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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.'"
title: Microsoft Hires GUI 'Design Guru'
slashdot misleads again.
he is not a GUI design guru, he is a human-machine interaction guru.
this article has no direct relation to GUIs.
i can handle the dupes, but it's very bad practice to post misleading information
(hint to Zonk: READ the article before posting).
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Okay, I'm done reading about three articles about Bill Buxton. Sounds like a bright and interesting guy.
Now, the litmus test, which Microsoft repeatedly fails, will be whether Microsoft cares or is willing to listen to this guy and his ideas. In my opinion, Microsoft's hiring of high-profile talents or personalities in the past has been more for:
The last great creative mind I remember at Microsoft was Nathan Myhrvold, and I can't remember any great contributions from him.
As for Burton's quote about the move and Microsoft:
Microsoft always has been and always be a Gates/Ballmer-led company, and that's not about engineering, and that's not about design. Waxing eloquent about his new employer is quaint, but Burton sheds no light on Microsoft's intentions or future directions. If history serves, no changes are in the offing.
This is news, but it isn't big news, and it isn't very interesting news.
Someone got this guy to work on a *nix desktop environment.
For such a powerfull operating system it has a crippled userinterface.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Why hire him now?? Why not before Vista and Office 12 are already in beta? I haven't had a ton of experience with Vista, but my beta verison of the new Office could have used his touch.
Please do not let scientific accuracy interfere with the intended humourous/interesting/insightful value of this comment
TFA is remarkably uninformative. Do not bother with it, if it becomes slashdotted.
This article (PC or people--who's the boss?) has an interview with him today.
Bill Addresses his Microsoft transition on his home page: http://www.billbuxton.com/
He is cited in the Wikipedia article about Human-computer interaction.
Have you Meta Moderated t
This is only going to make a difference if they actually listen to his input and implement his suggestions. I'll be surprised to see that happening. It seems that Microsoft has the idea that simply hiring these brilliant people will make a difference. What they don't seem to understand is that they also need to listen to what these people tell them...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Bill Buxton is an interesting and insightful guy. If he can stamp his mark on Microsoft software we will all benefit in a great way. His focus is to maximise the overall experience of using technology, not simply focus on creating functionality. Imagine a world where MS stuff is not clunky and obtuse, one where wizards are no more and window focus is not usurped by other applications. Dare I make the parallel: Imagine Apple like interfaces on MS platforms. Design in technology AND experience. That would be a truly great thing, we would all be richer for it.
Of course we will then have to figure out someway to force MS to release it all under the GPL. But we can save that for a little later.
I thought good "computer-human interaction" has always been the main attraction of Microsoft products... so why is it anything new that they should be leaning towards the design side of things?
(I can't find his website)
If it's people like you judging whether his website is hard to use or not then I wouldn't worry, cos if you can't find it WHEN THE LINK IS RIGHT THERE IN THE SLASHDOT SUMMARY then you have some inbuilt usability issues within yourself, and no amount of design is going to fix them
Exactly what does this mean? AFAIK, engineering IS designing. So what's the diff? What's he trying to say?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I just assumed it was so good that I didn't understand it;-)
'My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to as much a design-led company'
Good. Now that they've got the engineering programs solved, having created what everyone agrees is the most solid and bug-free operating system on the market, they can start trying to catch up to Linux in ease-of-use and UI flashiness.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
'My sense is that... There are more designers at Microsoft on any single team as there were, not too long ago, in the entire company." - Martin LaMonica
"And the answer to the question inside this envelope is 'Transit Strike'"
** rip **
"Why are ZDNet relying on second-string writer monkey rejects today?"
Shouldn't they have hired this guy BEFORE completing and releasing all those betas of Vista?
Microsoft may be the king of bloatware, but it wouldn't take all that much effort for them to quickly turn their approach around. If new design is what they want, they will take a minimalistic approach, similar to that which has become so popular across many CSS-based web styles. This clean, elegant design technique should clean up their image, but, more importantly, make computers less intimidating for new users. At the same time, who isn't used to Microsoft's established user interfaces already? I consider their primary target market, with regards to design, to be new users.
His website layout is nice, but he should write it in valid HTML before he considers himself a UI guru. http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3 A//www.billbuxton.com/
---
I'm actually just a script.
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Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Letting the user do this invariably leads to yellow text over a bright magenta background. I'm not sure why it happens that way, but for some reason, it usually does.
... that the new designers will come up with a reset sequence that uses keys that are easier to use than 'CTRL-ALT-DEL' which are way too far apart on the QWERTY keyboard. I assume, of course, that Microsoft has no intention of making their products more robust, and therefore ... oh, never mind.
This does not necessarily mean he was hired to build new products. Perhaps he is being hired to deconstruct products they have, and monitor user acceptance of new releases or teach the development team a little about man machine interactions.
Why? So they know what NOT to do?
That he is a bit better than the guy who designed the paper clip application.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
...And by "us" you mean the small, oh so small, minority that actually knows how to do just that? Atleast see Windows for what it is. It's an operating system for the masses, not for the individual. If you want customization, go with Unix/GNULinux or something similar.
Blog -
If you're just a casual Free Software programmer, are there some good resources for getting some of that "Design Goodness" in you?
I do think we've been a bit long on the architecture, and not so much the design.
I'm obviously not going to become a good designer overnight, but is there something that I should be reading, or looking at?
Honestly? Because no matter what he does, even if it is the next best thing since sliced bread, the majority of /. posters aren't going to be satisfied as it still is Microsoft.
Let some other company do it and it will be lauded. Let some other company screw it up and it probably won't get posted or if it does a million bad examples superficially similar to something wrong Microsoft did will be used to excuse it.
Microsoft may be lead by certain people but most of their products do have that design by committee look. The one thing that makes OSS great can also make it aggravating and that is that a lot of it is created by individuals. Individuals don't always feel a need to compromise and that can lead to true innovation. Fortunately their screw ups are rarely noticed until they have gained name recognition. Multinational corporations don't have that ability anymore.
Look at this way, at least they are hiring people that are known quantities. From that we can at least deduce what they are trying to do or hope to do.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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Keep up the good choices, Mr. Buxton!
You know, all Microsoft did was hire a new "design" guy. Maybe you should relax. Go write a poem or something.
p.s.- poetry sucks
Will he help design a more attractive BSoD?
I think Microsoft needs a couple of those people.
Its nice to be important but its more important to be nice
As I recall, when John Romero started Ion Storm it was out of the sense that id Software was dominated by technologists/engineers and not by designers. He wanted Ion Storm to be a place where "Design Is Law", then burned through some serious venture capital cash before coughing up Daikatana. The rest, as the saying goes, is history... and so was Ion Storm.
I don't know if Microsoft products need better GUI people as much as architect and security people.
As someone who has personally seen Bill Buxton speak, and also as someone who has had HCI (Human Computer Interaction as the field is actually called) training, I can say that for once the Zonk is not totally wrong.
I agree he should have read the article before posting, but it's also not correct to say he has no direct relation to GUIs. He speaks very much of design and how to make proper GUIs. In fact he actually teaches design at his university.
A big part of HCI is GUI design. How could it not be? After all how do most humans interact with computers?
To quote Bill Buxton:
"Not only should you get the design right, but more importantly, you should get the right design."
He is most certainly a guru of design, and that includes GUI.
Exactly where is the relation between human-computer interaction and HTML code compliance?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Wouldn't this actually be news if instead it was some OSS app or group that was hiring a GUI person? Microsoft has its faults, but it's products are arguably only behind Apple in terms of design interfaces. Whether you like it or not, the majority of the users out there are used to the MS designed way of doing things. Both MS and Apple have huge budgets just for usablity research. Now of some of the OSS projects out there could get someone who knows an inkling about GUI's and usability (instead of developers making it in their own image), then we can talk!
Alan Cooper's "The Inmates are Running the Asyulum" and "About Face" books are good overviews of designing for user needs rather than against system internals. (I used to work for Alan).
Donald Norma's "Design of Everyday Things" is an excellent book that will give you a new way of looking at problems. DOET is about non-software (doors, tekettles, etc.) but once you've read it, you will never look at the design of things in quite the same way.
These books aren't step-by-step directions on how to achieve good design. They are more about getting into the right frame of mind so that you can think clearly about what good design might mean. I can't recommend them enough (especially DOET).
There's alo a book called "GUI Design Bloopers" that is an excellent reference on what NOT to do.
HTH.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Donald NORMAN's "Design of Everyday Things"
Sheesh
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If he is indeed a Human Interaction guru, then he would have very little to do with either Vista or Office.
Expect him to grace your Microsoft Mice and Keyboards people.
"Oh boy"
i guess microsoft did hire him
That would defeat the purpose of ctrl+alt+delete.
First they'd have to transform from being a monopoly marketing led company into being a customer-and-public-interest led company, then transform into being an engineering led company, before they could transform into being a design led company.
That would require them to somehow no longer be Microsoft as we know it in any way whatsoever.
After releasing Win3, 95, me, NT, 2000, XT and almost finishing Vista hiring a GUI expert... jeez... next year they'll hire e senior programmer?
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
I am growing increasingly weary of this attitude. Design is just as much an aspect of engineering as engineering is an aspect of design. A bunch of designers going willy-nilly with no handle on engineering is just as bad as a bunch of engineers doing the same thing to design. Human factors indeed.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
It's venting of frustrations built on top of other things they have been doing lately. One thing that Microsoft has been doing as of late is applying for a large number of patents. This is fine, something that IBM used to do. But, they aren't doing it for just "protecting" their "property." It is part of a larger tactic to eliminate competition. For instance, one fun thing they do is to have a private meeting with a CEO of a fortune 500 company (they've done this several times). The CEO must sign a nondisclosure agreement to not share the information shared at the meeting with competitors. THe information shared by a team of Microsoft lawyers is that there will be lawsuits against open-source software creators and copyright owners for software that violates microsoft patents . . . and that it is in the best interest of the CEO's company to not use the open-source software and to stick with Microsoft. So, when I see Microsoft do things like hire a very important in the human machine interaction world, it irks me more than it should, probably. But, I believe that the most effective thing a company can do to improve their product is to "improve the atmosphere around the product." I mean, the iPod is a perfect example of not only creating a product, but changing the cultural understanding of one. This is what I fear. But, of course economics and cultural fears are just flighty poetry and all. I mean, Bill Gates has more money than a lot of third world countries --- I could pretend that this is just the flighty stuff that poetry is made of, or I could look at it with some skepticism and think: hmm, should I worry about this? Should I have soem concern about the role this company plays in the world and their long term strategies of engraining themselves in the minds of people that that they are "the" makers of software. I guess not. I should just go back to my poetry writing. You freak.
It should be the other way around.
Oh, right. Good computer human interaction.
Like being able to click on a filename in tile mode to initiate a rename action, but then having the filename move away from your mouse so when you click again to select the entry point, you deselect the filename.
Or how the only way to access the tile and cascade window functions of the OS is by right-clicking the taskbar, when half the users out there don't know the difference between right and left click.
Right, that Microsoft.
GPL Deconstructed
I remember an interview with Some Big Guy (sorry don't remember) who said literally that Microsoft Research is where Microsoft sends smart people to just.. age.
Let's hope he's totally wrong, I for sure know I love my ClearType (which originated from a MS Research Lab technology).
'My sense is that Microsoft is in transition from an engineering-led company to as much a design-led company ...'
.. the only difference is the Marketing department realized that XP was "good enough" and they needed to revamp the interfaces so people would upgrade.
My sense is that Microsoft was a Marketing company and is still a Marketing company
Try OS X for a while and you'll see that Microsoft still has a long way to go regarding HCI.
Okay, I admit that it doesn't always work very well. But my point is that Microsoft has always tried to produce software that is as easy for idiots to operate as possible, while not paying so much attention to things like performance and reliability.
There are good designers and bad designers. The people who make their living out of it, try to be good designers. Coders can have brilliant ideas about design, but from my experience they usually fail to do the entire job right. It is usually their creativity which leaps farther than it should, resulting in a reinvetion of the wheel, all the time.
I am still trying to figure whether the orchestrated attacks on GNOME are a results of behind the scenes activity or not. I am not sure, but I believe that since GNOME clarified itself as a part of the GNU project, using the GNU/Linux proposed nomenclature, some people seem to have been seriously irritated.
Unless you have a reason to attack GNU, I would ask you kindly to stop attacking GNOME.
That's the worst poem I've ever heard! Okay, just stick to the commentary. 8-)
We can all look forward to a newly redisigned Clippy!
Seriously, how about hiring a Security Design Guru...
Or the one that really gets me, which is system-modal dialogues popping up from some other crud program when I'm typing something, stealing the keyboard focus, and then going haywire because some of the characters I typed corresponded to accelerators in the dialogue. Comparing OS X' little icons that bounce up and down at the bottom of the screen when they want attention with that monstrosity is like the difference between arriving at a fine restaurant in a Rolls Royce with a supermodel at your side, and being dragged by the testicles from Beijing to New Delhi by a pickup with with Barry Manilow in the back.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
They always have been. It's not about the product. That doesn't matter, not really. It's about the marketing, and keeping the users coming back by making them "need" you.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Sometimes I get this feeling that Microsoft is a bit like the New York Yankees. Somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. For as much high level talent as they attract, you'd figure that they would be able to do revolutionary things.
Wouldn't you then claim that Microsoft was just ripping off Apple?
Current trends in GUI design usually doesn't add any value (beyond eye-candy) whatsoever, and morever, usually impose a cognitive burden and take extra screen space. A large amount of the people I know who use Windows XP, use the classic skin. The mistake they made and what they got right uptil Windows 2000, is that the GUI needs to be pretty. No, the GUI needs to be functional, and have boring consistancy, while being visually so "boring" it's the "content" and applications that shine. Shadows won't add anything. Transparacy won't add anything. What they should have concentrated on, is consistancy and logic of the interface, such as in dialogs, menus, etc. Instead, they splash it all on eye-candy, assumably to market Windows to the masses as something you just need to buy. Problem is, Windows is good enough for most people as it is, so the whole interface is used in the marketing battle. But it's the same crap, as you still move the pointer, click on an icon and something launches in a window.
But I thought Microsoft's interfaces were already perfect! Just ask all those MS fanboys...
http://outcampaign.org/
Google hires him
I was once at a party with Buxton. We were both jammed in a corner but when he found out I was a mere programmer he immediately turned his back to me (basically snubbing me). Fine with me - I thought he wasn't so brilliant anyway.
Guess, what Bill - you might learn something by talking to us mortals.
Welcome to him, Microsoft.
To strongly influence relevant teams to make a real change could be hard without being on location. Powerful ideas still need advocacy and tend to be misunderstood unless there is a really good and easily understood example. Being able to provoke real change in such a large organization from a distance would be an impressive feat.
hmmm, I dont know what makes him a guru? Did he design enlightenment? MWM? hmmmm.
There are undoubtedly others I've forgotten or not heard about. Add your contribution. Maybe we can put up a monument somewhere.
Speaker
Ward Cunningham is no longer there:
b usiness/1134801095290920.xml?oregonian?fnfp&coll=7
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/
Microsoft is changing from engineer led company (Gates was an engineer) to a salesperson lead company (Ballmer is a salesperson). Flying pigs will freeze in hell before this new guy changes anything.
This guy has too many patents to be honest.
Ref.
Million Dollar Screenshot
On any interactive system (such as but not limited to software), the moment you have more than one purpose for it, you will have design issues.
/., but in my opinion OSS due to its distributed nature most easily fails at. Down underneath *NIX is a bit old and crufty but much more elegant than most of the current alternatives. UIwise, it is way too much fragmented which slows down its acceptance among nongeekdom. The old MacOS was maybe too limited, but following the design guidelines ruthlessly made it an "icon"(NoPunIntended). BeOS was lovely and well thought out, but sadly it is not very relevant nowadays (and never much was). Among the reasons Palm was successful and is still being used is the interface (certainly it cannot be the OS). OSX may have way too much eyecandy but Apple designers managed to pull it off nevertheless, ending up with an elegant and powerful system/user experience. Not wishing to start a flame war here and trying to tread eggshells, I really appreciate what the Gnome project is trying to do, which is focusing on these issues.
It is not enough that it fits the specs or gets the job done. The moment you have people other than those who built it begins to use it, if the interface is ambigious or the functionality is not easily accessible or consistent the solution is flawed. If it requires more steps than needed, then it is flawed. It has more to do with cognitive psychology (how we pay attention, learn and understand things) than pretty color schemes.
I know I may get flamed for saying this in
Engineering??? Design???
Naw.... it has been from the beginning and always will be..... MS is led by Marketing!!!!
This is visionary? Sounds an awful lot like verification and validation to me.
Having worked in QA for 12 years, I would say that by today's software standards, that is visionary to some degree.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete is used in Windows NT/2K/etc as a security measure, as the OS is designed to filter all access to the hardware. This prevents something from loading before Windows or with Windows to keylog. If a program was imbedded in such a way the system would reboot rather than allow a logon, I think...
I'm not generally one to be dick about these kinds of things or so nit-picky, but if you're hailed as a major 'UI guru' and have Microsoft hire you and get a fucking mention on the old /. then please have a clue. Incidentally, I was always under the assumption is was important to practice what you preach or at very least let your outward work do your talking, not your PR skills.
Pardon, any oddities in my spelling/grammar as it's late and I've had a couple Guinesses already.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
Sounds like a Miss Hazelstone moment....
:-)
Well worth a read, if you like to embarrass yourself by bursting out in uncontrollable laughter on a train/bus/whatever. And no, it's not an affiliate link or anything like that
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Microsoft Research already has lots of excellent people working there, including in HCI. But the sad truth is that having good people in research seems to be neither necessary nor sufficient for making a high quality product--Microsoft's products still suck. Even when they have a good product idea, they usually mess it up somehow.
Apple, in contrast, has hardly any world-class researchers working for them anymore, yet Apple products are consistently better than Microsoft's, in terms of GUI, interaction, and reliability.
The problem with Microsoft is ultimately twofold: market share and leadership. In terms of market share, it is very hard for a single company to do a good job making a product that works for 80% of the market. In terms of leadership, neither Ballmer nor Gates seem interested in quality or design, other than as a checklist item necessary for increasing profits; that results in great ROI for the company, but mediocre products.
Why? The last thing Windows needs is bouncing icons, brushed metal, and windows that don't maximize.
Really, what Microsoft needs to do is stop moving stuff around aimlessly, and choose some better colors for the default theme. For all the work I've seen them doing in the Vista beta versions, I have yet to see anything that really improves on the interface found in Windows 2000.
So are we talking "elephant graveward" here?
My problem with Buxton (and with Microsoft) is that the fellow has all kinds of GUI patents. I am absolutely against the idea that there should be any patents on any GUI issues, period. I have been playing a pretty significant role in the GUI business myself for over 20 years and I have never attempted to patent anything. I can sleep at night and I enjoy every day because of the satisfaction I have knowing that my GUI ideas have spread across the globe precisely because my GUI innovations work and they were not patented - they could be, and they were, freely copied. I have no respect for people or for companies that patent aspects of GUIs. They are exploiting an obviously dysfunctional legal mechanism at the expense of the needs of all of the people on this planet to be able to interface with technology in ways that are natural and intuitive. I am ashamed of people and companies that engage in GUI patents and I want to apologize to the people of this planet for the harm that GUI patent holders do to them.
- Gene Mosher
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
While interesting, this isn't exactly earth shattering; Bill Buxton has worked for MS before. In 2005 he had a stint at the Cambridge, UK research lab as a visiting researcher. This article is entirely a PR scoop and really has no place pretending it's news.
Secondly, the research division and product divisions at MS are separate and a lot of what the research teams do, doesn't find its way into products. Bill Buxton will be in the research division. I very much doubt that they would have him working on anything as near-term as UI for Office or Windows. It's much more likely that he will be involved in blue sky thinking and research about making ubiquitous computing a reality, or perhaps about ways in which movie techniques and music can become integral to the ways in which we work with computers, so that they are immersive, or (quite likely) bringing 3D to mainstream user interfaces.
Bill's homepage is here. It has a great deal of info about his interests and work.
"form follows function" does this mean that they have frozen their functions that they are now concentrating on forms?
Manojar - pronounced like Manager
1. Fix Word ...
2. Update IE
3. Redesign Control Panel
4. Update File Explorer
5.