(very quick break between sessions, given by various Microsoft user researchers and designers)
Holy shit! These people are brilliant. I just don't get how their company makes such sucky products.
P.S. First time I've ever heard an executive talk about formally engaging QA as a partner on usability: "We've got this great new process to partner with the testers to make sure the...user experience is being fulfilled as we do our quality controls as well." (Donna Flynn)
November 8 2007, 18:45:18 UTC 4 years ago
November 8 2007, 18:51:23 UTC 4 years ago
Camel...horse...committee...you know the rest.
>>A sufficiently large bureaucracy defeats the brilliance of individual members.<<Couldn't have put it better myself.
November 8 2007, 19:04:43 UTC 4 years ago
Usability says, "Here is all this data on how this should work, how people use computers, and what would make the users more comfortable and happy with our products."
Dev says, "Did you hear something?"
November 8 2007, 19:07:11 UTC 4 years ago
November 8 2007, 19:19:33 UTC 4 years ago
November 8 2007, 19:13:43 UTC 4 years ago
But I digress.
November 8 2007, 23:28:49 UTC 4 years ago
*GAG*
November 8 2007, 19:32:23 UTC 4 years ago
Here's how it worked in our group: it didn't. UI researchers at Microsoft could care less about what we did because it wasn't 'cool' or didn't help Microsoft compete with whatever Apple was doing. Yes, this is despite the fact that my product, Commerce Server, is the software behind a lot of large websites, and people often do buy things on the Internet these days.
They also would charge back the department obscene rates... and we didn't feel like paying them $XXX an hour just so they can say "use a horizontal menu" (like they did). It took forever to get them ramped up into our space--managing a major site like Costco.com is not easy--and in the end just wasn't worth it, not even for our administration apps.
It was just far easier to have a user council and sit down and listen to them, and then walk through tasks (oh, like creating a special product discount like buy 2 shoes, get socks at 50% off) with them.
And as Chris says, all quality testing at Microsoft went out the door in the name of automated API-style testing. Who cares what the interface looks like? (and I recall telling a senior VP that there was too much emphasis on test automation and he said "Oh, yes, totally--now what were your Build Verification Test code coverage numbers?" Like it mattered.
November 8 2007, 22:21:59 UTC 4 years ago
Rationality != follow-through or internal gravitas
Complex systems are inherently squidgy things like water balloons and waterbeds, except with uncountably more cells and more inconsistency in density and elasticity. Push in, something squishes out in a completely unpredictable other place.Then again, I'm currently reading Rosalind Williams's Retooling.