It's not easy to create a good software or hardware product - Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and a myriad of companies large and small put a huge amount of effort into everything they ship.

That's why it annoys me so much when they stop at good and don't get to great by making the User Experience (UX) so good that it's invisible.

I'm lucky enough to work with some very smart people who get UX like Nishant and Tim who do a good job of reminding me about it most days.

So what do I mean when I talk about the difference between good and great?

Let me take one example. You probably have several you'll be able to think of when you see what I mean. My example is ActiveSync in Windows Mobile.

I've been using Windows Mobile devices for a while, and I check mail every day (sometimes more than every day - sorry Storm!) so I really care about the process.

Now I've got two choices in Windows Mobile. I can either have it work in full "push" mode so mail is sent to my phone as soon as it arrives. That would actually be optimal (I have an "all you can eat" data plan and WiFi at home)... but the high data traffic eats the battery at rather a scary rate. That means I operate in "on demand" mode. And here's where it's painful...

After unlocking the phone I have to go into Active Sync (either the default... Start, page down until Active Sync is visible, or the "power user" way.... scroll to the "Communications Manager" settings - last menu item on the homescreen - and select Active Sync; or I've added a couple of short cuts - one on the user customisable key and one via a registry hack) - a minimum of 3 clicks to get the sync started.

Once the sync completes and I see there's mail I don't have the obvious one key "read new mail" option.... I have to go back to the main menu, click down to get to the mail option, scroll right (past Text Messages, Picture Messages and Audio Postcards) and then get into mail.

For something I do day in and day out it's not exactly optimal... and every time I do it it annoys me.

And it's not just the standard apps that behave like this. The T-Mobile Hotspots app likes to interrupt whatever I'm doing every time we pass a Starbucks (really boring on the bus to work let me tell you) and I have to "dismiss" or "logoff". Sometimes sitting in a Starbucks it will fail to authenticate properly just to add insult to injury. Hardly surprising I've disabled that rubbish and installed DeviceScape which handles the log on reliably and seamlessly.

Before the Nokia S60 and iPhone crowds get all high and mighty they've got their own little idiosyncrasies as well.

The problem is that it doesn't matter what the tool is (Outlook, iPhone, a Samsung TV, Comcast Cable, a 3 Series BMW) .... people don't complain loud enough, they just expect the pain and live with it.

Funnily enough sometimes dropping someone an email or writing a letter is all it takes to reach a tipping point and get the feature improved. I remember years ago writing a letter to a car manufacturer to suggest a better placement for one of the auxiliary light switches. They listened (I even got invited to the motorshow where the next model launched with the "fix" applied) and to this day I've an affection for their brand - it doesn't always translate into a sale when I need a new car, but it always results in positive recommendations

Not concentrating on polishing the UX because you're busy trying to squeeze one more feature in there, or pushing a usability fix to the next release (and then the next and then the next) because it's not blocking shipping isn't the way to win loyal customers. It's a way to push them away one cut at a time, until a thousand little cuts they are dead to you.

... or why Scott Guthrie was playing with his balls on stage!

Things have been rather quiet here the last few weeks as I've been very focused on some of the incredibly cool stuff we couldn't talk about until MIX08 so I had to contain my enthusiasm.

Much like last year at MIX07 I worked with some amazing partners to help provide some of the demos that Scott was able to showcase in his keynote. I still find it pretty amazing to be involved in such a great event and have a chance to work behind the scenes to make at least some of the magic come to life. You can see all of the action of the day1 keynote on the VisitMIX site but here's the back story for some of the demos...

So... enough of that. What was I involved in....

IE8 with Dean Hackamovitch

Although the rumor mill knew we would be showing IE8 at MIX I don't think anyone had guessed that we'd actually be making bits available, along with developer documentation on how to take advantage of some of the new features. I've been playing with IE8 through some of it's very early stages now and have to say I wish in my previous job I'd had the ability to use features like WebSlices. Luckily in my new job I was able to work with the team to help implement them on Facebook.com (yes, they're live. Install IE8 and go try it out) - for some more information check out the video on VisitMIX.

Hard Rock - Deep Zoom gets a work out.

I've worked with the fine folks from Vertigo before on the Slide.Show project (one of the top downloads on Codeplex if you want a great Slideshow app for your site - there's even a plugin for this blog engine, and others, available.) so it was great to get the gang together again to work on a project that would really demonstrate the capabilities of Deep Zoom - the Silverlight implementation of the Seadragon technology.

Working with the folks at Hard Rock to expose just the tip of their memorabilia collection was an awesome experience - check out the results of all the hard work at the live Memorabilia site. Having a chance to visit the World Headquarters of Hard Rock, have a look around their warehouse and check out their flagship restaurant in Orlando was icing on the cake (thanks guys - you rock!)

Sean Dee (Hard Rock CMO) and Scott Stanfield (Vertigo CEO) delivered a great presentation and the bonus at the end was that the site went live at the end of their demo.

Mix Keynote: Hard Rock Demo

VisitMIX hosted a great interview with the team to give you a clue how they put it all together and you can check it out here and for a much more in-depth dive into how the technology can be put to use the team even ran a session afterwards.

Aston Martin - design delivers

Nestled in the heart of the English countryside is one of the most revered names in the automotive world. Recently branching out after several years as part of Ford they are pushing innovation along with their existing design and engineering focus, and we were lucky enough to be able to give folks a sneak preview into their thinking this year at MIX.

Marek Reishman (Design Director from Aston Martin) and Paul Bishop (Managing Director of Splendid) treated us to a three part insight into a possible future - a new way of configuring your dream car on the web (using 3D models in Silverlight to navigate around a car and Deep Zoom to step inside it); a dealer experience using XNA and WPF (and an ultra portable PC) to work through the millions of possible combinations, and allow a customer to see their chosen vehicle in amazing detail before placing an order. The final part of the demo was a video clip showing the in-car systems managed by a central embedded Windows device - telemetry monitoring, phone and GPS navigation.

Aston Martin MIX08 Keynote

Nishant did a great interview with Marek and Paul (as well as reminding me in the run up to MIX that we do care about designers!)

Having a chance to go to Gaydon in the UK and see the home of Aston Martin was an amazing experience... now I just have to work out how to save the money to get one of my own ;)

Cirque du Soleil - HR is a real juggling act

One of the challenges of MIX has been the way the web hogs all the design glory. No-one talks about the same problems faced by designers and developers working within a corporate environment on Line of Business (LOB) apps because it lacks a certain.... sparkle.

Well, Cirque du Soleil understand sparkle, and they really understand the challenges of LOB applications - they maintain a huge catalogue of performers, and making sure there is quality data available is a real task.

Krista Monson (Head of Casting, Resident Shows America) came on stage (with a suitably theatrical flair!) and showed what can happen when a LOB app meets design head on and sits on top of the latest Microsoft technologies (WPF, TabletPC, SQL Server and Sync Framework, and of course Silverlight)

For me the highlight of MIX had to be Krista asking Scott some cheeky questions... and trying to juggle on stage (and yes, we do have the video recorded live from the stage!)

Cirque MIX08 Keynote

Check the weather on your phone

Silverlight is establishing itself as a player on the web - Windows and OSX are the start of a cross platform story that Moonlight is helping round out on Linux. At MIX08 it was great to be able to announce that not only was Silverlight coming to Windows Mobile it was also going to be supported on the Nokia S60 devices.

We've already done some work with Weatherbug using Silverlight 1.0 so it was great to work with them on the next generation and the next platform for Silverlight. Using the same tools and techniques as for the desktop browser they were able to develop a really cool mobile app in just a few weeks.

WeatherBug MIX08 Keynote

Check out the interview with Tamir on VisitMIX to find out about their experiences and make sure you're ready when the bits become available.

Looking forward to MIX09

I had a great run up to MIX08 but we're not done yet. We've set the bar high for MIX09 back at the Venetian March 19th to 20th! Hope to see you there... keep an eye on VisitMIX for updates.

I am at Defrag in Denver for the next couple of days. Because I'm taking notes on paper and not live blogging (I hate this portable keyboard. must get a better solution before my next trip) I'll link to Phil Windley who is doing a great job.

There are some really amazing speakers and conversations going on. I'm really glad to be here. I hope to gather my thoughts later in the week... 

I really like BrowserHawk. During the heady days of the browser wars, and even now in the calmer waters of almost compatibility there it's sometimes really reassuring to know that there are some simple, reliable ways to know what the users browser is and what plug-ins it's got without having to write hundreds of lines of JavaScript with lots of try statements or go through complicated multi page refreshing detection routines to see what version of Flash or Quicktime you can target safely (or allow you to elegantly guide the user through getting exactly what your page needs to run)

Until now Silverlight was in the same boat. You needed to probe the results of the javascript loader to see if it had found the plug in, or if it was displaying the "click here to install Silverlight" graphic (which pretty as it is, sometimes isn't the best way to go)

I was pleased to discover reading the release notes for the new BrowserHawk detector that it supports detection of the Silverlight Plugin and returns the installed version number so you can make appropriate decisions while rendering the page.

One additional function that, while not Silverlight related, I wish I'd had back in the Big Brother days is the ability to detect and report back on JavaScript errors - until now it's always been difficult once you've released JavaScript laden pages into the wild to track what problems are occurring (and know exactly what the browser configuration is) in order to improve code quality. I hope my successors back in Australia take it on board...

Over the years I've tried alternatives to Windows on a number of occasions. I'm fairly technical (I can find the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys 9 times out of ten) but even then I've struggled on a number of computers to get various Linux distros working to a point where I'd be comfortable enough to switch.

I did spend a year as an OSX user which was interesting, but even there I still relied heavily on the Microsoft Office suite and Entourage to get things done (and VirtualPC was my friend) but despite the fact the new Macbook Pros are great machines I've been back on Vista for a while now.

I was interested to see that Dell, amongst others, are releasing consumer machines pre-loaded with Linux. There aren't embedded Consumer Electronics devices, or bleeding edge hardcore geek machines but the sort of thing my Mum might consider.

Given my experiences I was hoping to hear that Dell had produced a machine that was as slick and painless to use out of the box as Vista Home Premium for basic every day stuff. According to Walt Mossberg though it looks like they've a little more work to do in order to get it polished.

The good news... hopefully getting Linux distros in front of typical users will help to push the quality of the product... which in turn will drive more improvements in both OSX and Vista (a little bit of healthy competition for the user experience can only help the user at the end of the day)

Back in 1989 a very clever, and funny, man called Douglas Adams got very frustrated because it was difficult to keep documents in sync across multiple machines without jumping through hoops and even manage content from different sources within a document elegantly.

Luckily in the years since Office file formats (both Office Open XML and OpenDocument) and the various Office suites have become smarter and more flexible (and dare I say "open") but the problems of keeping things in sync so the user isn't concerned where he edited the document when he wants to print it are not quite solved just yet.

Things like Groove and FolderShare are making it easier, and hopefully the promises of computing in the cloud will continue to accelerate the pace of development.

Sadly Douglas is no longer with us, but memories of Frank the Vandal live on...

When I first say Microsoft Surface I was amazed at what a great input mechanism it offered. The iPhone and HTC Touch phones push the boundary of what can be done on a hand-held device but there's a middle ground of the UMPC and TabletPCs which are left out.

I wonder how long they're going to lag behind though with technologies such as InkSeine and LucidTouch evolving....

I'm planning a trip to the city with one of the best known bridges in the world for customer meetings next week. Part of the planning is logistics around getting to and from airports and hotels.

I don't want to hire a car as it just adds another single vehicle to the commuter chaos and I hate to think what a taxi from SFO to Richmond will cost in rush hour... which leaves me busses and trains (I use public transport whenever I can). The bus didn't really seem like an option but BART will take me pretty much door to door for everywhere I want to go on my trip (the longest walk I've got to look forward is a couple of miles which isn't daunting)

What I love about BART over many cities transport systems is how easy it was to plan a trip. A quick visit to the BART site and I was able to do a web search (including looking up directions to the closest station), download a Windows Mobile version and even set a favorite for Pocket IE so I could check online if I wanted. If I was taking my iPod that's an option as well! The only downside appears to be that Oakland airport isn't that well served but luckily as I couldn't get a flight there at a civilized hour it's not a problem on this trip.

To get walking directions from the station to my hotel I did use Maps.live.com... in this case the driving directions are fine (though sometimes I wish there was an option to optimize for walking from A to B)

I love the fact that these online resources exist, but it's not enough to help get people out of their cars and onto public transport. There needs to be much more of this to make it easy, reliable and predictable for people to easily plan to use public transport.

At home in Redmond I use the busses as often as possible, but I hate the interface - because I don't know the exact location of the bus stop finding where I need to stop and start can be very hit and miss.

There's a real opportunity for the folks at Local.Live.com to really step up and create a mashup of bus and train times, overlay them over their mapping so planning a trip becomes a point and click exercise rather than struggling with a bunch of different services to try and work it out.

I do like the fact that in our local area you can get a rough idea of where the bus actually is but again it would be so much better if it was integrated with a mapping solution so I didn't have to try and work out the closest stop with a transponder!

What's hopeful is that the technology exists - Mashup tools like Popfly and the Silverlight Airlines demo show that smart displays are possible, but what we're waiting for now are the data services to support them and the full circle mashups to consume them and cross the boundaries.

A lot of applications don't really seem to care what the users doing. If they want to tell you something they just pop to the top of the stack, grab focus and you end up typing in a random dialog box (and often hitting the default button before you have time to react)

Some are smarter. They do things like flash the icon in the task list to tell you it would like your attention if you have a moment to spare.

Some, like UAC, usually totally take over the desktop as a modal dialog so you can't do anything until you're responded to their demands.

The most annoying though have to be the ones that are so self-effacing that they pop up a dialog buried in the hierarchy of desktop windows such that not only do you not notice the only way to find this vital message that's stopping the application proceeding (and giving a good impression that it's either hung or doing something incredibly complex that's going to take hours) if to minimize every other window because it doesn't even surface on an alt-tab.

I'm probably a nightmare user for usability testing. I have half a dozen windows open at once and I often install/try/throw away random apps (one of the great things working at Microsoft is the sheer number of stuff you can play with!) but it also means I've got various things in various states at various times and one dialog either hiding or demanding I look at it now can really throw my equilibrium.

With over a decade of legacy support built into Windows and various program and programmer specific notification methods available it's hardly surprising that this problem exists but it would be nice to see v.Next start to introduce maybe a common notification mechanism that consistently keeps the user informed but at the same time in control.

Growl for OSX is a great start in this direction - a common notification platform with application specific branding but a central user control model so the end user can define how apps are allowed to notify them

To the right you will notice a series of monsters.

They all have something in common.

Can you guess what it is?

They represent the various email addresses that I've used on a regular basis over the last decade using a new authentication / anti-spoofing technique called MonsterID that has been implemented in a number of programming languages to make it easy to adopt.

The idea is pretty simple.

If you're presented with a login form and you know what certain input should generate graphically then it's hard for a fake site to spoof that input (for instance you enter your userid and as well as your password you then have to select the correct critter from a page of randomly generated ones. Obviously to make a site secure the seeding and images would have to be unique to that site to avoid simple spoofing from the common set of images.

The system can also be used to automatically generate cute alternative icons for a system such as Gravatar. In that case a common consistent set of images would be handy to help you recognize "friends" across different networks.

It looks like the latter form of MonsterID may well make it into my new blog platform of choice which will certainly liven the themes up a little.

The folks behind BlogEngine.net are certainly taking securing the platform against robot form fillers, comment and trackback spammers quite seriously and if MonsterIDs somehow add another level of protection I'll be glad to see them make an appearance in an upcoming release ;)