Sharing Usability Inside Microsoft

Microsoft is supporting World Usability Day this year by encouraging all its employees to watch as one of its exciting consumer products, Zune, is usability tested by real people in our labs on the Redmond campus. The study, being conducted by the Entertainment Experience Group, is available for viewing from each employee's desktop through multicast video. "Usability testing is one of the important activities we do to help create products with great user experiences so we are happy to raise awareness for World Usability Day," said Lisa Mason, User Research Manager for the Entertainment Experience Group.  While each major product group has its own user experience team, leveraging the Day and curiosity about an exciting product should entice even more employees to learn about usability by experiencing the user-centered design process.  This is an internal event only this year, but WUD activities that will be open to external audiences as well are already being planned for next near.