Experience Principles
When we think of companies associated with great customer experience, Microsoft is rarely the first to come to mind. However, with the release of Office 2007, Microsoft demonstrated newfound commitment to delivering software that delights. In his excellent presentation on the design of the user interface for Microsoft Office 2007, lead designer Jensen Harris depicts the evolution of Microsoft Word, from a relatively simple application in 1989, to a bloated behemoth so overloaded with features that it required 30 toolbars, 8 task panes, and "clever" technologies such as Clippy to use it all.
Harris and his team realized that they had to essentially burn down the interface and rebuild it. After conducting deep research on how people actually use the tool, they came up with a set of what they called "Design Tenets" that guided the decision-making for the new Office UI:
- A person's focus should be on their content, not on the UI. Help people work without interference.
- Reduce the number of choices presented at any given time.
- Increase efficiency.
- Embrace consistency, but not homogeneity.
- Give features a permanent home. Prefer consistent-location UI over "smart" UI.
- Straightforward is better than clever.
These tenets were the new religion of Office 2007. Any suggested UI functionality was mapped against these tenets, and if any were violated, that function wouldn't make it in. So, a tool like Clippy, which tries to figure out what you're doing and offer suggestions, gets removed because "straightforward is better than clever."
interessant artikel van adaptive path over 'Experience Principles'