Why isn’t Microsoft the Top UX Employer?
August 26th, 2005
Out of a sense of courtesy, I replied to Ms. Julie’s original email with this simple response:
Hi Julie,
I find it hard to believe that I’m even close to Microsoft material.
But, thanks for thinking of me, anyways.
Jared
I was going for the honest and sincere approach, letting her down easy from the massive disappointment I’m sure she was about to experience, realizing that she couldn’t add me to her list of assimilative successes. Of course, I was thinking of my track record (having been fired from most of the jobs I’ve ever held) and the fact that I’ve developed a reputation for not scoring high in the “Plays well with other” category. I would think that Microsoft (or anyone else for that matter) would not find either of those qualities attractive. (I’ve often felt that, if I applied for a job at UIE, I’d not come anywhere near close to meeting the qualifications of working here.)
Note that I didn’t mention anything about her nifty way of addressing folks in her initial query.
She sent me this exceptionally warm response today:
Hello Jared,
Thank you for your email. I sincerely apologize for the mistake of addressing you by your last name. Not a great user experience and very insincere to say the least. It was not my intention and was due to a problem with the mail merge function from the list I created for the mailing.
I’d like to clarify that I researched you online which is where I found your information, not a resume. Your name is mentioned often within the User Experience community and I wanted to reach out to you. I understand that you may not feel that Microsoft is not the right employer for you. However, if you are interested, I would appreciate any insights you might have to share as to why Microsoft is not a top employer choice within User Experience.
Again, my apologies! I am looking forward to hearing back from you.
Warm Regards,
Julie
(It’s neat that Microsoft employees have as much trouble with MS Word’s mail merge functionality as I do. It reminds me of the time when I was doing a presentation at the Redmond campus for an army of Microsoft developers when, all of a sudden, my machine crashed with a “This program has conducted an illegal operation” error message. The entire audience moaned as soon as they saw the message and one guy shouted out, “You get those too?” I guess they don’t get out of the bubble too often.)
I’m not quite sure why Microsoft isn’t the Top Employer choice amongst User Experience. Now, my lack of knowledge in this area might be because it’s been 17 years since I last looked for a job. So, I’m hoping you’ll help me answer Julie’s question. Why isn’t Microsoft the Top Employer? What would you look for Microsoft to change for you to be seduced by Julie’s gracious invitation? Inquiring minds want to know…
Update: Ms. Julie followed up with yet another email.
August 26th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Those of us on the inside of the *original* evil empire would love to know what we need to change. There’s lots of small pockets around the campus who firmly believe the front of the screen should be treated as well as the kernel, which unfortunately isn’t necessarily the case right now…
August 26th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
I’m sure you’d consider content to be a critical part of usability. (Like, duh.) ;^)
In that case, MS may be ahead of the curve than most organizations – at least according to Gerry McGovern:
http://gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2005/nt-2005-08-22-quality-content.htm
August 26th, 2005 at 9:33 pm
Well, as an interaction designer I’d be leery of working at Microsoft. I did a programming internship there in college and am well aware that there are lots of intelligent, talented people there, and that they’re interested in UX and have been for some time. Yet most of the user interfaces that come out of MS don’t seem very good. So my assumption has been that some where between the (presumably) good UX people they have and the final product, something gets in the way. Regardless of what that something might be (marketing? more powerful parts of the organization with their own ideas? another of the usual suspects?), it doesn’t lead me to believe I would find doing UX for MS satisfying.
August 26th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
I’ve never worked at Microsoft (although I have friends who work or have worked there) so I have an outsider perspective on the firm. But I guess this “perception” might be where the problem lies.
My perception is that Microsoft is too aggressive and competitive (internally, fostering competition among employess, and externally, eating and biting competitors) to be a good breeding ground for good User Experience. UX seems to grow and flourish better in a “do no harm” environment than in a world domination scheme.
Microsoft products have a lot of nice features and are very complex, but they are substantially not appealing and showcase surprisingly poor design decisions. For example, I can never get used to the inconsistencies and incompatibilities between products that are supposed to be integrated in a suite (Word, Powerpoint, Excel). And then there are interactive details that have never been fixed and continue to frustrate me, such as the miserable multitabbed preference windows in which the tabs move around any time you select one.
So, my perception is that there is just not enough love to create good, careful, and caring User Experiences.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
Maybe the biggest reason, you cannot find even ONE job posting related to “User Experience”
Here’s the Microsoft Career page. Search “User Experience” and look at the results.
August 27th, 2005 at 9:58 am
When you really think about it, Microsoft should be on a shortlist of employers that UX people would kill to work for.
Yes, Microsoft’s products may be “bad” in some ways, but I can’t think of a more influential company in terms of how the world uses computers. Even a little bit of improvement to a “bad” but widely used application like Word, would have a huge impact on a large number of people.
Maybe it’s just me, but how my work will impact people plays a big role when I choose an employer. If I’m going to devote my work life to improving the user experience, I want to do it where I’ll do the most good.
And, no, I don’t work at Microsoft.
August 27th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Tekin — Great feedback, and I’ll send it over to the recruiting folks…
Interestingly enough, the same search (“user experience” in quotes) at the Apple.com/job sites returned 0 results as well. Yahoo shows 148 jobs for that search. Google shows 5 (all having “Software Engineer in Test” as the title?). IBM shows 0 results. Adobe shows 3 jobs. Macromedia doesn’t let you search for jobs.
September 1st, 2005 at 8:11 am
In response to Eddie James’s post: I would argue that while MS is indeed influential in UX, the user interface techniques it popularizes often originate elsewhere (for example, at Apple). Thus if I wanted to have a significant impact on global UX (including Microsoft UX), I might rather work for Apple.
December 20th, 2005 at 2:24 pm
looks like they didn’t choose you, jared. SO sorry…
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/12/20/1840231.shtml?tid=109&tid=201&tid=227
heh
December 20th, 2005 at 4:14 pm
I wonder if Bill got Julie’s email, too?