Michael B. Duff

Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is featuring a 2003 email from Bill Gates, lambasting his staff over the poor design and usability hassles he faced while trying to download Windows Movie Maker. Gates captured this experience exactly, asking all the questions that a normal user would ask.

“Why can’t I find MovieMaker in the search results?”

“Why do I have to download 7 things from Windows Update before I can get one program?”

“Why do software installs take so long?”

“Why does Add/Remove programs list a hundred hotfixes with no description?”

And the list goes on.

Dave Ross of KIRO-AM/710 in Seattle did a dramatic reading of the message on air Wednesday morning. Don’t miss it.