Design in the trenchesChris Bernard, User Experience Evangelist, Microsoft

All the content in this presentation came from my hard working design peers at Microsoft, I didn’t do any of this work, I’m just sharing their good deeds. All photos in this presentation are from istockphoto.com unless otherswise noted and are used for educational purposes.

For office, all of the principles, thoughts, etc. came from Jensen Harris. For Windows Vista, ideas came from Jenny Lam and Tjeerd Hoek. Do a web search on these guys (I suggest Windows Live Search <ahem>) to find out what they are up to today. They are all brilliant design peers and I hope this presentation helps you learn as much from them as I did.

Please visit www.microsoft.com/expression and look under the knowledge center to fine a video of me giving this presentation.

Or try: http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/f/f/1fff960f-51a2-44b1-b033-bf25a3c7c7ab/BRE001.wmv

UX

Beginnings

Xerox Star

Experience Rewarding Moments

For Microsoft, it started with a clear sense of mission…

…with the desire to be more than we are today.

• A highly coveted brand.

• A more skilled competitor.

• A better partner.

• A more profitable entity.

• A maker of more productive and enjoyable experience.

• A legacy.

User Experience principles

• UsefulNew capabilities that customers want and need.

• UsableEfficient for familiar and easy for unfamiliar tasks.

• DesirableBuilds emotional connections; both familiar and new.

• FeasibleAchievable on time with available technology.

OfficeUser Experience Design

Word 1.0

Word 6.0

Word 97

Running into Fitt’s Law

Nathan Myhrvold's 1Nathan Myhrvold's 1stst law of software law of software““Software is a gas”Software is a gas”

Adaptive Menus: Office 2000

“Long” Menu

“Short” Menu

Rafted Toolbars: Office 2000

Task Panes: Office XP

Some Tipping Points

Word MenusWord 1.050Word 6.0100Word 97200Word 2003250+

Tool Menus & Task PanesWord 1.02Word 6.07Word 9715Word 200030 menus50

task panes

Time for a change

Fast at any Speed

Avoiding the Junk Drawer

obsession to detail

Mastering Details

Contextual Tabs

Dropdown Gallery

Grid Layout Gallery

In-Ribbon Gallery

Quick Access and Magic Corners

Mini-Toolbar: Closer to the Cursor

Larger control labels

The Ribbon for Word

The Ribbon for Excel

The Ribbon for PowerPoint

VistaUser Experience Design

Design GoalsMake getting what you needefficient & easyMake getting the results you want in Windows more…

visual & directMake people feel great about their experience…creating a positive emotional experience

First Impressions

Set up and welcome

Start menu, Start button

Taskbar & Tray

Window management

Glass window frames

Live Icons (thumbnails)

Explorer

Our Process

Customer research

Selected usability focused projects for Office 2007

1. Office 2003 benchmark

2. Eye tracking

3. Card sort

4. Internal longitudinal studies

5. The “Truman” show

6. Office 12 benchmark

7. Extended usage study

8. Beta survey and visits

Selected usability focused projects for Vista

• 3000+ users in 1:1 research or small group research during the making of Windows Vista

• Instrumentation data was gathered from 8000+ XP users

• 20,000+ users participating in instrumentation programs to gather usage and configuration data and info through survey panels  

• Tracking 150+ common tasks for ease of use in Windows Vista

• 30+ consumer families using beta since 2005 to give feedback on the day-to-day experience

• Families in 7 countries in field research (US, India, Japan, Mexico, Germany, Finland, Israel)

• Ethnographic research was conducted in Finland, Korea, Brazil, India, Russia, and US.

• Engaged with international enterprises to understand their baseline use of XP and monitor improvements with Windows Vista as beta has been deployed

• For Living with Vista we have received close to 5000 comments from 50 families (US and international) since the inception of the program at Beta 1 in August ‘05

The Paper Prototype

1000 Card Pickup

Measuring results

What Microsoft has learned

people want more functionalitybut want it to be presented as less

Source: Jakob Nielsen

the experience is not part of the product— the product is part of the experience

The experience is the product

Where to learn more

Get links to the following:• Jensen Harris Blog, Microsoft Office Product Manger• Microsoft Design Web site• Microsoft Expression Web site• Windows Vista Website• Office UI Standards• Vista UI Standards

…at: www.designthinkingdigest.com

Look for a Design in the Trenches Content at www.microsoft.com/expression

Designing at Microsoft

Question & Answer?

Thank you