Since moving into product management, I’ve become initiated into the world of PR and national press. I stumbled into this article today and thought that some would find it interesting to see how this wacky world works. One footnote from me–who you are (or who you work for *cough*cough*microsoft) can have a radical effect on how you are treated and (mis)quoted by the press. They really are looking for controversy or “fear” as the author states. I recently watched from the sidelines as a major online news presence built an entirely false paragraph around a quote of *two words* from a colleague. They then proceeded to make that erroneous paragraph the central theme of the article and to go so far as to title the article around it. Amazing. This is why the author talks about picking your quote ahead of time and just repeating it over and over to the press.
apophenia: On Being a Press Expert
A Compendium of Interfaces
Very cool site/blog that demos “next generation web interface and interaction design”. Great catalog of pieces of web interface innovations. They promise: “Unlike previous design review sites, DesignDemo will feature online demo movies of working interaction design, UI elements, and trends and best practices in web 2.0 user experience.”
Max Kiesler – DesignDemo – Web 2.0, AJAX, and Rails UI Elements
What’s that yellow thing in the sky?
There’s a reason that all the trees in Seattle are green.
Now, I knew before moving here that it was supposed to be drizzly but the locals downplayed it adroitly. I grew up in South Florida with that steamy jungle climate that retirees love and I can’t stand, lived in Oklahoma where it’s below freezing in the winter and triple-digits in the summer, and San Francisco where it’s cold and foggy–in July. I couldn’t see what everyone was complaining about in Seattle until December rolled around…and it rained for 28 days straight. Apparently this is not entirely typical–in fact, it almost broke the record from 1953 for most consecutive days of rain but that’s small comfort in my book. Two days ago it was raining again and barely above freezing. Then starting yesterday–sunshine and sixties. Huh?
Of course, I heard SFO was actually closed down in the bay area two days ago because the weather was so bad there so I guess it’s pretty clear that no one escapes Mother Nature’s wrath.
update: before I could post this, the sun disappeared, it starting raining, and then stopped ten minutes later and the sun popped back out again.
It’s Alive!
Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer – Free Trial
So Expression Interactive Designer (AKA “Sparkle”) is finally publicly available in a CTP (pre-beta) download. Check it out and let us know what you think. The product is definitely not finished yet and your feedback counts.
We also now have a new version of Expression Graphic Designer available. It now has some good XAML exporting options that make it useful even for anyone trying to create graphic assets for use in XAML. EGD is also a CTP (pre-beta) release so plan accordingly and let us know what you’d like to see in the product before it ships.
Bibliography
I spoke at an internal Microsoft conference last week about why user experience matters. I promised a list of where to read more about user experience. I’ve finally fulfilled my promise for a bibliography–I created a Listmania starter list on Amazon. You can read the list here.
Changes
So…few will care but I’ve had a fair number of changes recently including moving to Seattle, going to work as a Sr. Product Manager for Microsoft, selling a house, buying a house, buying a car, organizing my trading card collection…ok, not the last one but I think the rest are plenty. So…wait for it…here’s where I apologize for not writing (as if there was a vast audience waiting in agony for my next thoughts.)
Isn’t that the nature of most blogs tho? You’re either apologizing for the lapses in writing for various reasons or you’re just commenting on things that others are actually doing or saying. It’s still interesting as a form of recorded word-of-mouth but writing of any form is at its best when someone has something truly original of significance to say.
Would that history’s writers such as Seneca or John Ruskin or Voltaire had had blogs… I think that Dickens, Dickinson, Lewis Carroll, and Mark Twain would have been top notch. Any other nominations?
A Good Day To Be A Designer
So we had the new Macromedia Studio 8 ship yesterday and then today at PDC the Expression family of tools was released. Now I may be biased (I work at Microsoft now and I worked at Macromedia for several years) but I’d say Designers are getting a lot of love this week.
Because as fun as all these new tools are, that’s not even the best thing I’ve seen this week for Graphic Designers, Interaction Designers, Usability experts, etc.
Old Dogs Learn New Tricks
I’m at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference today and watched Bill Gates unveil various products including recent builds of Windows Vista. But the big surprise (other than the great video featuring Bill Gates and Napolean Dynamite as roommates) was the new UI in Office 12.
Read my lips: no new menus.
Actually, there were no menus at all. I haven’t had the chance to play with the new suite myself but the demos this morning showed a surprising new UI for Office that had replaced all application menus with graphical palettes.
I had expected to yawn through the presentation of Office 12. Instead, I was struck by a burning desire to play with it immediately. I have a healthy fear of pre-beta software though (learned the hard way) so I’ll settle for being one of the first in line for the beta.
In the meantime, I’m pondering the ramifications to users and wondering whether this will become a trend or not. These apps are some of the most widely used apps in the world and their last significant UI innovation (toolbars) was eight years ago—practically a lifetime in this industry. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this but either way, it’s exciting to see what might be a widespread step forward in desktop software user experience.
You can read more about the rationale and research behind it here and, even better, check out hi-res images of each of the Office products.
Stay tuned tomorrow and Wednesday for more surprises.
Flex Style Explorer
Our man Peter has just posted an article about the Flex Style Explorer on Macromedia DevNet. Even better, the explorer is there to explore/download so check it out and start exploring. Note that you don’t actually need Flex to play with this.
Peter’s a fellow user experience consultant for Macromedia Consulting, and is operating out of the Boston area.
Play your way to better UI’s
Yes, that’s right–we all know it and now Mark Hurst at goodexperience.com has done something about it. I’m talking about computer games, people. Computer games are a major force of innovation driving both new developments in user interfaces, user experiences, and even hardware sales. (When’s the last time someone bought a new graphics card because of Excel?)
So, Mark has started a sub-site for listing recommended “good experience” computer games that are (mostly) free and online. Check it out and tell your boss it’s “research” because, hey, it actually is.
Good Experience Games
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