Reads Mini-Microsoft and Wears Shorts in Winter - Lisa Brummel, VP of HR

Ever wonder who creates those cool icons, animations, and the general graphical experiences in our products like Windows Vista? Well, Scoble wanted to meet one of these people and turns out Jenny Lam is the "Experience" Designer at Microsoft. Scoble recently met with her for chat about this whole Experience thing.
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RE: Widgets
Regarding the desktop 'toys' that were discussed, I hope these will either be programs the user can launch or, if an applet, hidden and/or disabled by default. Anything that interferes with productivity and efficiency is going to annoy alot of people. Features
are good, be they big or small, but we don't all want some of them in our face all the time.
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It's the little things that count and that's what I like about what Jenny and her co-workers do. They can't rely on
FLASHy things, it's all about colours and a few pixels.
It's almost like going back to my old Amiga where you drew (or crafted) stuff in EA Deluxe Paint one pixel at a time. We where
pixel pokers way back in the 80's.
Many builds ago people believed that Vista was going to have stuff swishing in and out everywhere but if you think about it you will realize that it's the first thing that most people will turn off because animation happens over time. Of course this means waiting
and nobody wants to wait for their OS, they want things to just pop.
Just make sure that for us people who don't want huge icons, which Chris Pirillo calls it elephantitis and huge text that we can still run our interface that way.
I hate wasting space and I have 2 monitors.
scobleizer wrote:LaBomba, I deleted your comment. I'm tired of seeing posts here noting female's looks. I don't see the men judged that way here. Does that really help the industry attract more smart women? I don't think so.
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ChrisA wrote:Great interview. Home run hit for channel 9. Oh yeah, Mr. Scoble, we geeks do like Starbucks. I have never seen someone get so excited about a Target shirt. Great thoughts on Branding and trust and it was put in a way I had never thought about before. Ms. Lam said there was a reason for the black taskbar, what are the reasons for black? I havent used Windows Vista yet, so will it become clear later on or what do the users who have used Windows Vista think. Does color make that much of a difference?
Will there be options to customize the colors inside the Explorer? Means that teal-blue mess. It took already considerable whining in the beta newsgroups to get customizable glass frames, but the Explorer insides aren't really appealing, however is there
no way to change that except hacking the binaries.
Before Luna, people could change the colors of all applications centrally, but anything beyond the classic mode gets overridden by the static theme colors. That's not cool at all. People want to customize their operating system, and that without jumping through
hoops as soon you're done setting the wallpaper.
Thanks.
scobleizer wrote:My target shirt is Orange.
Awesome interview, and one that really interested me too.
I think the most important thing for Windows Vista will definitely be the (G)UI. I'm a mac user for almost a year now (though I've faithfully used Windows for about 10 years) and recently switched because of the interface mainly. Well that and I couldn't
wait any longer for a new fresh OS . I think Windows is already a fine product by itself and since more and more users are getting PC's these days, design will play a big role. Despite what the interview says even though there must be thousands of geeks,
I'm guessing by now there will be even more beginning users. So I think Ms. Lam and the team have a pretty important job to say the least !
One gripe I've always had with the XP interface is that the UI itself tries to be the center of attention. I personally don't think mac users really like the interface cause it's "aqua" (well some do). But more because it really focuses on the project or program you're working with. If you launch itunes for example there isn't much in special effects to the gui besides the standard look, it really focuses on how the songs are shown and listed, the visualizer for example is hidden until the user decides he or she wishes to see it. I get the feeling that Windows wants us to marvel at how beautiful the interface is rather then to focus on whatever we're trying to work with at the moment (office assistant for example, or popups coming out of the system tray). The choice of colors can be really distractive too, people usually respond to a color in a certain way, so why is it that the taskbar and the top of a window for example are blue by default ? Vista is taking a step forward in this though, but I'm hoping to see it evolve even more ...
What I'd really like to see is having a GUI that does more of a job complimenting all the media you use and create on your computer (documents, videos, images and even music, all these things already have a look or sound of their own). It also keeps the
GUI fresh since it feels like it positively interacts with your activities every time.
Finally I'd say a unified look would give the biggest improvement to the overall interface, people like ipods and macs because they are consistent in their design while not too boring at the same time. Office for example I think looks better on a Mac because because menu's aren't different. Outlook's interface even looks bloated and doesn't feel like it matches with that of Windows itself, even though I like the menu's in Office more(hope that doesn't sound too confusing). Surely people like "skins", but skinning an application by default strikes me as a bit odd. In the end, no matter how beautiful media player or any other program looks on each update, it will get old eventually ...
Sorry if this sounds like harsh critique, but Windows really needs it. I wish Ms Lam and the team best of luck with their work. Hopefully they see to some of my ideas. I'd definitely consider switching back to Windows if they would succeed in that ...
Winston Pang wrote:I was wondering, since developers don't seem to have much say over the designing.
So when a new type of control is brought into a product, do the designers rough the sketches out and make a flash version of it, and then have the developers do the code drawing etc for the control?
i3x171um wrote:Jenny, do you blog? If not, I absolutely believe you should. I for one would visit it daily. I worship what you do. We don't hear nearly enough from this side of Vista.
Bobinho wrote:
Which leads me to Vista. I don’t like the Vista interface. I find it bland and uninspiring. I mean it's fresh and clean but really, it’s a case of “Meet the new UI, same as the old UI” (apologies to Pete Townsend). It looks and I’m not the first to say this, something like a sanitary towel ad. It looks, ahem, girly. I am deeply disapointed that this is the final UI. What happened to the revolutionary UI designs of 2003? Where is my damn carousel interface? Where has all the cool directorware gone?
But here is the kicker; both apps are really, really ugly. This is unforgivable in an application made for designers. Please tell me the UI will be completely re-written for Vista.
OK I’m done. I’m off to play with my Mac.
helveticagirl wrote:I tried to start a blog at the beginning of the year but failed miserably. Honestly, I don't know how all you people keep up with your blogs and actually get to live life offline. No offense - I love Scoble and the blogging community. Really I do. We're just so focused on fixing bugs and getting the fit and finish nailed right now, who has the time?!
You do bring up a question that several folks have been asking and I personally believe we must address it.
--jenny
scobleizer wrote:LaBomba, I deleted your comment. I'm tired of seeing posts here noting female's looks. I don't see the men judged that way here. Does that really help the industry attract more smart women? I don't think so.
helveticagirl wrote:I wanted to quickly reply to your question about the usage of black in the taskbar and sidebar. Of course color can be so subjective! but some of the benefits the design team thought of when finalizing on a dark, smokey color for periphery UI elements:
- blends with the periphery of the monitor window. Ever notice how there's a few black dead pixels around the bezel of your monitor? Dark elements seem to fade into it - which takes advantage of those dead pixels at the same time making the UI proportionally smaller. (Is really true how black is slimming?)
- for max'd windows, puts the focus on the content of the windows. (aka "swelling force") + more obvious difference between max and restored windows
- high contrast with the content area (putting more focus on users stuff over chrome)
- neutral yet professional color that works well with other elements
Hi Jenny. Nice video. I was just wondering, with all the comments about the wallpaper and glass and icons and stuff, if anything is being done about the default cursors in Vista? It'd be good to have something cool here too...
Cheers!
Matt
helveticagirl wrote:You do bring up a question that several folks have been asking and I personally believe we must address it.
i3x171um wrote:Jenny, do you blog? If not, I absolutely believe you should. I for one would visit it daily. I worship what you do. We don't hear nearly enough from this side of Vista
Awesome video!! One of the most interesting I have ever seen, the human side to the OS is also very important.
As a direct comment to Jenny Lam, I do photography here in Spain, and would love to send you a picture I took and photoshopped not long ago, I think it really works with the natural, fresh and clean feeling you are putting into Vista. I am completely in love with the work you guys are doing with the UI, and would be so glad to send you some photos and maybe be some help to you in finding a good background.
I don't really know how this blogging works, but if you are interested in seeing some of my photographs, please email me at euskalzabe@hotmail.com.
Thanks
Xabier Granja Ibarretxe
So no vector icons in Vista, while Leopard will be moving in that direction. Yet another "feature" scratched from Vista - how will the resolution-indepdence work now with a ton of ugly bitmaps? Or will the GUI have any resolution indepdence to speak of?
Will OSX trump Vista again? Geez guys!
Look, I don't think outside Windows developers can be critiqued for not adhering to a culture of style like Apple when the parent company sets a bad example. Apple does indeed have a large community of style-concious users, but then again Apple sets the bar
pretty high. The included apps in Vista show a mish-mash of styles and just a general lack of attention to aesthetics. I mean, look at Windows Mail for pete's sake - where did that bright neon blue bar come from? Maximized with a jet-black border and it's
just atrocious. There's a reason you see a lot of posters actually hoping the UI is a _decoy_, folks.
One of the significant problems appearance-wise is the fonts, particularly the lack of decent AA when Cleartype is enabled and the font size is medium to large, there's significant aliasing. I can't believe MS doesn't see this as a problem, and it's one of
the reasons the early concept shots look so good - fonts that actually look like newsprint.
Another problem is the lack of double-buffering in the interface. Is this going to remain this way? You have nice composited windows, then you're back into XP-style tearing whenever something is resized or scrolled. Scrolling through the index results (speaking
of UI ugliness, how about segmenting the results like Spotlight does to make it look somewhat more presentable than a text dump?) gives you white-out sections until you pause and the icons are read back in from the HD. This is just really, really shoddy guys
- Apple wouldn't this stuff out even in a beta.
But...but...Vienna! Trust us this time, this is when MS _really_ starts to pay attention to design!
Sigh...
Well I finally managed to get my hands on Vista RC1 this week and I must say my first impressions were good! It's been awhile since I last tested a beta and it's clear that a lot of progress has been made since. Transitions as well as most animations are a lot smoother, I've tested this on both my new macbook and somewhat older PC with a pre DirectX9 gpu. Congratulations on that part. This is without question the biggest and best transition Windows has had so far.
As far as the comparison between Apple and MS goes, while it's still debatable which looks the best, it has become clear that windows is also entering a new generation, hopefully giving Apple a few things to think about as well. One thing I think that's
really improved is explorer! I really like how the bottom bar is now used for extra information on your files, it no longer seems to distracts and when browsing my music for example and open a folder it feels like I'm looking at a nicely detailed playlist. So
hats off to whomever is responsible for that.
My only huge gripe with it are the so much debated security warnings. I absolutely have no idea why there's so much attention around them. I know the pro's are more then annoyed by it. But even beginning users tend to get scared by it the first time it appears.
I have a part time job instructing seniors and I let them try Vista out just this week. When they tried to move their files, I noticed that at first they were suprised by the notification of needing administrative rights. Then when clicking continue the whole
system is put to a halt to once again tell you that you need administrative rights. So I had to explain these were some of the new security features, once they understood they just clicked on. But ofcourse that can't be right either. If they were to actually
do something truly damaging to the system they wouldn't know the difference between what can actually damage the system and what can't. They would click continue either way. This might be a hard issue to pinpoint but it would be a lot nicer if there's a good distinction
between action such as simply moving your files about requiring administrative permissions or actually mess with files within the windows folder.
Anyway I think you guys are making good progress, keep up the good work!
By the way, is it me or do I always have to go back to the first page for the reply button?