

Meet Microsoft's guru of 'design matters' - Garbage
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014555677_microsoftbuxton21.html

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raganwald
Obviously I am not commenting from experience with Microsoft's design process,
just from the article. But what little the article says is deeply disturbing.

It says that Buxton told Ballmer they needed to fix the design process.
There's your problem right there. If they want to turn their design around,
the conversation should involve Ballmer telling the troops to get cracking. It
needs to be Ballmer's passion, not the passion of some gadfly wandering around
trying to evangelize the company while being bereft of authority or
responsibility for any single product line.

Design involves making painful decisions. It's not just pretty skins, it's an
exercise in leaving things out. That's intensely political, and the only
people with the authority to play that game are the people who have
responsibility for shipping the products.

Joel Spolsky (<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/TwoStories.html>):

    
    
      At Microsoft, if you're the Program Manager working on the Excel
      macro strategy, even if you've been at the company for less than six
      months, it doesn't matter - you are the GOD of the Excel macro
      strategy, and nobody, not even employee number 6, is allowed to get
      in your way. Period.
    

Does this sound like the kind of place where Buxton can wander around getting
product managers to make trade-offs between their precious list of check-box
features and good design?

The goal is noble, but this is not the way to change Microsoft's behaviour.

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eagleal
> Bill Buxton is multiplatform the way Leonardo da Vinci was multiplatform.

I'm not a native speaker, but isn't polymath a better word to explain interest
and expertise in multiple fields?

~~~
mattdeboard
It doesn't say he's good at different kinds of math, though.

Kidding, but the average newspaper reader wouldn't know what a polymath is.
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of smart people who couldn't tell you what a
polymath is. It's a word that is not a common/standard word in the English
language, but one that hackers tend to use and love. Kind of like
"autodidact."

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grammaton
>He has the unique ability to speak about technology without actually talking
about technology.

This sounds like a euphemism for talking out your ass.

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mattdeboard
If the article is a reflection all the substance about design the guy could
muster, I think I figured out Microsoft's problem. What exactly has he
contributed?

I know nothing about this guy, so maybe he's a genius, but I've never heard of
him before this article.

~~~
idan
Buxton is a prominent name in the field of UX, and the book referenced in the
article (Sketching User Experiences) is a seminal text in the field.

I think the failings you point out are more about the inability of the press
to shoehorn both introduction and meaning into a thousand words, and less
about Buxton himself.

On a related note: I think every software developer would be well-served by
reading Sketching User Experiences. There is a false dichotomy between
developers and designers, to my mind; many of the lessons about understanding
your audience and the process of "ideation" and refinement apply equally to
both disciplines.

~~~
rimantas
I thought seminal texts were by Norman, Raskin and Cooper. Buxton? Never heard
of him.

~~~
kenjackson
I honestly hope you are a backend dev and not s designer. You'd have to go out
of your way as a designer to have not heard of him.

~~~
rimantas
I am sure wast majority of the designers never heard neither Buxton nor those
names I mentioned.

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anactofgod
Is he showcasing the extent of his expertise via the design of his personal
Web site? <http://www.billbuxton.com/>

It looks to me to be a mock-off of Jakob Nielsen's <http://www.useit.com/>

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Fjslfj
The guy's office is messy and far from stylish. This is the design guru at
Microsoft?!

I think the photo says it all.

