Towards a total eclipse of the desktop

The new version of Outlook Web Access is a freak of nature. It’s so good it’s astounding. ASTOUNDING. The skill required to pull this feat off using blunt tools like the HTML DOM, AJAX and JScript is awe inspiring:

This will (I predict) be redone in Silverlight 1.1 when it’s released…and from there some interesting thoughts arise:

1. This could eclipse the native Office experience.  It easily could.
2. And if so, this would beg the question: why doesn’t the entire Office suite get redone in Silverlight?

I think it’s inevitable that a rich Office experience is delivered in Silverlight…one day. But seeing Outlook Web Access, and the obvious development path they’ll take towards Silverlight, this could accelerate pace towards that day when we’re really using Office in a browser (and actually liking it).

This radical departure from a client install might also offer Microsoft the perfect excuse for why, when rewriting Office from the ground up, it’s feature set is cut-back. People would wear that because it’s a “new” product…not an “downgrade” wearing “upgrade” clothes. Who knows, we might even get some collaboration tools in there that aren’t embarrassingly hacked on afterthoughts atop that smoldering pile of old code.

Play

Without play imagination dies.

Challenges to imagination are the keys to creativity. The skill of retrieving imagination resides in the mastery of play. The ecology of play is the ecology of the possible. Possibility incubates creativity.

A quote by Alex Manu (Ontario College of Art and Design) referenced by Bill Buxton in “Sketching the User Experience” – pp 263

Reality Bats Last

Design Communicator – Brief Definition

 

 

A design communicator (DC) works with an interaction designer (ID) as a full-time thought partner to interview users, develop personas, generate scenarios and requirements, and create design solutions. They also facilitate collaboration with engineers, product marketing, and other related disciplines.

While the interaction designer leads the creation of design solutions, the design communicator leads the evolution of those solutions by synthesizing information, evaluating prototypes with target users, and, finally, documenting the design for efficient and precise implementation.

In addition to facilitating quality work, the design communicator makes the work go faster, helping the individual designer iterate ideas rapidly, and helping broader teams collaborate efficiently.

 

 

 

 

 

Mental Model vs. Implementation Model

I have renamed my blog – the “Mental Model” the new title refers to comes from this concept: