4 ms·
In fairness, just the single fact that they put a button exactly where the hand needs to go when actually using the product in one of it's core use-cases is a p
by HNJohnC 12y ago
In fairness, just the single fact that they put a button exactly where the hand needs to go when actually using the product in one of it's core use-cases is a pretty good excuse for some MS bashing.
They could have taken 5 minutes, given the prototype to an artist and noticed the hand placement issue immediately.
You can be an apologist if you wish, but I don't know how you can excuse such a glaring failure of design.
- shurcooL 12y agoSaying that it's a "failure of design" suggests there's an easy non-failure alternative. If so, can you tell us what it is? Are you sure that solution won't fail under some conditions? People like to take something that exists, take the problems it solves as a given, and act like all that's left is fixing the problems remaining. That's not how it works.
- anonymfus 12y agoSolution could be the same as for palm rejection: disable start button when pen is near the screen.
- hyperliner 12y agoThe issue is with the "fatalism" of the comments. For example, you refer to a "glaring failure" when this can be fixed with a simple "drawing mode" patch.
- gisenberg 12y agoNo such thing as a "simple" patch in the context of Windows: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/how-many-microsoft-employees-does-it-take-to-change-a-lightbulb.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/how-m...
- hyperliner 12y agoCan we agree to get over anything that happened in computing more than 10 years ago?
- gisenberg 12y agoI'm not sure how a reasonable person can see that article and think Microsoft doesn't have to worry about justifying features, project management, testing, documentation, group policies, localization, security, or anything else that makes a "simple" feature for Windows complicated because the source saying so happens to be more than ten years old. The process and consideration outlined is certainly in-line with my own experiences at Microsoft.
- pyre 12y agoThe fact that the article is old doesn't meant we should ignore it, but on the other hand, you have to consider the possibility that things change over the course of a decade, and the article may be out-dated. You can't use 10-year-old evidence as 'proof' of anything currently happening at Microsoft, though you can use it as evidence to weigh probabilities.
- kstenerud 12y agoYou'd be surprised at the number of "obvious" things you'll miss when shipping your product. The fact is, the people designing these things are human, with their own biases and blind spots. Furthermore, your beta test group will probably miss a few "glaring" problems with your product (even if you've shipped multiple versions before!) In the resulting bashing and crowd pleasing "this sux" comments, there will be a few people who WANT to love the product but just can't, and are willing to explain exactly why. Those are the people you latch on to, give free products to, and pick their brains for their insight so that you can iterate better on your next version. And that's exactly what Microsoft is doing. This is the correct strategy.
- mcintyre1994 12y agoI'm surprised they don't give test devices (under NDA presumably) way earlier to people like Gabe, using your evangelist bloggers to improve the product before they write their public review seems smart.
- shearnie 12y agoThey should have tested on a right handed designer at least. Panos looks left handed, is he the only guy that has played with it?
- vacri 12y agoThey may have done just that, but their artist was left-handed. Or a right handed artist whose hand position didn't touch that area. Or a test group made up of these kinds of people. Also, doing User Acceptance Testing certainly does not 'take 5 minutes'. It's far more difficult that people give it credit for - if it were as trivial as you imply, then there'd be no kudos for good design