Back in 2006 when Frank Arrigo hired me as one of Microsoft’s first User Experience Evangelists, we had a simple, exciting, and challenging, mission:

• To make Microsoft relevant to designers, and to make design relevant to Microsoft developers.

Since then we’ve made some great progress. Back in 2006 Microsoft’s designer toolset featured Microsoft Paint :-). Now:

• We are up to the third release of Expression Studio
• Sketchflow is being widely adopted as we speak
• There have been three (almost four) releases of Silverlight
• Surface has been launched
• Windows Presentation Foundation has been introduced
• And a whole lot more.

But much more importantly, it’s great to report that the level of interest in design and user experience amongst Microsoft developers, partners and customers has never been higher. At the end of the day the tools and platforms are only a means unto an end. It’s what people do with the technology (regardless of who made it) that really matters.

I joined Microsoft because this role gave me a chance to share my passion for creating great user experiences with an entirely new audience of passionate, talented software developers. For me, it was time to take the message beyond the usual audience of ‘converts’ and get the message out to the broader community of people who build digital products – to ‘evangelise’, if you will. That’s what Microsoft provided, in spades, and I’m very grateful.

The Microsoft UX story is in great shape, and poised for even greater greatness.

The Plan

So in a nutshell, my plan is to put my money where my mouth is and get back out there working with companies to help them make great interactive products and services. I’ll be working for myself again, and providing consulting, mentoring and training to organisations in user experience design and, yes, Microsoft UX tools and platforms.

While I don’t plan to do exclusively Microsoft jobs, I hope to get a lot of Sketchflow, Silverlight, Surface and WPF work. So far, interest is high and I already have my first gig lined up, so here’s hoping…

You can find me from now on at:

• My new Company, Automatic Studio. I imagine at some stage a blog will appear there.
• On Twitter at @shanemo
• At my blog I share with Matt Morphett: 101 things I learned at interaction design school
• And generally around, I guess

The schmaltzy thank you bit

Most of the people I want to acknowledge from my time at Microsoft have heard from me personally, but I just wanted to highlight a few in a more public forum.

• Michael Kordahi made working at Microsoft the most inspiring and rewarding three years of my life. Kordesy provoked me to do better, think deeper and be more awesome on a daily basis. It was exhausting! Dude, I hope  I will be lucky enough to to work with you in future.
• Frank Arrigo took the chance on hiring one of those design-y types in the first place, and then proceeded to set the standard about what evangelism means. Thanks Frank.
• Anna Liu taught me for the first time in my life that management, when done well, is a noble profession that genuinely makes a difference. Microsoft as a whole deserves credit here as well. It wasn’t ‘til I joined Microsoft that I learned the full potential of ‘management’.
• Finally, the entire Expression Blend team. As I said to them in an internal email: Thanks for making a product that gave me a reason to join Microsoft, and then thanks for making it so good that I also had a reason to leave Microsoft! From the outset I’ve firmly believed that Microsoft’s approach to integrating design into the software development lifecycle is game changing, and incredibly empowering for folk like me.

So that’s it. Thanks to all of you who read this blog and contributed. I hope to see and hear from many of you on the ‘outside’. Keep in touch…

Shanemo

(oh, that’s the other thing I’m grateful for! For the first time in my life I have a nickname!)

We chatted about Microsoft Surface, the Lonely Planet project and designing multi-touch and tangible UI’s in general.

It was great to chat with Gerry, and an honour to be included in such prestigious company!

Read the transcript or download the audio here:

• UXpod: Microsoft Surface and multi-touch interfaces - an interview with Shane Morris

I went to my first OZCHI back in 1993, and my second Melbourne OZCHI will be next week from 25-27 of November, with workshops and tutorials in the two days beforehand.

Keynote Speakers

We have some amazing keynote speakers:

But, why paraphrase when I can copy and Paste?

Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition Now on Microsoft Download Centre!

At PDC this week, we announced the broad availability of the Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition. Now anyone interested in developing collaborative, engaging massive multi-touch, multi-user experiences for Surface can easily access the software at no cost through surface.com.

The Surface hardware is needed to deploy an application, and many use the Surface Developer units to create and test their applications directly on the device. The SDK Workstation Edition lets you use a PC to develop and a PC based simulator to test applications using multiple mice and tag simulation tools.

Innovation Days are a rapid tour of some of the latest goodies from Microsoft, with a focus on how they can benefit your business.

We’ve divided the day into two halves:

• The first half of the day focuses on technologies related to user experience and the web. This half will be especially relevant to digital agencies and other organisations focussed on delivering great customer experiences. We’ll cover Silverlight, Expression, Sketchflow, Surface and a bunch of other stuff.
• The second half of the day focuses on the latest tools and technologies for building compelling applications for your customers, and will be particularly relevant to software development organisations. You’ll hear about Visual Studio, SharePoint, xRM (anything relationship management) and Windows Azure, just to name a few.

This will also be a great opportunity to learn more about how to partner with Microsoft. So come for half a day, or come for the full day – we’d love to meet you.

Tour Dates

Register Now

For full details, and to register, check out https://partner.microsoft.com/Australia/40047632

The first talk is in the Architecture track, and the second in the Web/UX track.

Silverlight Won't Save Your User Experience, You Will.

You think adding a Silverlight UI to your application will solve your usability problems? You think downloading Expression Studio will eliminate user error? You think all your website needs to be more engaging is a generous sprinkling of drop-shadows? Think again. A great user experience requires more than a layer of whizzy new technologies. User experience starts with an understanding of... users. In this sequel to last year's "Art and Science of User Experience", Shane Morris will explain how to use "user centred design" to create applications that are not just more usable and engaging, but may even be easier to build.

Free up the UX Bottleneck: Wireframing and Prototyping with Expression Blend and Sketchflow

As the on-screen behaviour of software applications becomes more and more sophisticated, it gets harder and harder to envision, validate and document your user interface. New features in Expression Blend 3, including Sketchflow, make user experience design an integral part of the software development lifecycle, and free up the UX bottleneck. Come see Expression Blend 3 and Sketchflow in action, and learn how to integrate conceptual design into your next project, regardless of platform.

I’ll also be hanging around the exhibition area

Be sure to come say Hi.

Oh and I also might be appearing on a panel…

The first ever UX Australia Conference is coming up in August in Canberra. Donna, Steve, Andrew and Danielle have a great line-up of speakers from Australia and overseas.

Oh, and me.

I’m doing 3 presentations (gulp!):

1. Pre-conference Workshop: Interaction Design Studio

This Half-day workshop focuses on building skills generating and critiquing user interface design solutions. It’s fast paced, with minimal lecturing and we usually have a lot of fun learning from each other as much as anything.

Warning – this workshop contains crayons!

Full Description: Interaction Design Studio

2. 101 Things I (Should Have) Learned at Interaction Design School

In this presentation, Matt Morphett are going out on a bit of a limb. The idea is to see if we can use the tips from the book “101 Things I Learned at Architecture School” to ad-lib some corresponding tips for interaction designers. Should be fast paced again, and best of all, perilous.

Full Description: 101 Things I (Should Have) Learned at Interaction Design School

3. Designing for multitouch, and multiple touchpoints

In this talk I’ll tease out more of our experiences designing the Microsoft Surface Proof of Concept for Lonely Planet which we presented at Remix last month. Get ready for a '’warts and all’” account!

Full Description: Designing for multitouch, and multiple touchpoints

See You There

This conference marks an important milestone in the increasing visibility of User Experience as a discipline in Australia. I for one think it’s going to be the start of something big. So if you are interested in information architecture, user interface design, usability or anything to do with User Experience, I think Canberra is going to be the place to be from 26-28 August. See you there!

First check out the Lonely Planet keynote demo (around 7.5 minutes):

Then for more detail on designing for touch and multitouch, and for the back story of the Lonely Planet design process, check out the session Iain McDonald from Amnesia Razorfish did with me later in the day (about 45 minutes):

Design in the Round: Creating Compelling User Experiences for Surface

Also, here are the slides for the session:

Come to UXAustralia for more

The process for designing for Surface, and especially for multiple simultaneous users is a fascinating one. I’m gonna talk more about that at my UXAustralia session in August in Canberra: Designing for multitouch, and multiple touchpoints.

(Thanks to Ben Harrison and Michael Kordahi for all their work encoding the videos.)

(Also, thanks to Gabriel White, from whom I pinched some ideas for this presentation.)

Microsoft partners can now sign up to the Surface Partner Program. The entry level (“Microsoft Surface Community Members”) provides access to the SDK and simulator, as well as training and other resources. No commitment.

Clarification: this is the Workstation edition of the SDK, not the full SDK which comes with a Surface developer unit. What does that mean? The Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition is meant for developing applications on a PC using a simulator. Having the Workstation Edition of the SDK gives Microsoft Partners a chance to do some investigation on using the WPF controls and do some initial Proof of Concept work. The simulator lets you simulate tags or multiple mice, but of course to really nail the correct user experience for Surface, you need to refine the design with an actual unit.

If you’re not already a Microsoft Partner, check out the Microsoft Partner program. It’s free to sign up.

Microsoft Partner and Remix sponsor Wacom to offer limited number of heavily discounted professional graphics tablets exclusively for Remix attendees.

The Intuos3 professional graphics tablet (as used during Lord Of The Rings production) perfectly integrates with Microsoft’s Expression products delivering 1024 levels of pressure sensitive control to the vector art creation components of Expression Design. As a ReMIX attendee don’t miss out on this opportunity! You can find more on the Intuos3 product at http://www.wacom.com.au/price/intuos3/intuos3_A5.html Don't forget to ask Wacom about the free Expression Studio 2 availability.