). I’ll also compare it to the already entrenched and spark of creation for this phone – the iPhone and its respective site.

Value Propositions.

If you’re taking a product to market, you pretty settle on what you would call the “Value Proposition” in that its your initial promise that you want people to remember the most – it’s what I call the impact / aka upper cut. Windows Phone 7 isn’t clear on what its main value proposition is, its a phone OS which is fine, but what does this phone do that all phones don’t do. More to the point, why did Microsoft spend so much time and energy getting this phone ready for market – what’s the secret sell or sizzle that I’m about to be knocked over in its sheer awesomeness?

Comparison.

Microsoft

The very first entry page of the site (assuming I come in from here) puts me through approx 5sec animation of what the introduction to the phone is. The first parts are a bunch of squares or tiles which overload me with brands ranging from Bing to Zune (care factor, as these aren’t a household name as yet world wide)?

Secondly I’m hit with what I can only describe as Dr Suess style messaging.

…Say hello to Windows phone
the only phone with live tiles.
less stop and stare more glance and go
less out of touch more in the know?..

I don’t even know what that means. Live tiles? stop and stare? is that even a problem? its less out of touch and more in the know? what do you mean?

It’s one thing to open with a question to trigger an action, its another to completely ignore you and confuse.

Looking beyond the animation and assuming you can read the sequences fast enough, let’s assume the user scans down to the bottom, where I can only guess as being the main hubs of navigation.

Explore my choices.
I’m guessing this is a good start for me to shop for the said phone, important if i already know ahead of time about the phone and i just want to jump straight into purchase mode.
Make Windows Phone Yours.
Demo area, good, so you have a virtual phone I can play with. I’m liking this, as rather then sit through silly marketing speak, i can just play. I click on this, boom, Facebook.com – guess what guys, most corporations around the world specifically block Facebook as a URL given the ample amount of time waste that goes on there (hey i disagree with this but it is what it is). Furthermore, why am I now on facebook? and why aren’t i able to just play with this inside the same website? what If I want to explore what else you have to say? where are my options?
The place to shop?
Oh so this is Microsoft’s “AppStore” ok, I’m seeing some potential here, but can we first establish what the phone is first? I’ll get to that a bit later maybe?

Where is the navigation? oh its the small text above in vertical stack formation with poor spacing.

Apple

The first thing you see when you visit the iPhone website is a highly impact visible slide show presentation on the value proposition of the iPhone4. Its bright, its impactful and no branding overload. They could of went to town here on Google maps, iTunes, eBay, Safari etc.. they didn’t, they kept it on point and you focused – here’s what the phone can do that we think is important upfront.

They also underpin the value propositions with clear well spaced list and palatable enough read around what the said slide show probably just told you should you still not pay full attention. The point is, they are reinforcing what they think you should be focused on and not distracting you off the site. They are making the pitch to you, and are working hard to retain your full attention.

Looking below this page, notice how they break the navigation into areas of interest. It essentially is attacking the user from a matrix of context as in for those who just want to know what;s inside the phone, features is probably a good bet. For those who are interested in the design of the phone, again, feast your eyes on that link called – Design. OS itself your cup of tea? here you go, here’s whats new and old in the operating system. Apps, Gallery and Technical specs again clearly partitioned and you can at a glance get some deep understanding of what this phone story looks like.

Apple are very good in their website design comparison to Microsoft, but my points above here is that you are immediately left with a sense of both what’s potentially inside this new gadget as well as given a sense of spatial awareness around finding out ways to find more information should the value propositions still not convince you to go into a store and play.

The main important piece here is getting you into their stores, buying online is fine but lets face it, you will most likely want to play with this phone physically first before you buy. Once I have you in my store i can attack you from all points via customer service reps through to convincing you my promise (value prop) is true. Trust.

Less is More.

Moving beyond the initial sell, let’s go deeper into the site and explore true functionality of the phone. Having a sense of awareness of the depth of the Windows Phone 7 is important but at the same time you don’t want to overload them with excess information. Let them play with the phone in store or virtually if you can will answer a lot of that excess data but the most important thing is to attack them in a way that they will appreciate in that – give me the basics, give me what i get that i normally wouldn’t get and lastly how does this look visually!

Comparison

Microsoft.

If you click on Discover you are given what I can only describe is a list of random points that dont seem to have a sense of grouping and lastly a sudden need to cram branding overload into the pitch.

Why do i care about XBOX Live? Bing? Windows Live? Facebook? and more importantly where is Twitter? hey since we are in the mood for name dropping why stop with these.. point is, it’s Microsoft teams pitching themselves first customers second here. It’s obvious and shallow and unnecessary.

The headings are ok, I’m fine with the three (3) sections of break downs, but keep it simple stupid?

It gets worse, I can’t even click on the phone it’s inviting to me that the phone looks virtual, but wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for me to play around with it? explore it? go deeper? ignore your sales pitch and play? as you’re probably not helping me anyway?

As I click on each of the “Discovery Points of Interest” I soon realize that i am first meet with a tagline followed by another click on reading more? I’m all for white space Microsoft but really, this forces my reading habits to slow down to a pace that I’m probably not as comfortable with. Give me the opportunity to speed read through the areas I think could be interesting vs the ones I probably think aren’t? instead I have to go through a 3 click uninspiring process of both reading text and keeping an eye on animation(s) at the same time – i think this may actually qualify for cognitive overload.

More importantly, what is a hub by the way? (I know because I’m an early adopter and its my job to know) but have we clarified what a Hub is on the website btw? I can’t seem to find out the story behind that? Ignoring the Hub definition if you then click on the Music + Videos Hub you will be meet with the similar looking tagline followed by a more action..clicking on the more action you are then given a fairly reasonable looking paragraph about the story of Music + Video. It however still wants me to click more on finding out about this thing called Zune (living outside the US, Zune isn’t known, so wtf is a Zune?). After that click, I’m now taking to a different area of the site with really what I call a “Well good luck, hope you figure the rest out” purpose. There’s no elegant hand off to this part of the site and more importantly you just broke my concentration.

Shallow experience here in the discovery of this phone. Microsoft are being lazy and not really delving deep into an immersive experience that gives me clear precise clarity around what this phone has or hasn’t got. I can’t skip ahead and i’m reduced to a pace that probably isn’t going to make impact.

Apple

Let’s not muck around, Apple are good at their feature break-outs, but the thing I liked the most is you can watch a video on the phone itself (Good entry point to watch that expensive advertisement you put into TV/Online no?)

Furthermore, the page asks one thing of you, and that is “Are you happy to scroll down?” and to be fair its a habitual ask meaning its already baked into all users on the web as part of their day to day muscle memory.

The more you scroll down the more you see what’s inside the phone and its simple, Tagline, paragraph, big visual and a learn more point which takes you to a deeper insight into that feature. They position the phone well, they treat you with respect as a potential consumer and they are working hard to entice you into areas of your interest and less Apple’s.

Apple also won’t burden you with brand overload here and when they do, they do so in a way that is digestible. Constant re-use of the phone and screens within the phone that highlight areas of interest. Clicking on iPod you get a good sense of what Music will look like under the iPhone regime and yes they introduced the brand iPod – but they are allowed to, know why? iPod is ubiquitous around the world its an established brand. Zune isn’t.

Conclusion.

Microsoft Marketing need to wake the hell up, get back to basics and find a Don Draper style character to head-up their online presence. Loose the Barney & Friends commercials and treat this product like it was the first time in the world you’ve told people about the story of Microsoft and Phones. Stop playing a game of hide and seek with information and more importantly down-play other brands if they aren’t as well seeded.

Everyone in that team needs to pick up a book “Don’t make me think” and learn usability 101 mixed with marketing 101. Get people to stores to play with the phone, make them promises online but make sure you can back them up world-wide. This isn’t a US focused product, its a world-wide one and you need to entice the consumers in a way that makes sense to them as well as keep up to speed with your competitive issues.

This phone needs to beat iPhone and Android, and it needs to win.

GUI Design : I like to focus on important tasks.

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Scott Barnes

I take a lot of inspiration from the iPhone, as to me its this device that fits in your hand and has not a lot of real estate, yet it accomplishes more tasks at times than most computer desktops today. I can make calls, check email, look at calendar, browse sites online, play a game, set a task, take notes, tag a song for future purchase, tag a book for future purchase and so on.

All tucked inside a small device.

I typically each morning, check email in bed when I first wake up – habit from working at Microsoft where email dominates your life – and it struck me this morning about the way the iPhone was designed. I looked at the outer frame, and noticed for the first time that it was designed in such a way to be simply a "frame" to what is important, the software.

It hit me as a profound thought that despite the look and attraction of the iPhone, the actual device itself was firstly made to look appealing as it sits in your hand, but secondly it was designed to fade into the background when you decide to actually use it.

Armed with this thought, I jumped on both my iMac and Windows machine and explored the various applications I have installed and noticed that there seems to be a lot of confusion on the Windows side of things and less on the OSX side of things. It struck me that the difference between Windows and OSX isn’t the brand wars, it’s the subtle way things are designed to keep people focused on the task and less on the framing of the task.

In Windows, each application becomes its own pattern, or "iPhone" whereas on OSX typically most applications chrome looks the same, in fact it must be extremely hard for software vendors to deviate from Apple’s look and feel.

This then made me think about how I’ve designed UI in the past, and I often think about the way I’ve approached the overall user interface. I have since then experimented with the way one project’s design looks, and thought about how my chrome should be prominent at the start of the applications boot sequence (login etc). Then once the hygiene task has taken place, it’s job is then to blend into the background.

Look at below, you will see that in isolation the design (even in its blank canvas form) becomes a focal point, the icon and then the panel at top etc.

Now look at the change if I simply add a rounded white rectangle, the actual chrome fades to the background, and the white overpowers your attention. You probably wouldn’t of even noticed this had i not told you about it either.

This to me is where I think software design – aka interaction design – can make or break you in terms of how users interact with your solution. My theory is that a user interfaces job is to take you to the heart of a problem, its job is to connect you to the most important thing you can possibly do from within the context of the application. Sadly though, I rarely see this in software design today, all too often I see the software become more of a Swiss army knife in terms of features and needs. The argument there is well we are good at processing multiple tasks at the same time, which is true, but i also can’t but help wonder if we’re following the same mundane pattern over and over, resulting in no evolution in GUI.

The only evolution in GUI that I’ve really seen in the last 5+ years has been the introduction of gesture based interfaces (iPhone, Microsoft Surface etc). This has changed the way we’ve approached design, as now it’s about touching the glass and manipulating design with our hands. It’s about designing around the fact we can’t see through our hands and traditional software GUI has to change into something that accommodates the new approach.

In doing this, we reverted back to simplicity. This to me, highlights that as much as we want to argue that Office Ribbon for example makes life easier to experience the plethora of features found in Microsoft Word etc, the reality is, they (Office Team) just found a way to simplify the overall interface to the bare minimum, and keep people focused on the important features.

The problem though is I can’t seem to separate the framing of the software from the functionality, meaning as I type this blog post in Microsoft Word, I keep noticing the Ribbon Menu as I type. I instead want the UI to somehow take the life of the white document space and this is all I see, then when I need something from the office draw, I then go to it. The same as if I would on my desk at home, where if I need a post-it note etc, I turn away, open a draw and get it.

Its a rough example, but the point is hopefully made.

EGOSPY – Sneak Peak.

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Scott Barnes

It’s now approx 1 week since I left Microsoft and its been an amazing and relaxing time for me, in which I’ve sat down and mapped out various RIA based projects I’ve wanted to work on for the past 3 years. The one project that’s taking the bulk of my latest interest is an application I’ve called “EGOSPY”, something in which I think the RIA community will probably meet with mixed feelings.

The application came to me yesterday after I watched a few comments on a blog post I posted on InsideRIA.com around Adobe and the recent iPhone announcement. The parts that struck me as being odd, were not so much the opinions expressed by folks on that blog, but it was more along the lines of what they were saying and how they went about saying it. I’ve often found the overall behavior in general around the RIA community very political when it comes to choosing a technology platform to adopt (on both sides of the isle). Its always been a fascination for me, as I’ve been on both sides of the firing lines and have watched in depth how various factions interact with one another.

In light of this morbid curiosity I seem to have, I thought of an idea on what if someone tracked these skirmishes? in that what if someone wrote an Application that essentially keeps score, measures the impact each event has and as well as track the behavioral patterns of the folks who comment etc. This is what EGOSPY is going to do and the chuckle part for me is I’m building this in both Adobe AIR and Silverlight Out of Browser – in case others may want to peak at the data, they can do so but not have their brand-religion impacted (choose your poison if you will).

You can see a sneak peak at the concept in play so far (basically its a still of the console) as i’ve got the base foundation laid for both Adobe AIR and Silverlight codebase + assets. I’m now wiring the various moving parts to it, aka the secret sauce.

I intend to use both Amazon Simple Database and S3 Storage as well as ASP.NET and Windows Communication Foundation as the proxy/filter at times between Amazon and the Client.

http://www.mossyblog.com/lab/prototypes/egospy/

I’ve also drafted a breakdown of the types of personas I’ll be monitoring and looking to validate with some basic home grown research. Feel free to add/subtract your input here:

High Priest/Priestess.
The architects of a brands doctrine and will often be seen at major religious events only. These entities will often command the Priest/Priestess into action in and around how they approach situations that require a response from a brand. They will at times take a passive aggressive approach to competing brands in an open format, all the while providing a behavior model in which they expect to be repeated by Disciples, Priests/Priestess and Fanatics.

Priests/Priestess.
Belong to the secret order of a corporation and their jobs are to ensure all believers of the brand remain so. They will typically enlist and/or encourage Fanatics/Disciples to fight for a particular cause, especially if a brand’s doctrine is challenged openly. They often prefer a swarming effect to an event in the hope of drowning out all chances of the vocal minority from exerting their objections/beliefs around a given doctrine.

Spinsters.
Are specialized fanatics who often follow a strategic transmission pattern to indoctrinate the target group. This may begin with a simple transmission such as a provocative blog post, video medium or an advertisement eluding to imperfection in a competing brands doctrine.

Disciples.
Someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of a given Brand. A typical Disciple is pretty locked into the belief system outlined by a given brands priesthood. They rarely deviate from the doctrine and will typically challenge any who argue against it in an open manner. Disciples almost never provoke attacks, and are typically defenders rather than aggressors.

Berserkers.
These types of people are dangerous. They do not execute restraint and will often attack any who get in their way. They differ from Disciples but only slightly as these types do not favor any one particular brand. They generally are easily irritated by ignorance.

Peacemakers.
These types of people often favor a particular brand, but will often move themselves into position to ensure that hostilities are reduced to a peaceful resolution. They typically don’t outwardly project their brand beliefs onto others and are more inclined to allow others to co-exist within their community haven.

Fanatics.
Extremists who will actively provoke arguments in order to enforce their particular brand belief system on others. They cannot be reasoned with and are typically vocal and approach situations with high amounts of emotion attached. They pride themselves of on being aggressors and will rarely make coherent points and will instead focus on ad hominem attacks etc to shift focus from a given cause.

Apatheists.
Someone who has an indifferent attitude towards a brand and the existence of its Priesthood, Disciples and Fanatics, not really caring one way or the other about brand issues. As a general rule, this lack of interest is motivated by a disinterest in Brand but are more focused on what the Brand produces.

Skulking Ninjas
Someone who is obviously a fake alias, but has suspicions of being part of the Priesthood, Disciples, Fanatics or Spinsters. Typically these people often are part of the Priesthood or Disciples but can’t show their true identity for fear of open reprisals and/or are looking to defect from the doctrine but can’t due to severe penalty clauses. At times these folks are personal, and are there not to debate or interact on a given topic, but are purely motivated by an absolute hatred regarding a particular person.

Phantoms
The ghost who talks, typically someone who is obviously a fake alias as well (much like the Skulking Ninja), difference however is they are consistent in their alias and often will talk about a given topic/brand without ever being identified. They are a secondary identity attached to someone who either prefers to remain anonymous or can’t reveal their identity due to the possibility of either criminal charges, political retribution or career limitations imposed. They thing about these entities are that whilst they are essentially a lie, they often speak raw open and transparent truth majority of the time – given they have no fear.

The concept behind EGOSPY was inspired by this discussion via TED. As i often think that in part the social impact that the above personas have is in many ways part of a kind of brand focused censorship – aka brand dictatorship.

An example of the GUI.

No Related Posts

Do we have one site too many?

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Scott Barnes

In the past month if you’ve interacted with via twitter, email, facebook etc you’ve probably been asked by me “How many sites do you visit a week”.

I only ask is that I’ve got this theory or ill feeling that we at Microsoft are making far too many websites than we need to, but at this point it’s just a theory (i have no evidence or data to substantiate this theory either)

I’ve created some artist mockups of where I’d love to one day position Microsoft and the way in which we interact with the community and potential customers. It’s an ongoing project, one that I’m doing to provoke some new thinking inside the company, but first I at times need to pitch what I think the initial problem is. Have a look and tell me if you agree or disagree?

Slide 1 – What do all these sites have in common?

Slide 2 – They can be quite frustrating to discover and use?

Slide 3 – They require unnecessary persistence.

Slide 4 – They echo the same data at times ..at a rate that makes your head spin.

Slide 5 – They require you to think in multiple personalities.

Slide 6 – They all try and be different, but the end user is usually the same.

That’s the theory anyway. What do you think?

Issues Presented.

Looking back at Retro not metro.

Web taught the desktop how to design.

History lesson is over.

Metro isn’t Wp7, Metro is Microsoft Future Vision.

The Principles of Metro vs. Microsoft Future Vision.

Clean, Light, Open, Fast

Celebrate Typography

Alive in motion

Content, Not Chrome

Authentically Digital

Summary

Related Posts:

Is the MVP Program useful?

MVP Program is broken because Product Teams never tell you anything.

Not true, for example XYZ product team tell me stuff all the time!

Do MVP’s influence the features then?

Give me an example of MVP influence?

Can you help me then to become an MVP?

How should the MVP Program be reformed?

Related Posts:

Meet Mr Wolf

My way or the wrong way.

Related Posts:

WPF Time of Death.

Windows Phone 7 – Fail.

Designers aren’t interested anymore.

Summary

Related Posts:

The playbook

Silverlight gets thrown under a bus.

In summary.

Related Posts:

Why adopt WPF?

If it’s so good, Why is WPF dying then?

WPF needs Product Management 101

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Value Propositions.

Comparison.

Microsoft

Apple

Less is More.

Comparison

Microsoft.

Apple

Conclusion.

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