Microsoft - Will You Ever Learn?

Sometimes despite every effort not to come across as a drooling apple fanboy, Microsoft does something so hideously abhorrent it just can’t pass without at least some comment.

Office 2010. That’s 2010 as in the same 2010 Arthur C Clarke wrote about as ya know… the future and all.

And this is what the boys in Redmond have come up with.

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/27/office-2010-screenshots-emerge

It’s become defacto that less is indeed more in this information-saturated, sensory overload of a pants party we’re all subjected to on a daily basis.

So what do the Office BU decide to do? Strip back their flagship product and develop a slick, seamless, intuitive, experience, befitting of anything that has 2010 written on it. Nooooooope. More. Add More. Clutter that “ribbon” up with more options, labels, doodads and whizzbangers so when you look at it you actually have a stroke from your brain having to figure out what the freaking hell is going on.

I read the other day that Microsoft have a dedicated UX team in the region of 200. That’s 200 people not doing their job right. No doubt they’re beavering away connecting electrodes to peoples heads, scrutinising stats, and studying the mating patterns of llamas. But come on enough with the science, ban anyone with an HCI qualification from the room. Look at what you’re making - ask real people what they need and how they want to use it. Stop foisting New on us every few years. We love consistency, familiar patterns, simple stuff. You may have noticed those guys down the road in Cupertino seem to have figured it out pretty well. Sure they’re not perfect but my 2 and a half year old kid can use a Mac and not a PC. We tried. We know. That’s science.