And here's that "other post" I promised earlier, about 49 year old corporate vice president of program management for the Windows Experience at Microsoft Corp, Julie Larson-Green. I just found myself liking the woman in that earlier Windows 8 presentation I posted. She comes across as being quite friendly and articulate; energetic without being brash; intellectual, but down to earth. A bit like Jeri Ellsworth in that regard. Here's her bio from the (now well out-dated) Mircrosoft press center page.
Updated: August 11, 2008And here's another video of her with some very dodgey "power zooming" at the start!
As corporate vice president of program management for the Windows Experience at Microsoft Corp., Julie Larson-Green oversees the design for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Her responsibilities include program management, user interface design and research, as well as assistance and support technologies for "Windows 7," the successor to Windows Vista, currently under development.
Larson-Green joined Microsoft in 1993 and has focused on user interface design throughout her career. As a program manager in Development Tools and Languages, she was instrumental in several releases of Microsoft Visual C++ for 32-bit operating systems and led the development of Microsoft's first customizable integrated development environment for Windows. Moving to the Windows team, she was responsible for the Internet Explorer 3.0 and 4.0 user experience, including features related to the Web-integrated Windows desktop.
Continuing her focus on end-user software, in 1997 Larson-Green joined the Office team and led program management for Microsoft Office SharePoint and Microsoft Office FrontPage, including the early work in information worker servers. Most recently, she has been responsible for leading the user interface design for Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003 and the 2007 Office system, which was lauded for its innovative reinvention of the user experience for productivity software.
Before joining Microsoft, Larson-Green was a senior development engineer at a Seattle-based company that created leading desktop publishing software. She holds a master's degree in software engineering from Seattle University and a bachelor's degree in business administration from Western Washington University. A native of Washington state, she lives there with her husband, who is a university professor, and her two children.
So was the Windows 8 post just an excuse for this post? No... Yes.
omfg. It's the woman who invented the ribbon. Thank goodness I don't own a gun. I still can't find sh*t, and I've been running the software for a year now. Typically I just go back to OO, lol!!
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with these people? Why do they think that click, click, click, click.... click... click is more productive than click hoverrrrr bam!
I love hierarchical menus!! And keyboard shortcuts!
It's because that's what the users said they wanted! Obviously 3 out of 5 test subjects, wittled down from a bank of hundreds (by scientific statisical analysis!) said they liked ribbons tied around trees and stuff.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think design meetings for Windows elements go like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer designs the ultimate car. Ironically, I think Microsoft care a little too much about what's good for the user, and would be better off just trying something out of the blue, like Windows 8, perhaps?