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> I could see some of them shaking their heads and looking at each other. They were very obviously bothered that they had not seen this before. To me this looks like engineers that had foreseen the problem but were promptly ignored by UX people. Or maybe the other way around.
When MS is cornered (when they are losing in one area or another), and they are determined to win the competition should be scared. They are very good at committing to a project, and being in it for the long haul.
How so? I can think of several projects (especially hardware) that they abandoned after the first version. Granted, they gave the Zune a fair shake (though I don't think the iPod had much to be scared of). SPOT, too, considering that smart phones were starting to get useful about a year after SPOT's release.
But as a counter example, I know of one unreleased hardware product they're working on right now that stands little chance of going beyond V1 due to (without inappropriately saying too much) a lack of commitment on MSFT's part. Could be that in this case they're not "determined to win", but I'm not in a position to know how determined they are.
It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. However, all the issues he experienced seem like they would be quite obvious to anyone testing the device usage for any kind of drawing application (which, for a device with a stylus seems like a common enough use case to be testing), perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time and effort on their QA process for the next roun…
all the issues he experienced seem like they would be quite obvious It's the classic QA paradox. The typical hacker world view doesn't prioritize such feel issues enough. Even in today's UX focused world, stylus specific issues aren't widely understood. Combine the dynamics of the Asch conformity experiment, and it makes perfect sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnT2FcuZaYI
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> It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is, but it isn't some trade secret, they could open source this and have 1,000s of people converging toward the solution. Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware?
money? "optimal experience" I'm all for supporting open source. But seriously, it took me about 20-30 hours to get my FreeNAS setup working (the way I wanted) (getting the hardware together, configuring... lots and lots of configuring). And I'm definitely not going to say that that project is "end user friendly". I really really love open source projects but I'm willing to put down that they don't always meet the end…
Great to see Microsoft listening to issues with the Surface and attempting to fix them. Hopefully they can polish it up into a machine that can be competitive in the market.
It sounds like it's already competitive in the market of nerds who draw cartoons on their computers, and need to be mobile. The Wacom Cintiq is probably much better for serious drawing, though you give up the portability of a self-contained tablet computer.[1] I'm not sure the Surface will succeed in any markets other than that though. It just solve any common problems significantly better than the alternatives. [1]…
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> It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is, but it isn't some trade secret, they could open source this and have 1,000s of people converging toward the solution. Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware?
> Why are they so hung up and being The Ones Who Deliver The Software And The Hardware? For the same reason that Ubuntu and Firefox are?
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Yeah, I'm baffled as to how the button placement made it past any kind of initial hands-on testing. It's hard to imagine a person using the pen on the screen for ten or fifteen minutes not encountering that problem.
From the article, it sounds like the Microsoft folks were kicking themselves for that oversight. To their credit, I've made similar mistakes in my career.
What did you mean? You don't mean that if X makes a mistake that you made first, that mistake is a credit to X, do you?
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Yeah, I'm baffled as to how the button placement made it past any kind of initial hands-on testing. It's hard to imagine a person using the pen on the screen for ten or fifteen minutes not encountering that problem.
A lot of QA departments these days put their effort behind automated testing, which is very valuable but will never replace actual human usage of a device. Automation should catch one class of problems but real world usage is necessary to catch a whole different type of issue.
I found the experience invaluable in helping me to understand why I found virtually every hardware and the vast majority of software products extremely painful to use. And how much I appreciate Steve Jobs for showing us how it's done.
It's great to read that Gabe has had such a positive experience with a Microsoft product team - but it seems pretty obvious to me that it's because he's a somebody. His posts on penny-arcade reach an enormous audience, and so of course they're going to do their damn best to make sure he sings the product's praises. My experience is very different. I've been working for an enormous organisation for the last 4 years, a…
They are fixing the problem for every user, not just him, based on his input. I want a drawing tablet, I have been reading every PA post about the surface with bated breath waiting for the "it's now perfect" announcement. As far as I'm concerned, their model is working. Maybe they just need to expand it to other products too.
What GodEater is pointing out is that Gabe is getting attention due to his celebrity. Much more attention than Microsoft gives to companies that pay them millions of pounds for their products. Gabe gets that attention precisely because his opinion closely watched by people like you.
Consider what kind of product development this philosophy gives rise to. What if you don't want what Gabe wants? Do you have any chance of getting it when MS has the sort of development priorities they're displaying here. What if they were listening to someone whose opinion you did not respect? How would that affect your view of the product & the company?