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Microsoft Hires GUI 'Design Guru'
overpayd writes "ZDnet is reporting that Microsoft has hired 'user interface guru' Bill Buxton to work as a senior researcher. Will this move help focus the design teams for Vista, Office, etc? From the article: 'My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to as much a design-led company ... There are more designers at Microsoft on any single team as there were, not too long ago, in the entire company. It's a wonderful change.'"
Or at all? I've gotten used to MS' menu layout. As a matter of fact, when they change their own menu items between versions, I'm lost. And it really pisses me off!
I just think that humans are so adaptable that you could do anything and we would learn to deal with it. And if you consider MS' monopoly position, they could put the "File" options under "Help" and that would be the standard.
Microsoft always has been and always be a Gates/Ballmer-led company, and that's not about engineering, and that's not about design.
Well, MS is about competing. The means of competing is to let other companies prove the feasibility of something, then copying. MS is also about growth, which is very hard to come by in their traditional business areas.
Put these together, and it means they're looking for somebody to copy, somebody who has shown how to diversify to produce growth. It turns out that's somebody they've been watching for a long time: Apple.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wow, you really have no idea what HCI is, do you? I'm a straight up coder, and even I know that HCI isn't analogous to 'interior design'. HCI is supposed to cover all the ways that you interact with your computer - keyboard shortcuts (and yes, that includes the idea of having the cut/copy/paste keys right next to each other - that happens *because* of HCI work, not in spite of it), muscle memory, principle of least surprise, hotspots (e.g. it's easier to move your cursor to one of the four corners of the screen than it is to any other location) and so on. About the only 'interior design' that shows up is stuff like not having green text on a red background, or anything else that makes your eyes bleed.
I remember clearly hearing Bill mutter under his breath while wandering the halls of Alias; "I hate computers -- I [expletive deleted] HATE computers -- but I *especially* hate Windows computers!"
(This was`a number of years ago.)
Bill was always great to work with -- I hope Microsoft treats him well, and I wish him the best.
Ian Ameline