Good comment and follow-up from blogger Long Zheng regarding the recent Fast Company story. I spent some time this evening responding directly to Long via mail.
Excerpts below:
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From: Steve Ball
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 10:46 PM
To: Long Zheng
Subject: Thanks for comment!Hi Long –
Thanks so much for your comment and post.
FYI, I’ve been an admirer and reader of your blog for a long time. And many thanks for your ongoing insights, fun-poking posts, support and excellent comments and questions. ... you raise some good questions that may be answered gently over time as more of this process is discussed and shared over the next few months.
FYI, there is a second RF Channel 9 video “in the can” that was recorded last May during his second visit to MS Studios that is going to make the first Ch9 video (already in the top 4 ‘most watched’ videos on Ch9) look like a short dark frustrating teaser. It’s about 60 mins long and includes unprecedented live footage and multiple interviews that answer (and may invite) many additional questions about the process.
In the end, the Windows Vista startup sound is deceptively simple (four notes, actually eight if you count the fact that each of the four notes is actually two notes, in dual ascending melodies that map directly to the rhythm of "Win-dows Vis-ta"), as you’ve eloquently noted – that said, often the process to get to ‘simple’ involves incredible scaffolding, and deep planning and hundreds of iterations during the process.
Our process, from the beginning, was planned to be executed in four distinct multi-month phases: a) exploration, b) orchestration, c) refinement, and d) selection.
The main fact to consider about the ‘cost’ of this project has more to do with the fact that branding something as huge as Windows is, by definition, a very complex process that involved collaboration, education, and buy-in across product teams including developers, testers, PMs, executives, designers, marketing experts, lawyers, not to mention hundreds of diverse customers with radically different aesthetics and taste. The primary reason this process took 18-months was because I knew well in advance, to deliver something truly unique, innovative, and appropriate it would take multiple stages of education, reviews, iterations, orchestration to deliver a sustainable long-term Windows brand sound that was more than just a ‘standard predictable Hollywood agency’ sound design.
And compared to many commercial sound branding projects, or even ‘music for film’ or game design projects, this one was also done on a relatively tiny shoestring budget.
This project was not even close to my full-time job – it was actually more like a ‘charity’ project that I did as on the side from my own initiative as I was also GPM for Windows Audio and Video infrastructure during this period, managing a team of 12 PMs and delivering other major WV features like the new Volume Mixer and Sound CPL (not to mention the Audio and Video resilience infrastructure, Media Foundation, DXVA, the new User Mode Audio engine, a new user mode audio driver architecture, and the other major AV updates that are baked into Windows Vista.)
The main thing we learned from our usability studies in this process was that we could never never ever please everyone because we each have radically different tastes, expectations, likes and dislikes. Multiply this fact across 100's of millions of customers, and it’s clear that millions and millions of people will not like whatever we design.
The usability findings, while useful in that they helped us develop a common language for measuring the aesthetic and functional aspects of a brand sound, did not actually directly influence the final decision: the final decision was really a purely aesthetic decision made primarily by me (built on the raw materials from the Fripp / Mastelotto / Martine sessions) confirmed by Jenny Lam, Tjeerd Hoek, Allison Dew, Mike Sievert, JB Williams, and finally ‘approved’ by Jim Allchin in late September. The final orchestration decisions were really based entirely upon perception of specific orchestrations that ‘worked’ with the Pearl Animation in the product (while meeting the other very clear brand goals.)
The aesthetic direction was also directly driven by the very clear and articulate AERO (Authentic, Energy, Reflective, Open) design principles that are also evident in the rounded corners, transparency, lightness, smooth, soft light of the rest of the AERO ux designs.
What was the ‘cost’ of the project? For me, this is not really a relevant or interesting question. The quick answer is: trivial, miniscule compared to the cost of developing even a simple feature for Windows. A more interesting question that may generate even more useful discussion and answers may be this: what was (or is) the value of this project?
Something subtle I learned directly from Robert Fripp many many years ago:
That which is necessary has value.
That which is optional carries a cost.This is my paraphrase. This was the topic of a very useful dinner conversation at Red Lion House (Robert’s Guitar Craft house) in 1988.
From this view, focusing on the ‘cost’ of this project might imply that a Windows brand sound is an optional, unnecessary luxury, or a useless ‘throwaway’ design element – a tradeoff for some other higher value opportunity. However, in our now media-centric world, I view this sound as 100% necessary and ‘un-tradable’ for some other feature. Ignoring sound (or considering it ‘optional’) in product design is foolish and, IMHO, out of tune with the primary brand and media-driven changes going on in technology and user interface design today.
And that could be a topic for another very long interview or blog post.
But enough for tonight.
Please keep writing and doing your great work.
Best wishes,
-Steve
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