From the Purple Cow's Mouth

Seth Godin published a post about how small/micro businesses can take advantage of the web. Lots of good stuff here - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/04/memo_to_the_ver.html

Microsoft has done it again...

The new laptop has Vista on it. I'm also running the new version of Office. Both are showing significant change from what I'm accustomed to seeing. The graphics are much prettier - although the Vista interface is pretty much what you would have seen on a Mac for the last 5 years. The thing that stumps me is how they have once again managed to completely ignore the user experience. It's supposed to be much better, but they've not only completely changed all of the processes for performing the functions we are used to; none of the new interface changes are any more intuitive or user-friendly than older versions.

In the office applications, they've even gotten rid of the command bar from the top of the page (File, Edit, etc.). As near as I can tell, there's no way to return to the "Classic" view (as you can with the operating system), and to get into the options, you have to know to click on the Office icon that displays in the top left corner.

Come on, guys. A company that has as much money to throw around as Microsoft can certainly afford to hire some interface engineers. Interface design should be about how the users approach a task - and much of that approach is built on experience. That's not to say that you can't make changes; but the way to make interface changes is to take small, incremental steps so that the user comes along with you.

Sorry Microsoft, you've missed the boat again. It's a crying shame that you have so much market share that your customers can't hurt you by trying something else.