1. One of the big changes with the Pocket PC is the new user interface. Why did Microsoft decide to change the interface?
We looked at the form factor of the device, and the way people use them
and realized that we had put too much of the Windows UI into the Palm-size
PC. There were too many layers and menu levels, which was just not right
for the device. We didn't set out explicitly to change the UI. Rather we
focused on making users more efficient at accomplishing their tasks,
making the device a powerful productivity tool that is also pleasant to
interact with. Aligning those goals lead us to the UI changes that we
made.
2. We understand that you did a lot of end-user research. Can you tell us a little about the research you conducted? What were the most important things you learned about who your customer is?
We did a ton of research, including focus groups and one-on-one
interviews with PDA users and non-users. We also brought hundreds of
people into the usability labs here on the Microsoft campus. It was
exhaustive and exhausting, but we learned a lot. One of the most important
things I learned, that I still remind myself every day, is that the end
user has huge expectations. They might never have used a mobile PDA sort
of device before, yet they still had extremely high expectations of what
it could do and how well it could do it. In so many ways the expectations
are much higher for these portable devices than they are for a desktop PC.
People really come to rely on them as a critical professional and personal
tool. Performance, intuitiveness and aesthetics, for example, are all
expected in the device.
3. What were your most important and interesting findings about designing the user interface?
One of the most important things is Tap & Hold, which is analogous
to the right-click on a PC mouse (see Screen 1). The power that this gives
the user when they internalize this UI mechanism is awesome. We found Tap
& Hold to be so strong in usability tests, we put it prominently in
the Welcome wizard when you turn on the device for the first time.
4. What were your most surprising discoveries in your research?
One of the surprising discoveries in our research was the sophistication of the user. They had a natural ability to use a stylus and
a touchscreen device; they had strong intuitions about what it could do
and how it would work. Novice users were often very aware of emerging
technologies in mobile devices and expected them to be integrated into our
product.
5. What underlying principles guided your Pocket PC UI design?
We had several overall product goals such as enabling the user to do
more than just PIM, but in the UI design we had a few guiding principles.
"Data before controls." "Follow the 80/20 rule." "Remove UI redundancy." "Ease up on the eyes." "Do the right thing." That last one is of course the catchall and has preemptive priority over the other principles.
6. What are some examples of these principles found in the Pocket PC?
"Data before controls." This principle focuses on letting the
users' information drive the presentation, rather than forcing their data
into specific forms. The summary card views in the PIM are great examples
of where we put data ahead of controls (see Screen 2). The Pocket PC
contact cards only show the data you've filled in and leave off all the
rest of the blank fields, making a clean and easy-to-read contact card. At
first, it looks more like a data sheet. Whereas the Palm-size PC card
looks more like a dialog form full of entry boxes some of which you've
filled out and some of which you haven't. Even the menu labels we do have
are more flexible and focused on the users data needs. Take the start menu
"button" for example. In Palm-size PC, it was always displayed. While we have a start menu still, we now utilize it to reflect the application the user is working in, such as Inbox or Calendar.
"Remove UI redundancy." This is one of the driving reasons why we moved away from the "Rebar," the sliding toolbar and menus of Palm-size PC, and went to a single combined menubar. The result is not only a much flatter, visual aesthetic look, but also faster and smoother overall device performance.
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