Bill Gates useability rant

Ok, everybody is talking about this -

here's the link ...

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp

"Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant
Sometimes, software isn't so magical. Even for Bill Gates.

---- Original Message ----

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

...

As for the message, Gates smiled and said, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail. That's my job."
Update: Dave Ross of KIRO-AM/710 in Seattle did a dramatic reading of the message on air Wednesday morning. Click here to access the audio."

Rant

--Sorry I was speaking in hyper dense terms expecting you have read what I have read etc. we havent exactly studied the same stuff. we don't think in the same way - transparency bias showing like an invisable slip, or a guiding hand that isnt there

it relates through intellectual property and what I am saying is that privacy does not have a one size fits all solution. Some choices are hard-wired and in some ways that will never go away while human beings exist unless you selectively breed it out of them

the joke about internet porn was in relation to a TV ad that is repeated frequently played bevause it catches our attention, I don't really go for internet porn, it doesn't interest me. but it was about how americans are attracted to it and probably many people as it relates to biology as in reproduction and seems to be something hard wired in humans, with social coverings and differing norms and is related to privacy. it is rediculous but there.

The french for example don't want anyone to know what they earn or pay in taxes on their real estate that information they consider private, in america real estate taxes are public information. the french dont mind showing off something that the publically prudish americans swear they have no interest in but are actually facinated by in private (hence the joke about internet porn) such as their breasts on public beaches, just like brazil or italians. (depends on what you look like in the buff for some?)

But in China what you read may not be private. the differences I have seen in China have more to do with gender preferencial treatment than what we would even consider giving up as private (our thoughts freedom of expression etc) People do not chat on the bus or the train in China, because they are afraid of their government. That is fear of their private thoughts being known - illustion of transparency, but for them its real ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_transparency

biologically privacy is shown even among animals, by its very nature humans need some forms of privacy. Since it costs a human mother a certain amount of calories to concieve, bear and raise children, she will want to do that in a private, controlled, SAFE, environment - this means controllling who has access to her, her family and any and all information about them

Why? Because she wants the protection afforded by the many levels of privacy, physical, ecomomic, social, informational etc what ever other kinds, because they related to safety and security. Privacy is a individual and group response to biological needs for safety and security even in communial cultures. The desire for an increase in privacy generally rises with the level of an increase in woman's education which is linked to increases in the stabiltiy of nations. there are also social norms related to physical privacy, just travel to India and you'll see someone washing their private parts in public, china and you can not walk down the street with out your body space being invaded - these are social norms.

as far as China - he who has the key to resources has wealth. Think about B 2 B supply chains and intellectual property is again a form of wealth in the information age. traditional economics holds that (resources) its like diamonds and gold and timber and potato(e thx mr bush)s and pork bellies. But as our world grows flatter and ecomomic competion increases globally knowing information to turn it into things like instant *buy*sell* investments is a form of wealth. Of these forms information about people, our private information which we now consider an opt in privilege for others to have may become more like an opt out privilege to pay others to obtain so we aren't bugged etc. we want to make choices as you said, and that includes about our private information. just like walled villas of the rich and wanna be rich.

Think about Matrix as Neo walks through ads. He never had privacy - that is not going to happen because he will be able to afford to turn it off - he kept it on so he would not appear so wealthy in public which would tend to draw attention to him

think about the issues of choice modeling, a - b testing, cognitive biases,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases and all the biases in choices, the user is king, the more you know about your user the more power you have over them. All that Use case senario user testing marketing profiling stuff is about getting people the user to do what you want them to, in the guise of serving them at some level. user testing is about knowing what is in someone's mind, making tacit information into data/info/knowled/wisdom/=money.

Long term its been about class struggles but in contrast what do inventors and academics care about - not money but what their peers think - it's controllable. why work on designing new aids drugs if you know 3rd world folks will die anyway cause they can't afford the medicinal drugs regardless of emergency agreements?

private information is a form of wealth to seek sales or other goals. privacy issues will not go away even in the far flung future, because there will be differences in personal needs, different laws, coping strategies, biologically driven needs etc

as for a mothers strategy of complete transparency complete openness - it would fail because of the reason stated before - people do want to lean in at the table and learn some juicy gossip, the less spiritually and morally mature want to hate and hurt anyone they percieve as being a HAVE, talent money love what ever.

The children's naked bodies were examined by the police because the neighbours accused the mother of torchering them because the neighbours were just plain jealous of that artistic way of life, openness, joie d vive, etc this society is not ready for glasnost/transparency/openness as long as competition exists we will all search for something to cover whatever we percieve as our nakidness this side of Eden.


Outside the Gates of Eden - by Christopher Wilkinson

"There are no truths outside the gates of Eden. There none inside either. Truths tend to be defined. The domain of no definition is bliss. Bliss is orgasmic reality without center or boundary. On the outside of the gates, this is well conceived as the structure of a mandala. There are male and female aspects. The chip is material, and like the male principle, represents the structure of the mandala. The software -- particularly the OS, is basically female, and represents the intuitive power of consciousness -- the thing that gives it life.
...

Humanity is at constant war, whether it be war for good or war for conquest, or just to prove who is better or worse. The trials that determine who is right and who is wrong are only functional where the binary reality structure has been imposed on experiential truth -- at the level of total intermesh between OS and hardware -- life and earth -- yab and yum -- at this level all binaries are conventionalities at best. ..Information regarding the endlessness and painful condition of Samsara would tend to be depressing, as there is no real hope for consummate orgasmic awareness to override the dualistic binaries that dwell outside the gates of Eden."

Read:The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman by Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas Friedman Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz

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