A picture is worth a thousand words. So in honor of a technology icon, I present the following picture:
What does the above image represent?
Of course, one can point out the irony in the image itself. The fact that the Start button is where you go to "Shut Down" your machine. But we'll let Andy Rooney's flame take care of that. Speaking of that, Andy represents a good portion of typical users. For other BillG videos over the years, you can check out the Microsoft collection.
Bill Gate's vision was to bring PCs and the power of computing to the masses. Obviously, this is an extreme nutshell of all the epiphanies on his credit list. But this was a double edged sword and generated the love/hate relationship you see today. Having a plate so full already, the polish became secondary. Yet the audience always craves more...
What is the polish?
The polish was in the UI and interaction design. One needs to look no further than the fanboy mentalities of Mac users. As an engineer and particularly non-UI centric developers, it becomes easy to forget that "polish" and the intended audience. After all, for a long time and even today, the interface has been treated as an afterthought or beneath a "real" engineer to work on.
Who are our users?
For typical consumer software and web applications, they are our grandmothers, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, sons and daughters.
And on the day BillG's exit, we are inspired by all his contributions and are reminded of the "polish" for your own software initiatives. Love him or hate him, he does inspire others either way.
Usability, Availability, Accessibility and Intuitiveness