Bob failed miserably because it was designed for children not for grown-ups. People that are not computer literate are not children or idiots. (Actually all children are more computer literate than their parents).

About the next era of Microsoft. I'd say you are already late. Apple is at it right now and they are slowly increasing their market. Microsoft already scrued the era of security(testing).

I don't like this 3 brain explanation. Humans have only 2 brains and the Cerebellum is responsible only for the motor and motion coordination. I guess this analogy is just simplification of the Freud's Ego, Super-Ego and ID.

"People have an unspoken need to reactivate this first imprint. What it boils down to is if you understand the code, you can move a lot of product."

Or put another way, people have a strong desire to make the current actions consistent with their previous public actions and statements.

As well as playing on consistency there are a lot of other ways of persuading people to buy your product. You can use social proof (people tend to be persuaded into doing something by seeing a lot of other people doing the same thing), authority (people can be persuaded by somebody they think is an authority on a subject), liking (people can be persuaded by somebody that they personally like), exclusivity (people are attracted to things that have limited availability) and reciprocation (people will do something for somebody who has already done something for them). The solution to all these factors will obviously vary from culture to culture and I guess if lumped together you have something approaching a "code". It sounds like you have a natural interest in this persuasion stuff so you might want to have a read of Robert Cialdini's Influence: Psychology of Persuasion, which is where I first learnt about these techniques.

Andrew.

ps. I'd love to read about why you and other Microsoft employees think the iPod's user interface sucks. I've talked to a lot people, including people who have tried different portable music players, and I've never heard anybody say the iPod's user interface is unusable or crap. Usually the opposite in fact, especially from the people who have tried out other players, so I'm very interested in hearing a different point of view.

Ivan, I maintain that we (or I anyway) can't really evaluate Bob because I'm not its intended audience. My father-in-law, who is a smart guy but wasn't computer-literate back then, really liked Bob.

Andrew, I'll have to check out Cialdini. On the iPod interface, where to begin...first of all it's very hard to use in a car (the buttons are context-sensitive so you have to focus on it too carefully) and also while running (because the buttons are hard to press and the click wheel is hard to maneuver). Even while just sitting still, it's non-obvious how to use the thing (e.g. how to move forward within a song?). I realize they were trying to make the UI just "four buttons and a wheel" but I don't like the result.

- adam

Adam, actually this is the biggest problem. It had targeted the wrong audience.
It is possible to create interface that is easy for novice and compfortable for expirienced users.
I haven't seen Media Center yet, but I guess it could serve as example.

All the cartoonish look just isn't "sexy". The reptile will just say "I'm big grown up. I'm not watching cartoons". And person won't like it. Probably they won't ever give it a try.

Well I guess you may find interesting this review: http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=327

"So, if we want to move into the Era of the Designer, Microsoft first has to admit, as a company, that Bob was a great idea, and that killing it was a huge mistake. Stay tuned."

Sorry Adam. You can't be serious. It was a great piece until you brought up Bob. I am a designer and I can tell you that it is an example of how Microsoft(ies) need to get a clue.

I remember Bob. That's all I remember except the code it wrote in my head about what Microsoft represented. Clueless in Seattle would be a better term.

No. I have never owned an Apple computer, do own an Ipod, hate it because of the arrogance of Steve Jobs and Apple to not compete directly with MS by selling their OS standalone.

Open your eyes, develop a keen sense of visual analysis of what Microsoft is producing via its products, image, website, etc. Notice. Its old, unprofessional, no voice of the customer, no "I gotta have it" anywhere in sight. No realization that there is a much much larger difference between a corporate identity and a personal identity, despite what the Supreme Court may have said about Corporations being individuals. The codephrase is Freedom from. . .(--add in what you like here), like Freedom from Pyschopatic Programmers, or Freedom from Trojan Attacks by nozy VP's with a little too much power, stuff like that. By the way, Apple doesn't get it either.

"So, if we want to move into the Era of the Designer, Microsoft first has to admit, as a company, that Bob was a great idea, and that killing it was a huge mistake. Stay tuned."

Sorry Adam. You can't be serious. It was a great piece until you brought up Bob. I am a designer and I can tell you that it is an example of how Microsoft(ies) need to get a clue.

I remember Bob. That's all I remember except the code it wrote in my head about what Microsoft represented. Clueless in Seattle would be a better term.

No. I have never owned an Apple computer, do own an Ipod, hate it because of the arrogance of Steve Jobs and Apple to not compete directly with MS by selling their OS standalone.

Open your eyes, develop a keen sense of visual analysis of what Microsoft is producing via its products, image, website, etc. Notice. Its old, unprofessional, no voice of the customer, no "I gotta have it" anywhere in sight. No realization that there is a much much larger difference between a corporate identity and a personal identity, despite what the Supreme Court may have said about Corporations being individuals. The codephrase is Freedom from. . .(--add in what you like here), like Freedom from Pyschopatic Programmers, or Freedom from Trojan Attacks by nozy VP's with a little too much power, stuff like that. By the way, Apple doesn't get it either.

I have to agree with the other is disagreeing with you, here. Microsoft could waste billions more on trying to turn "Microsft Windows" into "Microsoft Rooms(TM)", when all the user really wants is expose. While Microsoft are busily stuffing all of the functionality into a command button hidden in the bottom left hand corner of the screen and saying "Look at the fluffy clouds; look at the lovely grass", Apple are quitely giving people Expose.

Microsoft provide a System Tray, as a graphical representation of the vast number of background processes, running (i.e.the ones that are consuming all the system resources). Meanwhile, Apple give people on-the-fly defragmentation and Hotzoning, and then completely DON'T tell them about it. They silently give the user two of the best things about their OS, and "It just works", in ways that the user senses, but cannot put into words. Apples are nice to use because you aren't being hectored and bullied into understanding how it all runs.

There's a difference, here: yes, a cultural difference in people who think the user understands the concept of background processes and cares abouut them, and wants that information ppresented to them graphically, while - at the same time - all of the actual functionality is hidden in the bottom left hand corner. It's a real "Bolts on the outside approach".

Microsoft tell people about all the bad shit that's going on, but in a cryptic way that only geeks can grok. Even if Microsoft did have on-the-fly defragmentation, there would be an enormous modal dialogue with tabs on it, that popped up every time it ran, saying "On the fly defrag is running: please select your on the fly defrag preferences here"... with a tickbox saying "Please do not alert me to this shit again" (which is UNTICKED, by default, of course).

Yes, Windows has aquired the "plastic look", but only in the same way that KDE has aquired the "plastic look"". The user experience is still all about clicking buttons that have "OK" written on them, when what's going on really ISN'T OK. "Your application took a long time writing that data to the disc, because Windows had queued it up behind several background processes that you niether know about nor care about, and the filesystem belongs in the 1990s. Windows decided that the application had stopped responding, so it decided to kill it: all of your data has been lost. OK"

Microsoft people probably don't get the iPod interface because it simply isn't ugly enough or geeky enough... and, meanwhile, the people who poured money into Bob, believed it was intuitive to try to make people think using a computer is a bit like using a room: it isn't. Just accept that using a computer isn't even very much like using a typewriter, and then concentrate on making using a computer a bit easier.

As for the iPod - Don Norman gave a lecture at the University of Minnesota. He said that it doesn't have to be obvious how to use something. The important thing is that you only have be told how to use it once.

Yeah, Chris, you are right about that. But I think Adam is onto something very important with his premise that cultural codes (sans Bob). Industrial Designers are readily available but have been unable to break through bulk of the culture code of corporate America and America in general except for a few rare examples, like Apple. Good design is not only misunderstood, it is not even recognized.

Then add to that the burn factor, i.e., a person may or may not buy something simply because that person was burned by that company the last time around. Without the Monopoly Money playing into the situation, Microsoft is in deep trouble, because people do not associate consistency, professionalism and great honesty in the products with the name Microsoft.

The larger cultural and background influences that predjudice a customer are far more powerful than most of us realize.

Just to clarify, I am not saying that Bob 1.0 was some brilliant example of user-friendly software. But it was a DIFFERENT way of designing software (the difference being...actually trying to design it). So when I say killing Bob was a mistake, I mean that abandoning that notion was a mistake, and stopping further development on the product was a mistake. Imagine what Bob 5.0 could have been, if we had done it right (meaning we really took the time to understand the "code" for our customers).

Windows does not necessarily need to become Bob, it just needs to be designed right for *its* customers. Maybe some brilliant designers can figure out one UI that works for everyone, or not.

On the iPod...well, I still don't like the UI but remember I also own one and I think our family owns 3 (or maybe 4). So there must be SOME reason we keep buying them.

- adam

Oh. I get it now. Sorry Adam. I just had some kind of visual horror image of Microsoft becoming this inane sort of mickey mouse product, which to me "bob" was.

But I really do agree with you in a serious way that you are on to the 'solution compass'. I have lots of ideas on that, but thats how I make my living, actually. But to give you a heads up, for starters, I think the solution has to start with a ground up re-definition of the company and therefore the products it makes. You cannot expect "people" (i.e., individual users) to flock to something that essentially was designed to allow corporations to control and manage their resources (the individual user). That is one market. Why do you think Apple has shyed away from that area? My guess is they tend to find that the required product is repugnant. I think MS is on the right track creating MS Live with bits and pieces of Vista, but the definition of the hosting hardware down the line is really in flux and Google is all talk with no real tangible that is easily identified except for a lot of announcements. Nothing cohesive like the products MS has built in the past. I also have my doubts that people are going to flock to Google's server farm in exchange for giving up personal info to advertisers. Some will, but its not the end all.

Interesting discussion (and I'm so glad you clarified what you meant about Bob being a good idea). Could you tackle the challenge of applying cultural codes to design for products that we want to be used globally? That's the stumbling block I keep encountering, whenever there's good intelligence around making something more effective -- it never seems to apply to everyone everywhere (duh), yet that's one of our requirements. So we go with least-annoying-and-offensive-to-the-widest-group.

I loved this comment -> "Even if Microsoft did have on-the-fly defragmentation, there would be an enormous modal dialogue with tabs on it, that popped up every time it ran, saying "On the fly defrag is running: please select your on the fly defrag preferences here"... with a tickbox saying "Please do not alert me to this shit again" (which is UNTICKED, by default, of course)."

I keep getting myself drawin to this short thread. I think Adam has moved on to the next post, but I have a basic cultural code that I think Microsoft ought to adopt. It is an American more, but I think the jist of it is a universal truth, lest millions would not be breaking laws to get here (America).

Here it is:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The trend for software tends not to see this basic cultural code ingrained in most of us. What does the constitution have to do with software anyway? Think about it.

I'm still around. Jeanie, if I knew what the global cultural code was for software, then I would probably be a high-priced consultant selling the information back to Microsoft. Rapaille said that it took a while to figure out the global code for a shampoo (Pantene), I don't know what it would be for software. I'm sure he'd be happy for us to hire him to tell us, if he isn't busy on the PT Cruiser 2.0.

KP, it seems you are saying that "security" is the basic code for software. It's an interesting suggestion. Certainly the company is pursuing security but I don't know if we have internalized it. Or if our heroes, myths, and rituals are those that celebrate security.

If I personally lay down in a dark room and thought about my first experiences with a computer (to discover my reptilian hot button), I would probably think of something personal and fun. That is, a computer that does what I tell it to, and where I enjoy interacting with it. NOT a computer that refuses to cut-and-paste the text the way I want, or grays out the menu selection I want to use, or mysteriously freezes up for 30 seconds.

- adam

Misunderstanding seems to be catching here. I was saying that everything Microsoft has produced up till now has ignored what both of us would think of as personal and fun and instead has created something that offers little security to the individual user and lots of security (and access) to others, i.e., My Corporate Masters, CIA, NSA, Mickey Mouse, you name it, but not the individual user. Apple I think has tapped into this individual need and sacrificed the other. I suspect that Google and Yahoo and other web based providers will work extremely hard at convincing us its fun while providing security for the one.