Usability At Microsoft

By creating personae and conducting user research, field studies, and laboratory testing, the usability team in Microsoft was able to shape the outcome of the product based on what the users want and need.

An interesting article about Microsoft illustrates the lengths that successful companies go to in order to develop products that are truly usable. The company in question may arouse strong feelings in the IT industry, but the fact that Microsoft products generate such interest, both positive and negative, tells you something about how extensively they are used in the real world.

As the article suggests, much of the success of Microsoft's MSN Explorer, and by implication the rest of their Office suite of applications, is down to extensive usability engineering and intensive real-world testing.

Of particular interest is the concept of the 'persona' that Microsoft use to assist software development. Personae are archetypes of potential users, created in order to help developers understand and conceptualise the user. A persona ensures that development teams have a concrete impression of the various types of end-user they are designing for. In this way, a persona avoids developers.

A result of field research, consumer data, and other studies, personae are 'virtual people' upon which developers map their work. By creating personae and conducting user research, field studies, and laboratory testing, the usability team in Microsoft was able to shape the outcome of the product based on what the users want and need.

The concept of the 'persona' has interesting implications for software design. It is particularly effective for reminding designers of the importance of designing for an individual, rather than the population at large. Without a concrete impression of who exactly the user is, it is easy for designers to add features continuously because 'the user' demands them. For 'user', read 'marketing department'.

By creating very specific 'personas', with tightly-defined work habits and goals, Microsoft are ensuring that the finished product really is designed for the people who are expected to use it in the real world.

Why do Microsoft use personas rather than real people? Probably because whilst real users are a valuable source of information, they also present a variety of quirks and individual foibles that can only be ironed out through statistical sampling - in other words using thousands of users to assist in product design. Personas are a method of taking input from real users without necessarily being bound by each individual eccentricity.

Of course, Microsoft is not the only company engaged in this type of work. Nor are their software development processes perfect. But their commitment to rigorous usability analysis and innovative techniques is a lesson to the industry as a whole.