"Make It Easier"

Last week the Microsoft MVP summit occurred on our campus, and I had the pleasure of sitting in on two sessions about our SDKs. The sessions were basically open forums where the MVPs gave us their advice and opinions on how we could make our SDKs better. The most common thread could be summed up in three words: make it easier. Here are some of the recommendations we heard:

Make it easier to find content. Fix search! Please, please fix search! Also make the toc more consistent between types of content, so DirectX is organized like Visual Studio. Make it easier to filter content. Make it easier to customize. Make it easier to make it feel like the user is control.

Make it easier to find good API information. Make sure everything is documented and is easier to find. Especially don't make me figure out my own P/Invoke solutions if there's a managed code way to create a function.

Make it easier to know what's installed on my machine. Integrate my SDKs so I don't have SDK sprawl. Improve custom set-up so I have more options.

Make it easier to understand what's in each version of the SDK. Don't force me to upgrade if I don't want to. Help me naviagte between all the different SDKs Microsoft releases. Let me decide when and whether to upgrade.

Most importantly, realize that one size does not fit all. What works for one person may not work for another. Allow for customization. We all work differently from each other, so let us customize as much as possible.

My team is working to address all these goals. I'll talk about this work more in the future in this blog.