Designers, Designers, Designers..

Q.What do you expect from Microsoft going forward in the design space.

I meet with a lot of customers in many forms of communication. I often am surprised not by the "we are thinking of adopting Silverlight/WPF" meetings but more, "We have adopted them, but we need help".

When I get to the bottom of it, it's something they face, well all face universally, in that "we need more muses / inspiration".

I used to struggle with this years ago, when I conjured creations inside Flash. I'd sit there for hours struggling to bend Photoshop to somehow produce a design that I could take to the next level.

My intent was to always raise the bar, both personally and hopefully amongst my peers.

I see this as a critical flaw in the Adobe & Microsoft campaign going forward, in that where do people go to draw inspiration and what life raft can be thrown to them should they stare at the blank <CANVAS>.

Steve Ballmer has stated we committed to design, and we have lots of talent inside the firewall whom - we probably don't amplify enough. It's something I'm keen to explore further but, you the audience, the readership. What would you like to see from Microsoft around design,.

What are we doing wrong? (keep it constructive heh).

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 01, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 03, 2008
  You're not doing anything wrong. There is only one area where Microsoft better get their sht together and I mean soon. And that area is Vista. Day in and day out I am seconds away from throwing this Vista Machine through the fcking wall. It is that frustrating to use. I love Microsoft Technologies. I love the developer tools. I've been using MS for over 10 years. I'm very close to hanging it up and being done with MS forever because of Vista. Let me repeat. I have to take many breaks and step away from my BRAND NEW POWERFUL VISTA Machine because I'm about ready to throw it out the window and SMASH IT TO BITS and be done with MS for good. Improve Vista that is what matters. Your other tools and technologies don't mean anything to me when I sit here and try to work with Visual Studio but Vista freezes for no fcking reason 30 times a day for over 30+ seconds each time. Or Vista has something running in the background NONSTOP ALL THE TIME. Yes, your honor I HAVE VISTA RAGE Syndrome. I love Microsoft and this Vista operating system is going to make me stop using Microsoft Technology -- it is that bad. Improve the OS; nothing else matters at this point. Sorry for the rant, but I'm very close to throwing this Vista Machine through the fcking wall. Cheers. HTH

• Anonymous
  March 03, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 04, 2008
  Personally, I think there are two main things that need to happen.

1. Blend needs to stay focussed on designers.  Allow me to elaborate.  When a user fires up Blend and starts a new project, they are prompted with a variety of options.  Essentially, these options force someone to choose between a "WPF Application" or a "Silverlight Application".  This is problematic because it automatically puts someone on the defense who doesn't know what the difference between these technologies are.  Instead, I thnk the option of a wizard needs to be included i.e. Are you creating a web application or a desktop application.  I know these lines are blurring, but it's important to not let individuals to get lost in the mix.
2. The experience needs to be considered from end-to-end.  From installation to removal and everything in between.  I think this is one thing the Office 2007 team got right.  They did a pretty good job of designing the main products within 2007 from end-to-end.  On the flip side, I cannot say the same for Windows.  There are all sorts of dialog boxes and such that are left over from eons ago.

• Anonymous
  March 05, 2008
  Hey mate, me personally i look for

1. Inspiration from fellow enthusiasts that know what im going thru
2. Way to share blend assets or templates with others, maybe even a marketplace ?
3. A forum dedicated to design type of threads

• Anonymous
  March 11, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  March 16, 2008
  Hi, well you said you talked to customers who had already adopted, and thats fine, but with the new tools Microsoft has given to students, you have a much bigger customer base on the way. All of who don't get to go to colledge just to learn all of this, at least not yet but managed to get our hands on these grate tools, and now we got no idea what they do. Please help get us started. The start page on visual studio for example has no 101 projects. if your customers need help it is the basics that didn't get covered as they are now still. Thank you for asking, Tell Bill I said Thanks for the tools.~W~ Neil

• Anonymous
  March 18, 2008
  I want to be approached as a professional that does a valuable job. Not just someone that bother Application Developers.

• Anonymous
  March 28, 2008
  Developers here are going to hate me. Its simple, Stop developers producing the design and the user interfaces.   Leave that to the people that live and breath it day in and out.  The people that spend their time getting to the core of the psychological response to an interface. If Microsoft wants to be in this space, it has to step aside from the developer view point (which they don't seem to be able to do) and embrace the designer fully.  At the moment things are too developer centric in EVERY aspect of even design tools.  Frankly MS isn't even in the right mindset to engage the design community.   And as @anonymous  said - support OS X or the designer will just laugh at you.