The Goddess Shines on America

As someone who has experienced it, Alice is very familiar with the word user experience.

Furthermore, people's complaints about the series of Windows systems are also familiar. Just like the old saying, if a user really wants to understand Microsoft's system, he must become an engineer himself.

On the contrary, Apple, which directly adopts user experience orientation, is too considerate in this regard. Although until now, Alice still ignored the future peak market value company too much, but there is no doubt that using Apple's computer system is an excellent enjoyment.

As for why there is such a difference, if you think about it carefully, it is really the cumulative product of the right time, place and people.

Unlike Jobs' philosophy, when Microsoft first developed DOS on the IBM platform, it went directly to corporate users. According to the market environment in the 1980s, more than 80% of those who can buy computers and play with the operating system are network administrators of large companies and their subordinates. Well, since they are all professionals, Bill Gates, who is also a programmer, of course will not consider the feelings of ordinary users in a careless way.

As for why Apple created such an exquisite graphical user interface, so that the Win1.0 series in history are actually Jobs "plagiarized" by Gates, it is of course related to the experience of the founder of the company. Unlike Gates, who is completely technical and otaku-style, Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, is actually not a technical background at all. His most outstanding talents are mainly concentrated in design concepts.

The concept of disagreement naturally arose in this way. The bosses of the two companies, one is a simple technical madman, programmer, and otaku, and the other is a design master who loves Indian philosophy and Japanese culture. They run computer companies at the same time, and the results are of course very different.

"Bill, Bill, my dear classmate Gaizi." Alice reported tremblingly: "You have to know that although our current main users are enterprises, the personalization of computers is a top trend. It’s such a mess, isn’t it just waiting for the common people to make complaints?”

"Of course I know that computers will become popular." Not long after handing over the summary materials, Gates immediately received a scolding from the girl. How could Gates be happy: "But this system is for large companies, even Isn’t it used by a dedicated network provider? Alice, you’re not going to tell me that just because computers will be highly popular in the future, those companies will hire people who are not computer professionals to manage them?”

So ah, I knew you would say that.

She is about to sing the praises of her predictability like a god, and now Gates asks himself this way, if there is no super cute girl named Alice in this world, Microsoft will commit to the old problems of his damn system up?

"Speaking of which, in fact, I have never been to Redmond in person for the research and development of this entire system, but just guided by email." An obvious problem was pointed out by her: "Bill, although I don't force you to Refer to my code writing mode, but at least there are 1.0 and 3.0 old products as examples, why are those guys still so wordy?"

Of course, this is just Alice's pure complaint. Who can force his employees to be on the same level as hers? Gates asked himself, even if he is asked to learn from Alice's programming style, he will not be admitted to all the mathematics doctoral majors in the next Ivy League. It is impossible to achieve the level of simplicity and efficiency to the extreme!

"Alice," so he said with a wry smile, "this system is basically completed now because of your continuous guidance. If we let those guys study slowly by themselves, it is estimated that it may not be able to produce results in 90 years." So, now we have advanced the project by at least two years, and you really can't avoid these code redundancy problems."

What Gai Zi said was very reasonable. The girl who complained about it actually understood it in her heart.

You know, it is the midsummer of 1988, and this project has been started as early as the beginning of last year. Thanks to the fact that she has to deal with a bunch of email questions and answers every day, it has basically taken shape now. If we look at Microsoft's historical development, the entire Windows.NT project just started this year, and it lasted until 1993, a super-grind product that was not launched on the market.

Five years has been shortened to one and a half years, and it is still 1987~1988 instead of 1988~1993. Rationally speaking, Alice's complaints now are indeed too hypocritical.

But it all depends on where you look at it from.

"Bill, Bill," the girl patted Gai Zi on the shoulder and said, "I'm not complaining about the efficiency of the working group. After all, no one stipulated that it should be launched at the end of the year. Let's just say that we are now focusing on win3.0. Didn't you still call me last month to say that 3.1 is going to be released. What I'm talking to you now is about our company's business philosophy."

If these remarks were put forward three or four years ago, that is, when Alice first joined Microsoft, Gates would have to slap this girl aside. The company has been established for nearly ten years, and suddenly a 12- or 13-year-old kid comes in and wants to talk to the founder about the business philosophy. Isn’t this looking for trouble?

But now that she said these words, Gates immediately pondered: "You mean...our market positioning?"

"No matter what the position is, it is the same thing." It is not difficult for Gates, a technician and nerd, to start a business, because he is very good at doing business, but it is difficult to make him think from the perspective of customer experience.

"Think about it, Bill, no matter whether it is a company or an individual, a professional or an ordinary person who buys our software in the future, everyone will definitely like the simplest thing to use." It is related to the notorious blue screen and difficult settings of Windows, It is really necessary for Alice to have a chat with Gates, to be honest.

"I don't know if you understand the concept of product design, the simple design concept, not the design of how to program." The man in science and engineering in front of him must not understand, Alice said: "Or we should put it this way, industrial product design and art What is the biggest difference in painting?"

With somewhat disheveled blond hair and a head that looked extraordinarily large compared to his body, Gates, who had the glasses on his nose, pondered hard for a long time before saying, "I don't understand!"

"Art is something that requires users, or audiences, to think actively. For example, Van Gogh, Picasso, various oil paintings of the Virgin Mary, etc., viewers stand in the Louvre and post a piece of work for an hour. It's a typical feature of a work of art."

"oh……"

"The product design is completely opposite. Its purpose is to allow users to use the product in the simplest way. To give a positive example, the ergonomic design of the chair will make it unnecessary for people who sit on the back to prepare A waist support pad; give a reverse example... This is even better. For example, when designing a water cup, no one will design a cup mouth that is extremely difficult to pour and drink, right? This'no It will be designed in this way' is the most basic 'user-oriented' design concept."

In other words, after Alice has invested in so many companies, she is still playing around with the title of a technical consultant. No, she is easily serving as an art director at the moment, such a profession that it is impossible for Microsoft to specially hire?

"I think I understand what you mean." Of course Gates is not an idiot, but he has a specialization in the art industry. He pondered and said, "But this is not an easy job. We really need to hire a bunch of designers. ?”

Compared with the absolute youth of art and science and engineering, the engineering major is a relatively neutral existence, and design is located in this area. If you want to talk about the "virtue" of literary youth, Gates, who is on the side of the absolute science and engineering house, of course knows the "rival" very well, but when it comes to the middle ground of engineering, he really dare not say how much he knows.

Alice knew that this uncle still needed some stimulation, so she said leisurely: "That's what Apple does~"

One sentence made her see with satisfaction that Gates' little eyes really became serious.

After all, the exception is just Alice. Except for Cisco who is more concerned, she is actually half an outsider in the daily development of most of her businesses. She lives a small life in her small town of Los Angeles and Windsor all day long, invests in new industries suddenly, and greets her when she is bored. The old company, this is her daily routine.

But Bill Gates is different. The chairman of the company who only guards the diligent development of a company all day long, of course, has a relationship with Apple, which is a peer in the industry. Although Microsoft is currently focusing on the software industry, it must be a lie to say that Apple, which sells computers and systems together, has no sense of existence.

"Steve Jobs' design philosophy is really different," he gave affirmative approval: "Then Alice, if Microsoft wants to enter the field of user experience, do you have any good ideas?"

"The first thing is to recruit a bunch of designers from the professional field." Alice thought for a while, but then she muttered again. It would be really easy to solve this problem after 2010. Just post a bunch of UI designs Recruitment of teachers is enough, but now this idea, the concept of "user interface" has just emerged.

"Graphic designers, let's focus on them." So after thinking about it, she could only say this: "But we can't just recruit graphic designers directly, after all, the concepts we have now are too fresh. So in the written test ..."

Reminiscent of the endless weird problems of Microsoft, Bones, and Facebook in the later period, Alice gloated and laughed.

"What's the matter, what did you think of?"

"Hey hey~ Bill, let's set a precedent."