Microsoft says user feedback alone would have never made modern Windows design as "special"

Recently, Intel's new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, at the company's Vision 2025 event, talked about how the vision for Intel going forward would be to focus on customer feedback and performance. A funny quippy comment on that article by Neowin forum member Mike Steel caught my attention. Mike wrote:

It'd be interesting if Microsoft had this ideology also - make software what the users want.

Currently it's "make MS software a platform to sell other MS software", like "Windows is no longer an OS, it's an advertisement platform for Office 365 and Copilot".

Coincidentally, a Microsoft employee recently suggested that user feedback was, in fact, a bit on the back seat when the company was designing Windows 8. The comment was made by Harold Gomez, who was likely in the position of a UI designer at that time.

Microsoft held a down-the-memory-lane sort of event recently where it looked back on the evolution of Windows design over the years. It makes sense considering the company is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary with folks like Bill Gates sharing a historical piece of his work.

Here, Gomez said Microsoft designers relied more on their own instincts to make something modern like Windows 8 (Metro UI) instead of user and customer feedback:

Part of the design process is trying to balance user feedback with your design instincts. We certainly could not have gotten to what Windows 8 was with the Metro visual style, solely relying on customer feedback. It was something customers would never have asked for because we lived in a very iPhone world at that time.

 

Windows design took a pivot and tried to create something different while rooted in our design ethos and principles. We experimented with information design, typography, layouts, and making motion design an integral part of our systems. We did the work around understanding what our customers’ needs were and coupled those insights with our design instincts, which helped us create something special.

That did not turn out so well for the company since we all know what happened with Windows 8 after its release. The OS was hit with widespread backlash as users hated the fact that the useful and intuitive Start button was removed, and Microsoft was forced to bring it back real soon with Windows 8.1.

Has Microsoft learned its lesson? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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