 |
Manuel Clement
Experience Design & Research
Microsoft |
Hi Manuel, you are a lead of XDR. Can you tell us what it stands for? What is your background and what are you doing?
XDR means “(User) Experience Design & Research”. We are in charge of designing the user experience including interaction models of the Windows operating system as well as the Windows Live connected services (Messenger, Spaces, SkyDrive, etc) and Internet Explorer. UX Lead means User Experience (Design) Lead. Essentially I manage a team of people and I also contribute to the design of various products as a Designer. My specific team designs Common Controls, UI Patterns, Alternative Input (handwriting, touch, voice), Live Mobile-Client integration, UI Platforms. My background is a blend of programming, visual, sound and interaction design. I have also published a number of books over the years, on Photoshop and Flash.
What do you think about the web today?
Considering the fact that we are essentially still in the “Ford Model T” era of computers and the internet, I can only be amazed at how much it has already changed the way people live their lives. The potential of what we could do in the future is simply mindboggling. This “2.0” term is being defined in many different ways by different people. My definition is mainly that people have started to express themselves more easily than before (publish videos, documents, photos, blogs, etc), keep in touch, and think about the web differently than pre-2000 overall. I believe that we are definitely in the right direction. It is increasingly more about people and less about the computer itself, or the technologies used. It should always be the case.
Do you see the emergence of a web 3.0? What are the next steps for user interfaces?
I think that once we have pushed HTML/Ajax and other native web browser UI technologies, we will start seeing Client Applications UI run seamlessly inside the browser. Today we have technologies to do such things (see “XBAP” and various ActiveX technologies out there) but it is not mainstream yet. Client applications have advantages in terms of performance and others. Both application “styles” (web pages, client applications) will still exist, but having to go to a specific computer to run a client application, moving the center of gravity from human to machine, is not an optimal experience.
Let’s come back to your role at Microsoft. As an UI & UX expert, what are your main challenges when pushing your ideas? Is it more technical? More cultural?
Everyone – designers or not - truly want users to love their experience. The main thing about User Experience Designers is that we focus on doing the following: framing the problems, scoping the goals, non-goals, and exploring solution, always from an end-to-end point of view, visualizing the “vision” we all need to achieve. Having UX Designers on a team is key to achieving end-to-end, scenario-based results. I have been impressed by the breadth and depth of influence and contributions my team has had in both Windows, Live, and Internet Explorer over the last few years. The main challenge is to speak the same language as others. One has to be comfortable speaking in technical terms, communicating ideas with Technical Architects for example. It is an exciting challenge.
What do you consider to be the biggest mistake companies make when starting to prototype UI?
Coding, or going High Fidelity too early. I call it “pouring the cement”, like the foundations of a building, without having a clear blueprint of the project, then realizing when it’s too late “But wait… We forgot about the stairs”. This happens a lot. My advice is to go for the solutions that cost the less time, energy, and technical expertise, when the goal is to iterate quickly on a user interaction model of a software project. Do not fall in love with your code. Fall in love with the goal of seeing your users smile and enjoy their experience. In order to focus on collaboration and ease of iteration, we use Powerpoint. We draw our UI in Powerpoint at a “wireframe” (low) level of detail, similar to sketching. This does not replace high-fidelity or Code Prototypes – these are still super important – the point is that Powerpoint allows to iterate quickly on the initial blueprint of software experiences, with everyone involved since everyone can use Powerpoint. We built a “Wireframe Prototyping Toolkit” we give to product teams, so everyone re-uses the same essential Lego Blocks and UI Patterns. To learn more about this method, please watch the talk I gave in Seoul, Korea.
At the beginning, you mentioned your previous role in the Expression Blend team. Could you tell us more about that? What was your role?
As a UX Designer I was collaborating with feature teams on the interaction design of various areas throughout Blend, from the “Shell” (palette docking, Zoom, etc) to the Timeline, 3D manipulation, and Layout authoring tools. At one point, when we had a code-base, I started to “check-in” UI code and markup. This was new as Blend was essentially the first WPF-based project.
How, why and when did this project start?
I was on the Expression team for 4.5 years. In the beginning (2001), I worked on the initial project proposals to the executives. Back then, I helped explore richer platforms and User Experiences that clearly justified the need to build tools for visual and interaction designers – rather than just Developer tools. Having WPF (then code named “Avalon”) planned to be a major part of computing a few years ahead, everyone realized how important Designers will be. When the project was more into production mode, I explored and prototypes next-generation layout containers, 3D and animation in UI, Model and View separation, etc. In all instances it was not me alone, but awesome collaborations between amazing super-star Program Managers, Developers and me. I would create next-generation user applications (a car store / configurator comes to mind) and we would all look at it, analyze and drive platform (WPF) requirements to make them become possible: Layout containers, Animation Types, vector graphic elements, etc. We also imagined ways to author these user interfaces: Grid layouts with locks, drawing tools, a timeline that knows about dynamic keyframes and additive animations, a way to easily drag and drop data on a UI… All of which are now part of Expression Blend.
What is your favorite feature in Expression Blend?
Although my feature choice may be a surprise, simply the fact that Blend and Visual Studio open the same project files is a huge deal… I recently contributed to a User Experience prototyping project which was implemented using WPF. A developer had started writing his code and I seamlessly plugged in, spent a few hours drawing in Blend, typing XAML markup in Visual Studio, back in Blend for some more Templates and Animation construction, until I was happy with the basic skeleton of the application. I sent the developer a link to the project file and he was able to quickly plug my markup to his code. After literally 2 days we had a great interactive prototype folks could use. You simply can’t beat that whole “designed for collaborations” aspect of Blend.
How do you see UI in 5 years? Do you see Multi Touch screens, such as Microsoft Surface, as a direction for the future?
At a high-level, some interesting concepts come to mind for the future of user interactions over the next few years: using multiple screens in various locations or rooms, ubiquitous wireless internet connection, carrying your personal data on you - either stored on a physical device or accessible from any connected device/computer. Alternative input models will also start to become refined and a part of people’s lives: handwriting, voice, multi-touch. Things like Photosynth and Surface, as well as Vista AERO and Zune’s media player software and device UI, give us an idea of what faster graphic processors and richer UI Platforms will enable in the future. To me, it is all about making it more comfortable for people. Enable them to do what they want to do more conveniently.
Manuel Clement
Experience Design & Research Lead
Microsoft
