The Ray Ozzie memo: a design shift at Microsoft?
If you're a designer or user experience practitioner, you should have a read through Ray Ozzie's memo, "The Internet Services Disruption." It's a remarkably honest assessment of the current state of Microsoft (there's a little cheerleading), but it's also an object lesson in the business value of user experience.
One of Ozzie's three key tenets changing the software industry landscape is "the demand for compelling, integrated user experiences that 'just work':"
The PC has morphed into new form factors and new roles, and we increasingly have more than one in our lives – at work, at home, laptops, tablets, even in the living room. Cell phones have become ubiquitous. There are a myriad of handheld devices. Set-top boxes, PVRs and game consoles are changing what and how we watch television. Photos, music and voice communications are all rapidly going digital and being driven by software. Automobiles are on a path to become smart and connected. The emergence of the digital lifestyle that utilizes all these technologies is changing how we learn, play games, watch TV, communicate with friends and family, listen to music and share memories.
But the power of technology also brings with it a cost. For all the success of individual technologies, the array of technology in a person’s life can be daunting. Increasingly, individuals choose products and services that are highly-personalized, focused on the end-to-end experience delivered by that technology. Products must deliver a seamless experience, one in which all the technology in your life ‘just works’ and can work together, on your behalf, under your control. This means designs centered on an intentional fusion of internet-based services with software, and sometimes even hardware, to deliver meaningful experiences and solutions with a level of seamless design and use that couldn’t be achieved without such a holistic approach.
Intentional fusion? Holistic approach? Meaningful experiences? If you detect a shift away from engineering (complexity) and toward design (simplicity), you're right. The idea of "seamless experience" is notable because it appears in a list of market opportunities for Microsoft where users' access and use data across multiple contexts/platforms. (They could probably learn a thing or two from Thomas Vander Wal.)
Whether Microsoft can pull off a seamless experience is another question; their existing consumer facing products sure haven't earned that description. But it seems like Ozzie is ready to introduce new approaches to help them get there. I found this part particularly interesting (esp. the use of scenarios):
Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration. Moving forward, within all parts of the organization, each of us should ask “What’s different?”, and explore and embrace techniques to reduce complexity.
Some problems are inherently complex; there is surely no silver bullet to reducing complexity in extant systems. But when tackling new problems, I’ve found it useful to dip into a toolbox of simplification approaches and methods. One such tool is the use of extensive end-to-end scenario-based design and implementation. Another is that of utilizing loosely-coupled design of systems by introducing constraints at key junctures – using standards as a tool to force quick agreement on interfaces. Many such tools are not rocket science: for example, by forcing a change in practices to increase the frequency of release cycles, scope and complexity of any given release by necessity is greatly reduced. Another simple tool I’ve used involves attracting developers to use common physical workspaces to naturally catalyze ad hoc face-time between those who need to coordinate, rather than relying solely upon meetings and streams of email and document reviews for such interaction. Embracing change at a local level through such tools can make a real difference – one project at a time.
In fact, it looks like the management team will be given responsibility for scenarios. That is, not just delivering products... delivering a holistic experience around their products. That's a new way to manage. Who knows if Microsoft will pull this off, but it's surely one to watch.
