HCI2003: Microsoft's Smillie shares Compelling Vision of Future

Gordon Smillie gave a talk at HCI2003 in which he presented Microsoft's vision of the future, introducing some features from the awaited Longhorn release and showing how they met users' goals more effectively. The focus is not just on usability, he said, but on being 'useful, usable and compelling'. But, he conceded during questions, it is difficult to get a product that is both compelling and stable and compromises have to be made.

After the talk, he shared a more personal view. 'The character of a compelling interface is that it's easy enough to use to excite you to go the next step; it addresses natural senses: visual, movement-based, graphical, touch and smell.'

Talking about the user interface in Minority Report (a film that sees Tom Cruise waft information across a wall-size screen like a conductor), Smillie said that the UI might be considered compelling for the conductor, but that what 'compelling' means will depend on the application. The smell of the Savannah might, for instance, be relevant for a website on safaris in Africa.

But he pointed out that GUIs on cash tills were compelling in a much simpler respect. Whereas unusual situations, such as when a customer wants to pay in a foreign currency, were difficult to deal with in the past, now a four-button touchscreen would be simple to press through a series of easy menu choices, making it possible to deal with exceptions without a special process. Speed and clarity in design has improved service, the confidence of staff and customer retention rates, he concluded.

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