The Microsoft User Experience

Paul Thurrot writes:

“Microsoft's history of holistic software development can be seen in many of its projects over the years, some popular some not. There was the Microsoft Bob social experiment (an utter failure, which is sad, as the Bob interface was a great UI for kids); the friendly (yet ultimately annoying) Office Assistant, which attempted to provide users with help when it appeared they needed it; the inductive UI work (LINK) most recently seen in Windows XP's task panes and Office XP's task panes and Smart Tags; and the roles-based administration in Windows Server 2003, among others.”

Interestingly, that is not the image most users have of the microsoft user experience, and a lot of these attempts have either been invisible (which is the way it should be, eg inductive UIs) or left a bad taste (office assistant) wonder if Longhorn is going to change all that or is it more vaporware...

Posted by Navneet at December 21, 2003 07:47 AM | TrackBack | Comments disabled due to spam