Re: Dear Matias,
Some fair comments there Roland specific to Microsoft UI design cockups however don't overestimate what goes in Pharms R&D, it's my job. I wish I could tell you more however I can't but it suffices to say it's just as human as any other industry especially given the huge amount of money at stake for a phase III pipeline failure.
With respect to focus groups one must be very careful of the results, for all we know MS might have had internal focus groups but were either unwittingly selected with bias or possibly deliberately (a pharms trick). Are your test subjects representative of all abilities, trades, socio-economic groups etc ? A big criticism of clinical trials is that they only use a very narrow test gene pool before they reach market.
The point I was making was more general, human machine interfaces in 10-20 years time are going to be vastly different to those of today and mistakes will be made trying to do something differently.
For years wheel barrows had a classic wheel and tyre then James Dyson comes along and sticks a ball on it.
Anyway have a beer.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
