Long started something

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Activity on Long Zheng’s UX Taskforce in the last seven days:

  • 18,128 votes cast (average 100 per hour)
  • 449 submissions posted
  • 1,633 comments written
  • 573 registered users
  • 159,000 hits since its launch

    • Awesome!

    (Background here and here.)

    I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Long is hired as Steven Sinofsky’s assistant in late 2009 and is in charge of the Microsoft UX team in 2019. You read it here first.

    Update:

    Steven Hodson adds: 

    My hat goes off to Long on this endeavor and I think it has to be a great contribution to the whole Windows community. I really hope that as Long says that the developers at Microsoft are really paying attention this time because this is in my estimation the most valuable resource they have – the real Windows community.

    Absolutely right. The anti-Microsoft voices are loud, but the sheer numbers in a community like Long’s (or at this week’s TechEd conference or at PDC in October) are much more impressive, in a quiet, getting-things-done way.

    Published by Ed Bott

    Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

    Published

    6 thoughts on “Long started something”

    3. 2019? I can’t wait for 11 years for the UX to be fixed. That it has taken this many iterations of Windows for something like the UX Taskforce to be created is both sad and frustrating.

    4. Funny, I was very amused, couldn’t stop reading through the submissions.

      This is actually the greatest Windows bashing fest I’ve seen in years 🙂 This guy thinks Vista sucks (I agree with him so far), he claims it to the world, writes a webapp so everybody can post and vote to exhibit the suckiest parts of Vista, he claims he can teach Microsoft a thing or two about OS development (he is right) and he gets praised for it!
      This is genius! 🙂

      I’m signing up right away, I have a few monstrosities I think no one has exposed yet. Down with Vista! One of the worst pieces of crap MS has ever written. Hopefully, we can teach ’em a little and the next one won’t suck as much. Can’t wait for the next version of Windows, really.

    5. The fundamental problem now is not the user interface surely, it’s the software development model and the continuing relentless fall in hardware costs.

      Yes, an elegant and consistent UI matters but if you can’t get stuff out the door or it just doesn’t work properly and has no compelling features and it’s simply too expensive … Hellooo? You’re toast.

      I run Vista on several PCs but I’m moving to Ubuntu. No IT manager I know (I was one; I know many) is moving from XP to Vista. Not one.

      I am not a Microsoft fan so spending time to give Microsoft my feedback via a 3rd party site has little appeal. Who seriously thinks Microsoft listens?

      http://wombatdiet.net/2008/04/19/vista-sp1-too-little-too-late/

      http://wombatdiet.net/2008/04/12/microsoft-office-2007-hasnt-started-working/

      (the end will come quickly)

      http://wombatdiet.net/2007/10/24/for-microsoft-the-ow-starts-now/

      http://wombatdiet.net/2007/09/05/what-can-microsoft-do-to-survive/

    6. My company moved from VMS to NT some 12 years ago. There was never a question since then that we migrate to anything else… until a few months ago where I heard that we started a project on the side to “see what it takes to recompile our servers on Linux”. A couple of guys are working on it, but more coming soon… Upgrading to Vista is not on the agenda at all anymore, it’s even clearly (and implicitly) out of the question. We were talking about it a lot at end of 2006, and it seemed like a no-brainer that we’d move to Vista at the time. The entire company moved to Win2k, then XP and Server 2003 very quickly. But it all stopped at Vista. There is one development machine running Server 2008, no other machines will.

      There are meetings now to discuss whether it’s going to be OSX (not likely) or Linux (likely). Windows seems to be heading out the door. No decisions yet, and my guess is that it will not start happening before 2010, at which point Windows 7 may become the natural choice.

      But it seems clear now that Vista will not enter the company, nor Server 2008, everyone seems to agree: IT, developers, users, managers… it’s one of these very rare unanimous things. Not even one person is pushing for Vista. Some are very motivated/excited about Linux (but everyone agrees that it needs validation first), others wonder about OSX (no one seems firmly convinced), no one talks about Windows 7 yet. For now, at my company, it’s a very clear status quo: XP and Server 2003 are here to stay for a while. No pressing need at all to move away from them.

      All new machines come exclusively with XP or Server 2003, there is no Vista possibility, and that doesn’t seem to bother anyone.

      Interestingly, everyone seems to kind of agree that Office 2007 is “better” than 2003, but no one takes any steps to move towards it. You can install it if you really want (it’s included in our volume license), but you are asked to keep saving your documents to the 2003 format. The migration from Office XP to 2003 was mandatory and applied overnight across all machines a few months after release. But not with 2007. Even those who seem to really like it don’t really want it released across the board.

      The automated upgrade to IE7 was “blocked” for quite a few months (mainly because of compatibility issued with some intranet sites). Applied to all machines overnight once most important incompatibilities were resolved.

      This is the most technically progressive company I have ever worked for, but there is a pronounced and implicit/passive resistance to Vista and Office 2007. We are having doubts about MS. Vista is the leading perceived problem. A big massive upgrade with lots of issues and very little added value for businesses.

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