Introduction
I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about windows 10. I’m all thrilled so much to seeing Windows 10 across the gadgets. I've always wished for a healthier diversity in the market shares of any product. I feel Microsoft has got everything it needs to position itself shoulder to shoulder with iOS and Android. It's certainly good to see Microsoft in personal gadgets arena instead of just OS and Software services as their key agenda. I’ve been waiting & watching for this moment right after Microsoft released the personal gadgets of the Triassic age. PDAs, Palm/Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, etc. I still remember my proud moment of owning a windows mobile device. Where I could run my own code with so much sense of achievement in mind. I continued to buy a stream of windows Mobiles the last being Sony Aspen mi1. My favourite phone of that times. The reason why I’m giving all these preamble is to convey the viewers. I’m not alien to Microsoft products. I go through them in and out as and when released.
When I see the market share figure of Windows Phones in the chart, it doesn't make me feel good. I have a dozen of Windows 7, 7.5, 8 & 8.1 devices with me right on hand. I know how much efforts might have gone into the product to make a stable OS like windows 8.1. That’s an Amazing phone. With so much lesser RAM built in, the Phone is still able to run things reasonably fast. Sounds like a perfect gadget. Just by carrying a windows phone device in pocket with couple of self-made utility Apps installed on it, I feel like a complete geek. The feeling is awesome. And the ease of development with Visual Studio IDEs , makes it mind blowing. An App that takes months to develop in Android, can be developed in weeks in Windows Phone. It’s stunningly robust. I just love the phone.
So now let , me take off the my developer hat & pick the phone from the table again.
As a common consumer
Now as an end consumer, I’m gonna have a fresh look at the phone. Where is the landing page? The screen with Black background with a bunch of tiles stuck on is the landing screen? Tiles . Flat , Metro Metro. This has been the anthem for Microsoft all these years. Why should we stick to a model that has proved itself to be a failure. WHAT? Metro, Tiles is one of the reasons for failure? Why does this guy point to connect two irrelevant things? This would be the thought for anybody. But it definitely is a deal breaker. (Rats can sink ships? Sometimes yes! if you keep ignoring them)
Windows Phone has got a lot of good features. All productivity tools inbuilt, so many Nokia tools inbuilt which is top quality & beautifully done. Etc. But does all these help sell the phone? Really?
A common reason what people point to, for the failure of Windows Phone device is Lack of Apps in Marketplace. That may not be true 100%. That cannot be the sole reason for the product failure.
Now we started counting in millions for the Apps. Without realizing, the weed-count is also reaching millions in Android market place. You go browse the Android play store. Only the top 1000 Apps is usable rest of all the Apps are huge pile of weeds. So sensibly, “Apps” is not the core reason for lack of sales in Windows phone.
There would be some cries, when a popular App that goes viral in every other platform and that is not found in Windows Phone. This is an acceptable turn off, Even I've felt the same. but still I wouldn’t say this a show stopper. Unless was something like Angrybird and WhatsApp!
Now we started counting in millions for the Apps. Without realizing, the weed-count is also reaching millions in Android market place. You go browse the Android play store. Only the top 1000 Apps is usable rest of all the Apps are huge pile of weeds. So sensibly, “Apps” is not the core reason for lack of sales in Windows phone.
There would be some cries, when a popular App that goes viral in every other platform and that is not found in Windows Phone. This is an acceptable turn off, Even I've felt the same. but still I wouldn’t say this a show stopper. Unless was something like Angrybird and WhatsApp!
The reasons, I’m going to point to might not be looking immediately convincing, But I’d request you folks to think through and respond. In case if you wish to.
The core problem with Microsoft, I feel is - Every aspect of windows phone & Marketing looks like it’s aimed at the developers/ tech users. And not for a common everyday consumer.
I really feel so! Let me quickly take you through few core issues.
Home screen & App Drawer.
I feel these two of the most aggressive culprits that works full time to ensure WP market share is tied to the bottom. Even today, there’s a million walking customers buying phone in showrooms. A typical scene in a show room:
The reason/trigger for a walk-in customer could be
1. Gift someone a good “smartphone” birthday/Anniversary
4. A phone for the responsible home maker!
5. Or anybody walking into the showroom to have a look at smartphones.
Just like this, I can keep rolling down a lot of use case where people just walk in without any idea of what smartphones are all about.
Okay, now these customers are inside the show room. They go around and have a look at the sample devices in display.
And in the short time they have inside the show room, what factors make them pick a phone? The first question, What they do there first of all holding the phone??
And in the short time they have inside the show room, what factors make them pick a phone? The first question, What they do there first of all holding the phone??
It is nothing but swiping across the home screen & browsing through the App drawer & Live screen savers. Nothing else they would be able to do! This might look totally trivial but this is the fact. This determines the buyers impluse to open up the wallet.
The eye candy factors matters a lot for the walk-in customer. Not the productivity tools.
The eye candy factors matters a lot for the walk-in customer. Not the productivity tools.
Even companies like Micromax & Karbon (Indian makes, capitalize on this fact and sell millions every quarter)
I beg the marketing team in Microsoft to visit the showrooms and see how these happen everyday.
Shoulder to Shoulder
Now I’ve kept the phones shoulder to shoulder. I leave it to you to decide what might run in the minds of common consumers. Who are not UI designers / UX experts / developers or power users.
An end user is close to the nature, in fact. They do care, the LEAST about productivity. They don’t care about all your office tools. They just go after immersive experience, mainly through pictures and three dimensional out looks.
They just look at things that attracts, like how children go after colorful toys. I wouldn’t say this is ignorance. But this is common people’s nature. There’s nothing wrong in it. Microsoft must make up it mind and ask a question. Does, the “Standard UX feel across devices” , “corporate UX moto”, forced usage of lavish never ending UX researches, all these UI policies are important, or just SALES.
I’ve read a lot of articles, videos where people from Microsoft explains to people why they should love “Tiles” and Metro UI.
Oh boy! The type of love we are talking about, is love at first sight. We cannot preach someone to love someone else. The love has to happen!
The highlight was, there was one article, where Nokia ex-CEO “insisted” that soon people _HAVE_TO_ love the tiles. That's sad! Just because they spent a million dollar in UX research, should they dump it on the end users & force them to like something , they basically don’t? That tells they never ever worried about the sales figures.
I know what it means to work as teams in corporates. None of the teams would be so open to accept their failures and try to re-work something. A huge re-work would cost them a lot. To dodge these, the team tries to live with an apparently unacceptable feature. And even when things fail clearly because of this feature, all the hard work the other teams put just go along in vain. They label the whole product as a failure.
Here, nobody loses their job. Simply they go back to the board and start the next version. Its good for the teams but not for the product. I feel empowered to speak about these though I work for a smaller company. If you, the corporate knows it better, why not show it on the sales chart?
The UX team's decisions in Microsoft, to me feels like guns pointing to their own feet, pulling triggers whenever required. May be they are caught under corporate bureaucracy. The key disadvantage of being a big, diplomatic corporate company is this. They cannot take back their word and move in a new direction quickly. In case if they do, it gets taken as leadership failure, being so "fragile and fickle" without any clear direction.
A start up is always free of these baggage & dogma. Anyways!
Windows Phone Lock screen fixes this?
Coming back to the point, A colorful Home screen matters a lot! Never even compare the lock screen of Windows Phone to a Home screen of Android/iOS phones.
The moment you take the phone, you unlock the screen. And when you lock the screen, the whole phone blacks out. Who cares what’s there on the lock screen. The life time of it is too short as said above. But a combo of an attractive Lock-screen and an equally attractive home screen is always welcome though.
The moment you take the phone, you unlock the screen. And when you lock the screen, the whole phone blacks out. Who cares what’s there on the lock screen. The life time of it is too short as said above. But a combo of an attractive Lock-screen and an equally attractive home screen is always welcome though.
And the background wallpaper, please don’t compare it with the Windows phone 8.1 Tile’s background feature. It’s just a cosmetic feature that cannot be put to use so easily. By default, most of the Apps have their own background color. They don’t leave it transparent. A mix of filled and transparent Tiles on the windows phone home screen looks so cluttered & bad.
If you want to make it look good, you need to spend a whole day arranging the transparent tiles in right order so that the BG picture gets laid out properly across the tiles. Though I say it’s an useless feature, Definitely , it’s an inch closer to common people’s wish/taste.Inch by inch we move towards the decade old discovery that even Microsoft mobile had.
The themes we had for Microsoft mobile during the 2000s were more skeuomorphic. Even the phone dialer, I heard Microsoft is going back to Windows Mobile times. (Windows Mobile is the ancestor of Windows Phone. In case if you are not aware)
Inching towards good is fine. But the very question is, why not understand this is so important to the consumer and implement the actual fruit of it quick.
(Old WinMo times!) SBP theme.
Why I insist on the home screen thing?
The home screen of a phone is like a Living room in a home.
The straight forward question here is, Do you want a LIVING ROOM or a SINGLE WALL?
The three dimensional experience at the home screen makes you feel at home. Totally.
But tiles and the plain black/white background makes it feel like a flat wall. It’s so uncomfortable in the mind.
Skeuomorphism - the only medicine?
I’m not saying Skeuomorphic designs are the only way out of here. But we could innovate over skeuomorphic platform. Skeu design, I’m sure that this would not go out easily from common peoples heart. And gluing metro or any equivalent 2D designs into people’s heart is never going to work out so soon. Only for the UX experts it clicks!, it might happen after a couple of decades when, people got enough of these eye candy factors and just want to focus on productivity/Clarity and ease of use. In a way Microsoft is couple of decades advanced? :)
If you notice, people who appreciate Metro Tiles will have some kinda design background. They can be Designer, an UX expert, A photographer, or even an artist. They would love the neat finish of Metro UI.
If you notice, people who appreciate Metro Tiles will have some kinda design background. They can be Designer, an UX expert, A photographer, or even an artist. They would love the neat finish of Metro UI.
Even I’m NOT against Metro UI. I’m just saying use it at the right spot and don’t force an artificial moto of “common feel” across devices. Even if you decide to do as per your UX research findings. I simply challenge Microsoft to try opening up home screen customization to companies like GO Launcher, SBP Shell etc. The no. of downloads happening would expose the truth.
Just for the statistics, please go through this
Go Launcher
Installs
100,000,000 - 500,000,000
Do you think 500.000.000 downloaded Go Launcher without knowing what they are doing?
What do you think I do all through the day whenever I’m bored? I just play around the 3D animations we have in the Go Launcher. (Please Please don’t pop up an ugly thought , I’m one of the marketing guys from Go Launcher. I Care the least. I’m giving my honest feed back here. And I’m all concerned about Windows Phone’s success and nothing more)
Metro UI is beautiful. For example on the Microsoft Band, it looks stunning. As the form factor goes smaller and smaller, optimized UI like the Metro would be of tremendous use. But when the form size gets bigger and bigger, Metro UI gets awkwardly irrelevant. The huge 25” inch monitor full of Flat tiles with plain background looks much inferior to the screens of iMac. Why do you think Apple still stick to Skeuomorphic designs? Do you think it’s just a bureaucracy?? No they knew what people want, and Android followed suit.
If you feel this topic is totally subjective of the end user, then you, for sure fall into the power user category. For that matter, like I said, I still love the Windows tiles on the window phones. But I've taken a survey with so many people around. And none of them liked it.
I feel so sad looking at commercial where they say, “See a bunch of clone-looking phones in the market, (All attractive Androids & iPhones), A see the unique Microsoft Phone. Only ugly duckling pops to fill the missing block on the screen. I was totally saddened.
Microsoft always wanted to be “Unique”. But the statement is not complete. I would rephrase it to, “Microsoft wants to be unique and inferior”. Being Unique is awesome character. But being beautiful is more important. If we are unique and beautiful, that’s the sweet.
Advantage over Blackberry
Blackberry does have kinda skewmorphic icons. But in a country like India, common people don’t even know about this brand. “Nokia” is planted so deep into their minds, every nook and corner is covered by this brand name. Many of them now understand , Microsoft is the new Nokia. But I’d be honest in accepting the huge loss of Goodwill that Microsoft would be loosing out while changing the name from Nokia. This must be definitely taken care. The good will that Noika earned all decades should not wasted. Microsoft should capitalize this with proper commercial reaching even the rural folks. The more rural you go, the more natural the theme must be, literally! People are close the nature there mates! They just love Water falls, Rivers, Jungle themes, Rains all these matter so much!
Commercial Ads
Commercial Ads must be more attractive. I cannot forget a Lumia Ad that I saw in TV. “A guy comes and speaks. It has got office tools , it has got camera , blah, blah & finally it fits my budget”. That looked like a perfect plan to let nobody look for the name “Lumia”. I couldn’t find a reference for that Ad now. I’ve posted a similar monotonous Ad. But his kinda okay.
Ads from Microsoft:
Ads for Android phones:
There are , of course some cool Ads for Lumia also. But I’m just insisting , when we go for Windows Phone 10, please go for more cooler, attractive Ad that would beat every other Android/Iphone Ad.
In so many cases, it ends up like “Throwing the fruit and eating the peel”. That’s a nice proverb we have in our language to point out to people who ignore an apparent good and take up the unwanted/useless stuff.
When teams like Xiaomi and Cynogen start to make ripples so easily, why not Microsoft, why not blackberry? They are tied so tight to their bureaucracy. All they end up doing is going back to the drawing board and keep fiddling with the same old product.
Let them do this. They have enough funds to do these expensive experiments.
Request to the people at the TOP in MS
what I humbly look from the new management Is to open up at least a version of windows phone for “common user”. Let them customize the look and feel. If possible, the best is to let the stand home screen UI go with more attractive options. I would even suggest tying up with a 3rd party company who has expertise in these and proven successful. I clearly understand this would be a total undiplomatic move to get away from flat UI, but it's worth a try at least in a version of Windows 10 Phones.
I see a very practical mindset from Nadella. All his actions in Microsoft so far, clearly reflects he wants to face the reality and deal with it a better way instead of living along with the inevitable corporate baggage. Even the recent news of tying up with Xiaomi confirms this. The kind of coolness & dynamics Nadella has brought into the company feels so cool & great future for a company. Good luck folks.
Okay, all my post I’ve speaking about the home screen in Windows phone. I did not even open by mouth about the App drawer. Just look at the “attractive” apps screen of WP. It’s an epic. I don’t need to comment. When you ask about this, folks in MS say, you can pick any of the Apps with just one hand. Sigh.
Screens from other phones UI themes, that connect better with common users minds.
If you notice, Windows phone App list is more clear for the eyes to read and hence it's more "Productive" . But you please check with anybody which screen they like , the would NOT pick windows phone. Through the article, I point I'm saying is, Productivity factors comes next to attractive factors for people who by with impulsive reactions.
More screen samples:
Live screen saver
This is another attraction factor for common users. The falling leaves live screen saver, I clearly remember was a total hit among the non-tech buyers. I've seen it by myself in the showrooms. People have bought the Samsung P-1000 galaxy tablets in impulse. The moment you see a stunningly natural theme, that to animating, it gets your mind right away. My own friends have bought the tablets once they find the themes attracting so much. Themes and the smooth UI both are the deal winner with non-tech buyers.
The irony is , Microsoft was a pioneer in Screen savers during the good old desktop days. But it's been completely exploited by other platforms so neatly.
Please Microsoft, lets not allow WIndows Phone rest in Comma for so many years now. It's enough you folks experimented with the Metro UI & Standard feeling concept. Break the phone away from the corp. UX dogma and get it closer to common user.
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