On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Alyosha` — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:40:21 GMT

Or, to paraphrase Fight Club:

Take the number of devices in the field, A, multiply by percentage of users the feature would impact, B, multiply by the cash each affected user would give us for the feature, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of implementing the feature, we don't write it.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Eagle117 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 21:45:48 GMT

Epocrates (www.epocrates.com) has an option inside their software for left-hand scrolling and my physicians love it. I would like to see it as part of the standard OS, but at least some company figured out a way to do it in their software.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Curtis S — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:18:13 GMT

Our company has traditionally prioritized new features in very similar way, I'm not convinced there is any magical method beyond what you described. We do consider a another key factor in addtion to the ones you outlined, I would assume you do this as well. Does the features requested align with our long-term roadmap/vision for our product? (you'll never be all things to all people) So you don't simply go mimic every iPhone feature, you have a vision where you're headed and weigh your prioritization decisions against that vision.

One thing we will be rolling out soon is something similar to http://ideas.salesforce.com, by opening up your enhancement requests to your user community then the individual users can see that someone as already asked for left-hand scrollbars and add then "vote" to indicate their support for the feature. Your enhancement pipeline becauses self-sorting and you eliminate getting hundreds of duplicate requests or worse yet, not hearing from those to lazy or disenfranchised to submit a request. Instead they can browse around to see what others are thinking and they can comment on or vote for their favorite ideas.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Scott Yost — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 22:39:14 GMT

Alyosha, that's a pretty good equation. There are lots of other letters that can come into play when we need to break ties with just A,B, and C. For instance, for two features that had the same user value and cost to build, if an ISV solution already provides one feature but no existing solution provides the other feature, we're more likely to build the second one.

Feature Prioritization

Kam VedBrat — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:13:16 GMT

Mike Calligaro posted a great write up on how feature prioritization happens at software companies. This

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

JasperM — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:35:47 GMT

Quantification is the key to getting others to do something. Show how an action will affect something the other person cares about (Sales, ROI, Marketing etc...) and sometimes that will lead them to action.

I like word problems, so I've put this model together in about ten minutes:

C((n/(b-a))

Let n = Number of users

Let b = Number of users positively affected

Let a = Number of users negatively affected

Let C = Likely use percentage

10 total users, 7 users want a change, 2 will be negatively affected, with a 25% likely use ratio.

.25((7-2)/10) = .125

It seems there would need to be further analysis for scheduling work hours and balancing that against the Effectiveness Ratio.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:53:33 GMT

I thought the first rule of fight club was not to talk about fight club... (-:

Alyosha:

I know you were kidding, but it's actually quite a bit more complicated than that. It's really rare that we get far enough down the list to places where X is less than the cost of implenting the feature. We spend our time choosing between features where X is positive. So much good stuff to do and so little time to do it.

Eagle117:

It's definitely possible for any given application to move its scroll bars whenever they'd like to put them. The challenge is getting all the applications to actually do it.

Curtis S:

That's a neat idea. I suspect that level of transparency would make our marketers scared though. We're in such a competitive industry that they'd worry such a public list would help the competitors, or at least tell them what we're doing next. That's always a challenge. Still, I really like the idea.

Jasper:

I'd say the analysis you're showing goes into the "how many people will use it" bucket. You're right that we subtract the number of users who would be negatively affected from that number. Well, at least the ones that would be directly negatively affected. Anyone who wanted a different feature more would be indirectly negatively affected.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

grabaclue — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:36:22 GMT

As a leftie, you can count me as one of the ones who've been hollering for this feature. I think we're actually something like 15% of the population.

It's great to see some of the details of the process that goes into making the software. Thanks for sharing!

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Dale Lane — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:40:06 GMT

When I first joined the corporate world of software engineering, one of the surprises was the way that (in addition to all of the points you make above), you only release what you can test.

It is obvious when you think about it - who wants to release untested software? - but it is infuriating for a developer. You have identified a problem that your customers have, you know you can fix it, and you know you can do it in time for the next release... but even then, it won't happen if there isn't the manpower to test it. And testing properly is so expensive...

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:03:00 GMT

Dale,

Yes, being gated by test is hard for everyone involved (including test :-).

For this article, I was lumping testing in with "How long it will take to do the feature." I may someday do an article that goes into more detail about that "doing the feature" part of the equation.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Curtis S — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:12:32 GMT

Two more quick points:

a) As you said there often is a 3rd alternative. Note that iPhone has no scroll bars, you scroll with the touch of the screen; This would seeming solve the issue

b) As to whether your marketing team would allow your user base (10M strong?) to comment openly on your product? Well you can't prevent it. It already happens in countless blogs and forums. Why not harness that power under your terms by hosting a site that gathers user feedback. Don't you think SalesForce has 100s of competitors in the CRM space? Do you really think Microsoft is voraciously reading every idea posted on SF's site, or monitoring SugarCRM's blogs for ideas? SF has always shown their product openly yet Oracle, SAP, and others have never been able to curb their growth.

Apple has been successful with their proprietary, secretive, product culture but even Jobs admitted that his lack of openness has curbed their growth over the last few decades.

I say create a idea forum for comments and suggestions. Surely a loyal user base that helps guide the product roadmap is preferably to scanning blog comments for suggestions that you then cut-n-paste into an email to the blackhole of the product mgmt group.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:20:30 GMT

Hey, like I said, I really like the idea. (-:

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

kdarling — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:02:10 GMT

Of course, as a really old software GUI designer, my answer is: design the code in the first place so that allowing a lefthand scrollbar takes just a few lines. Yeah, yeah. Easy for me to say :-) It's something we're all running into these days... the lack of time to do it right the first time. Isn't being in software wonderful?

I do agree with the poster about touchscreen gestures. How about an article showing us how to tap into the basic touch code and give fingertip scrolling and other "tip flicks" (Vista term) to Windows Mobile?

We built a nice field app using IE6 under Windows CE and added the scrolling and page-turning in a few lines of javascript to each page. Unfortunately IE Mobile has no similiar way of capturing mouse events.

As long as we have to struggle with p/invoke, please at least give us some fun factor stuff to help the users.

Thanks, guys, I know it's a struggle!

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 08:25:05 GMT

As another leftie, I too have been hollering for this since my first iPAQ back in 2000. Thanks for the background, I really do appreciate all that you guys go through to get the products out the door. I'm sorry to see that 7 years later this particular feature still hasn't made it high enough on the list. I finally gave up and sold my PocketPC. I switched to a SmartPhone and a TabletPC. Not that leftie support is any better with it, but with the bigger screen I can see what I'm doing easier when scrolling. Plus the new Panning hand feature in IE7 and Outlook 2007 under Vista helps a lot.

With regards to paying for features/upgrades I would love to have the opportunity to do so. Unfortunately, it seems that all the cellular carriers are interested in is selling phones to new customers. Not taking care of their existing ones. So they don't always offer your new releases to us. And it's not always because we're hanging on to old phones. I upgraded to Cingular's 3125 last September to get Windows Mobile 5. Now I find out, they didn't think it sold well enough so 8 months later they no longer carry it in their stores and don't plan on offering WM6 for it :-(. Meanwhile I'm under a 2-year contract so I can't replace the phone unless I want to pay an arm and a leg for a non-subsidized one <sigh>.

In the early days of the iPAQ when Compaq was still around they offered your newer versions at what I always considered reasonable upgrade pricing. I wish we still had that option.

Oh well, I guess by the time my contract runs out maybe I will get leftie scrollbars as you'll probably be rolling out WM8 ;-) Although with my luck it will probably come out 3 months after I buy my new WM7 phone!

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Dreamsoft — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:39:11 GMT

Well, i think Bill Gates is left handed and if read this comments will move this feature up in to do lists of WM team :) I don't know whether if he involve him position in company in thath kind of disputes ?

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 19:02:24 GMT

kdarling:

Doing it the right way the first time is certainly preferrable. As you pointed out, though, what's right isn't always clear when you're doing it the first time.

Bill:

One of the other things we struggle with is that people both do and don't want us to release frequently. On one hand, the more frequently we do releases, the less time people have to wait for the features in those releases. On the other hand, the more often we release, the more often people who have the previous version are disappointed that they don't have the next. There are people who claim that they'd literally be happier if we hadn't released anything between WM2003 and WM6, since that would have given them time to get the new version after their contract ran out. And our lives would certainly be easier if we could slow down our releases. But we wouldn't be anywhere near as competitive in this market if we worked that slowly.

Dreamsoft:

Leaders from BillG on down can definitely wield a lot of influence. I myself am a manager, and I can push my people to do things the way I want them done. Not to quote Spiderman, but there's a responsibility that comes with that power. Executives tend to be careful to base their feedback on market realities.

We definitely do reviews of our plans with various executives, including Bill. But they are more likely to say, "Strategically speaking, you're best off going after the business segment first," than, "You need to make it left handed, because that's how I use it."

Also, while our executives are very smart people, we've made it a point to fill the company with strong and independent people who are also very smart. If an executive told us to do something that was actively bad for our business, we wouldn't stand for it. I've seen that happen in the past (both the attempted meddling and the failure to do so).

But, yeah, if BillG said, "Make it work left handed or else," the feature would go up a few priority points.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:26:10 GMT

"We also look at the ability for our partners to implement the feature, giving higher prioritization to things only we can do than to things an ISV or OEM could do."

Yet huge amounts of the platform include stuff that an ISV can easily handle, while lacking basic functionality. Worse, when you include your way of doing certain non-OS things, you make it harder for the ISV to implement what our customers want.

Case in point Pocket Outlook/ActiveSync. We can implement our own email application with the features our customers want. We can hook certain parts of the system to make it the default when sending email. The users will still see Pocket Outlook sometimes because SMS is tied into it for no apparent reason. That's fine, they can figure out its a different app and that why they don't have any email in it. One of the features of our system is secure sync to the server without the Exchange server ever having to accept a network connection or be directly accessible to the outside world. This is great, right until ActiveSync tries to sync stuff its way and hoses the data. We can shoot ActiveSync, but then they can't copy files to their device over USB unless they have one of the rar devices with a USB mass storage mode. Of course, that then interfers with USB peripherals that may rely on the default configuration for ActiveSync (which themselves have to kill it to get access to the port). This wouldn't be an issue, except the basic mechanism for copying a file is mixed in with some conversion non-sense and sync. The only safe way to copy a file over USB then for most uses is to setup ActiveSync on the desktop to not sync anything at all, but we can't enforce that from the device and so it makes it easy for the data on the device and/or Exchange server to get trashed. All this mess exists because stuff that can clearly be done by ISVs (mail, sync) are being tied into the OS with ever increasing ways to disentangle them.

I think in reality its quite the opposite. If an ISV does something and its successful, then eventually Microsoft does their own implementation and jams it into the OS in such a way as to make it difficult for the ISVs to continue their products. A more accurate statement would be "We prioritize features that assist maintaining our monopoly and leave unproven features for ISVs and OEMs to implement. If the market reacts positively to the innovation of others, we will duplicate those features to keep pace."

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Scott Yost — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:07:31 GMT

I think you have to be the market leader before you can be accused of trying to maintain a monopoly.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

danial — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:59:33 GMT

Hey, I liked the way you wrote. Thanks.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:38:00 GMT

Matthew, I'm sorry for your frustration. Our success in this industry is heavilly tied to ISVs and OEMs doing well, and we do want you to be successful.

If you can give technical details that explain how Active Sync is getting in your way, I'll file bugs against the sync team and try to get them fixed. If you're concerned about posting details in public, click the "Email" link at the top of this page and send them that way. Please include a way for us to contact you with questions.

The more detail you can give, the better. For instance, you reported that you sync with your server outside of Active Sync but that Active Sync corrupts your data. There are a lot of data services on the device (pIE, Live Mail, VoIP) as well as a number of ISV email clients which are independent of AS and are able to transfer data. Are you doing something different than they are? I'm not claiming the problem is in your app. If you need to do something we don't expect you to do, and we're getting in the way as a result, we want to know about it.

Please also give details regarding the kinds of files you're trying to transfer over sync that are getting converted. I frequently transfer a lot of different kinds of files to my device over desktop AS, including exes, wavs, wmas, mids, cabs, logs, and proprietary data format files that I use in the applications I write. AS never tries to convert any of them for me. If it's corrupting your files, we definitely want to know about it. Make sure you tell us which version of desktop AS you're using as well as which device and OS version you're syncing to.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:49:11 GMT

scyost,

There's no denying Microsoft has a near monopoly on the desktop. They don't have it on phones yet, but they want it, and are already behaving in much the same was as on the desktop in terms of bundling.

MikeCal,

We sync mail and PIM data. All our mail goes into our own database, so there is no conflict there. The issue comes with the PIM data. To be useful to the system, the PIM data needs to go into the regular PIM database so all POOM enabled apps, including the system contacts and calendar apps, can access it. Say I add a contact on the phone. Both our service and ActiveSync see that happen and know it should go to the server. On the next sync interval, our service will send the new contact through our system to the customer's Exchange server. If the phone is later connected to their desktop with ActiveSync, it too adds that contact through Outlook. Now there are two copies of the same contact on the server. Toss in some modifications made on the device and the desktop, synced through our service, and next time ActiveSync gets connected things turn into a real mess. The root of the issue is neither knows about the other, mainly because we can't find any documentation on how ActiveSync tracks changes. If we could share its change database, that would be excellent. If we could simply clear its change data, that would sorta work, but Outlook on the desktop holds the other half of the changes, which probably include changes that came down from the server but really originated on the phone. It would really be easiest if our software on the phone could turn off ActiveSync's handling of all PIM data. I know how to turn off ActiveSync over the air, but how would I turn it partially off on the device? If I totally stop it, the user can't simply copy files. ActiveSync has a tendency to fail to connect or to disconnect on its own in the middle of a transfer, but when it works the file is always ok. I always see warnings about a file may be converted before the copy, but it doesn't seem to happen in any harmful way.

The other part of what I was bringing up is ActiveSync restarts itself. If I end its process, it'll restart sometime later, meaning it needs constant watching. This comes into play when a peripheral wants to use the USB ports. Since no phones seem to ship with a host port, the peripheral has to be the host. When its connected, ActiveSync wants to start a PPP session in the Serial over USB channel and sometimes spits out CLIENT over the port. The driver has to kill ActiveSync so it can open up the virtual serial port to communicate with the peripheral. Again, if there was just a simple off switch for ActiveSync, there would be no conflict.

Another ActiveSync sin is the breaking of the network. Regardless of the route table and the metrics, all traffic IP traffic is sent to the desktop when ActiveSync is connected. There is no way I know of to disable this on the device or the desktop. This might sound like a feature, but its a curse in disguise. ActiveSync only handles TCP packets properly. UDP and all other packet, with the exception of port 53 UDP packets for DNS which are specially handled, are simply thrown on the floor with no way. There is no way for the application to continue using the phone's data connection the whole time ActiveSync is connected.

This is all just various ways in which Microsoft shoves ActiveSync down the user's throat whether they want it or not. It took years to get this sort of lock in addressed in any way on the desktop with Internet Exploiter and Windows Media Player.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

ginswizzle — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 08:39:53 GMT

As a product planner I disagree with your point that "...the longer it will take to implement the feature, the lower its priority will be."

The features that best advance your business strategy and deliver the highest net positive customer value are the highest priority. A high cost to implement certainly decreases the likelihood of a given feature getting into the release (5 small features often are deemed better than 1 large feature), but they don't make that feature any less important.

Also, typically we plan according to scenarios (or end-to-end tasks) not features which helps us think through the larger problem we're being asked to solve. So for your example here we'd look at the relative value of "making Windows Mobile as easy to use for lefties as it is for righties." Thinking like this might lead us to determine that left-side scroll bars are only one feature of many that we should implement (or not if there are too many more compelling scenarios than we have the time for).

Once we have identified the highest priority scenarios we turn our attention to prioritizing the features and engineering work items within those scenarios, usually establishing a minimum set of features we must do within each scenario to make it worth the investment.

Of course, we always have the option of moving the release back so we can get more features in. ;)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

ray — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:35:19 GMT

@Matthew - give it a rest. Why attribute the fact that you want to do something in your app which is blocked by an OS component (ActiveSync), to malicious design. More than likely it is simply a by-product of you trying to do domething that was not foreseen by the feature developers.

This means it's a bug - which might be fixed or not along with all the other bugs.

MikeCal gave you a perfectly civil alternative to contact him with the exact details, but if I was him your subsequent post would make me change my mind.

There is no need to post comments like this:

"This is all just various ways in which Microsoft shoves ActiveSync down the user's throat whether they want it or not. It took years to get this sort of lock in addressed in any way on the desktop with Internet Exploiter and Windows Media Player."

If they had a rating system on these blog comments most people would not see your rants because they would be modded down into irrelevance.

SDK? We got your SDK right here.

WMExperts — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:02:52 GMT

All the brouhaha over whether or not the iPhone will allow third party development is slightly amusing and mystifying to me. Amusing because, like my pal Mike over at [phone different](http://phonedifferent.com) I'm looking at the iPhone like a smartphone,

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:22:56 GMT

ginswizzle:

I think we're actually agreeing with each other. I just think we are using different meanings for the word "priority." I'm drawing a distinction between "priority" and "importance." By the definition I'm using, "priority" is the order you do things in. It incorporates a ton of factors, including importance. If 5 small features are deemed more important to do than one big feature and we do the five first, then the big feature has to have a lower "priority" by my definition. It sounds like you do the same thing, you just use a different word for it. (-:

Sometimes we do scenarios, sometimes we do targeted fixes. If the release is a small AKU (they tend to have a total product cycle of 3 months) we really only have time for specific changes. But if it's a major release with a year or more behind it, we have time to plan out full end to end scenarios. Since large features don't fit into AKU cycles anyway, they tend to be more scenario driven.

As for moving the release date back, Microsoft in general is pretty infamous for that. But because Windows Mobile has such a complicated set of partnerships (OEMs, MOs, etc) with heavy testing constraints (Carrier trials, etc), we generally don't have much room to slip our releases.

ray:

Thanks. As you point out, it's easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Nothing I do on this blog is part of my job. It's effectively done on my own time. And, yes, I'm human. So I'm more likely to go out of my way to help courteous people than ... others.

Mike

Great post on feature prioritization

John at myITforum.com — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:33:03 GMT

The Window Mobile Team has a great post on feature prioritization. On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:19:58 GMT

Ray,

I put them out in public so others know the obstacles that we've already found. No sense in making someone else waste their time if I already have. I have contacted Microsoft in the past about some things. The result is usually just "That is unsupported, we only support hello world apps in VB. We are keeping you $200 for the support ticket." There is an occasion in which we did actually get a solution, after attempts to tell us no and close th ticket on us, but with persistence we finally got a solution, and then so did the rest of the world (at our expense since we paid for the support ticket) when the general solution was posted on the ce_base blog. If there was a rating system, you could get rated down as tool.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:30:40 GMT

MikeCal,

Here is another one. There is supposed to be this system for creating a custom password screen that comes up when the device is first turned on. This has been around for a long time. There is a demo called "LetMeIn" from 2002 that includes source for doing this. Basically, the thing should set a password in the system when its configured, and later the system will call into it at a predefined entry point to allow it to accept a password from the user before allowing access to the system. The functions used (SetPassword, SetPasswordActive, GetPasswordActive, PromptForPassword) are still documented, but with no warning this was broken by AKU2. If I try to use a program like this, including Microsoft's own sample, I get locked out forever because the wrong screen comes up. The configuration for the custom password comes up in the control panel, but once a password is set, the system default password prompt comes up when the device is woken from suspend rather than the custom prompt. We had something that was extensible and worked, but now its busted because the system ignores the setting in the registry and just uses always uses what it has. So, to do something like this I have to have a service that catches the condition, comes up full screen, disables menus, takes over all keys, forcibly hides all other windows that attempt to come up, etc until the user has authenticated.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:34:49 GMT

For passwords we moved to the LASS/LAP architecture. Here's an article on how to write a 3rd party LAP.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms926467.aspx

And here's a description of the samples available in the SDK.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms936998.aspx

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Richard — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:51:43 GMT

I thought that going to Start/Programs/ActiveSync Menu/Connections/When Cradled and unchecking 'Synchronize all PCs using this connection' with USB slected stopped ActiveSync from doing any synchronization over the USB. AFAIK it does on WM Phone Edition.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

whydidnt — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 17:48:26 GMT

What I'm wondering, is how MS decides to prioritize the removal of features? It seems to me that we see as much effort put into removing useful items as we do into adding value to the OS -- WiFi Sync, Category Sync (Which we've NEVER heard any explanation for the removal of), Bluetooth DUN, for example just to name a few.

Maybe is the WM development team concentrated on adding functionality instead of constantly removing it we would see more of the users requests make it into a future release.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:22:13 GMT

whydidnt, it's usually very easy to remove a feature. It's never easy to add one. In most cases, if a feature is removed, it's because something made the feature stop working and the work required to fix it needed to be prioritized with everything else. We do recognize that removing a feature makes people more angry than just not giving it to them in the future, and that figures into the prioritization.

Now, I DID say, "in most cases" above. There are times when we break things without realizing it, and there are times when we make honest to goodness mistakes. There are also times when we add an improved feature that conflicts with a previous one and need to remove the previous one. For instance, a couple of years ago we added OBEX IR, but it conflicted with our original IR Squirt. OBEX was the industry standard and it worked better than Squirt. It was the right thing to add. But it also made our new devices unable to talk to previous generation ones.

We've talked in depth about Wifi AS and BTH DUN. Sorry, I'm not familiar with Category Sync.

I suspect you weren't serious when you said that if we just stopped removing things we'd have more time to add stuff. But, just to be clear, that's not true at all. Most features can be removed by one guy in minutes to hours. The simplest new feature requires, at minimum 3 people and multiple days. If there's any UI involved the time goes to weeks.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:43:58 GMT

MikeCal,

Thanks for the information on LASS and LAP. It looks like it will work, though is far more complicated, has unwanted side-effects I'll have to work around, and forces a divergence from the prior codebase or just dropping support for everything prior to Windows Mobile 5.0. I don't see a provision for supporting authentication only from StartUI while allowing other applications to fall through to some other authentication provider. For my purposes, all other applications will have to be an allows succeed or always fail (leaning towards the former so as not to break unknown apps) since their auth request means nothing to me.

It would be good if the documentation for the old way were to note that it is not supported beyond PocketPC 2003. I find this is a general problem, in that the documentation says what version support was added but rarely what version support was removed. If there is something new to replace it, as there is in this case, the documentation for both the old and new should have links to each other or at least some mention of the relation.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Matthew — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:05:18 GMT

The MSDN document for LASS samples says there is a Windows Mobile specific example, but it is not present in my CE5 or CE6 platform builder directories. The other samples are all present in the specified paths. Is this sample reserved for Windows Mobile licensees only?

Así decide Microsoft las funciones de Windows Mobile

CanalPDA — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:18:49 GMT

¿Cuántos de los usuarios de dispositivos Windows Mobile son zurdos? Un debate sobre la posibilidad de cambiar al lado izquierdo la barra de desplazamiento en las aplicaciones para WM revela los criterios que aplican los desarrolladores de Microsoft par

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

may — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:33:08 GMT

I know that developing apps in such big company is a lot different from doing it in small one or even freelance and that a lot of things come into account when considering new features.

but to be honest, missing such feature as left-handed use in n-million (talking about number of devices) market and on devices where 99% of user interaction is done on screen is quite unreasonable (to be easy on words).

yes, I am new to wm world but have been using other solutions before and (as you've probably guessed) i'm annoyed left-hand user whose fascination over wm dissapeared after first hour of web surfing :-(

on pc,majority of lefties use mouse in right hand or don't even bother switching buttons as it does not obstruct their work- and the feature was in W3.11... I hope it will be available soon for wm, too. and that the users won't have to buy a new device for completely new os just for this feature :-)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

S. Eirwol — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:50:54 GMT

Being right handed, I can only offer the conjecture of, "Does it end at moving the scroll bar?"

Leonardo DaVinci was a famous left handed person, and as such all of his writings about his famous inventions were written right to left with the letters backwards in his notebooks. To read the text normally, one can hold a mirror and read the reflection to see the text normally. (I think your Supreme Boss owns the orginal, maybe he'll let you check it out!)

Possibly there is a a solution somewhere in this illustration. What if you developed code that reversed the UI. In effect, putting the right side on the left, and vice-versa. Of course, you would keep the text normal, just reverse the display of the UI. Since most UI is designed for right-handed persons ease of use, would it not follow that the inverse would be usable by left-handed users. (Of course, after years of brain synapse development, it might take a awhile for left handers to adjust.)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

David O — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 05:01:25 GMT

Blah Blah Blah! So stop writing about it Microsoft

and just do it!!!!!!! Before Apple does!

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:25:25 GMT

That was an interesting read Mike. I'm in mining (rocks) and haven't the slightest clue of the complexities involved in software development, but here's what brought me here...

Usability. I cannot for the life of me understand why usability isn't at the forefront of software development at Microsoft. I'm on my 5th Windows Mobile device (an HTC Smartphone) and that fact alone says a lot in itself. Microsoft has had a whopping head start in the mobile industry and yet along comes newbie Apple putting it and it's hardware partners to shame.

I had thought, hoped and prayed WM6 would of upped the usability factor considering Apple was eying the market, but no. Watching iPhone users on TV last week left me in a state of shock. I just couldn't believe the ease with which they used their devices and at arms length! Here I am 5 devices later and a shiny new OS, my nose up against the LCD, poking away at it with a miniature steel pipe. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.

I seems even the hardware people at HTC understand the lack of usability in Windows Mobile. They had to develop a media player and partial GUI that overlaps Windows in their new Touch phone. Unfortunately I'm still using the stylus on Microsoft's applications.

I'm not saying the geek factor should be completely removed from your OS, but please consider the other 96% of us who shell out major dough for Microsoft and its hardware partners' products.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Mike Klein — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 04:32:25 GMT

I can't believe leftie support hasn't been more a priority...like others I've been waiting 10? years for this.

It s/be trivial to implement...and if it isn't...points to really REALLY bad design flaws.

Counting lefty users of both PPCs and TabletPCs...I can't for the life of me see how this isn't deemed "completely broken" and in need of fixing.

For Microsoft to skip implg this is telling.

Kind of like comment in recent "Mobile Development Handbook" on WM development you put out...it states:

"Printing on Pocket PCs hasn't been in demand by developers much"...

Wha?!? My grandmother has even been asking for printing ability...every end user I know screams for printing support.

I am <relatively> happy with my 8525...but there are certain critical/killer issues MS never EVER addresses...close box being another.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

jtst — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:28:15 GMT

I would say that whatever new PDA/Smartphone device that claims to be "friendly" for left-handers would discover how their sales forecast is overexceeded.

I'm left-handed and there are millions and millions of left handed people and people that, though right handed, usually uses has its PDA at its left side in their desk.

We, as left handed have to accept this no friendly devices because there is no option. But if there is one sometime and is well adverstised, I tell you, that first device will be a success!.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Steven — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:20:23 GMT

Hi,

Does anyone know why stack tracing is not available in Windows Mobile?

This caught me by surprise and is now causing me lots of problems.

Thanks,

Steven

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 20:52:32 GMT

jtst, in the phone space, MS makes two products. By the previous naming scheme, they were "PocketPC" and "Smartphone." (Now they're called "Windows Mobile Professional" and "Windows Mobile Standard.")

Every MS "Smartphone" is very friendly to left handers. I use mine interchangeably in my left and right hands and have no difficulty at all doing every function.

It's only touch screen devices that have any handedness prefrence.

We have generally not seen the effect you've described of left handed people causing smartphones to be a greater success, but there are a lot of factors at play.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:04:59 GMT

Bill, "usability" is a pretty loaded term, made especially complicated by large numbers of users spread around the globe. What seems very usable to one person may seem completely unusable to another.

Personally, I find EVERY touch screen device, the iPhone included, to be considerably less usable than non-touch screen devices. I find the usability of being able to navigate my device one handed by muscle memory (not needing to look at it) to be worth considerably more than any amount of graphical richness. And that's where we've been focusing our usability efforts. If, on your 5th WM device, you put the stylus away and try using the device without it, I think you'll find that we've done a lot of work there. When I use a PPC these days, it's rare that I use the stylus for anything. I'll pull it out to draw something, but for normal behavior, it's the far superior hardware navigation that I use.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:44:11 GMT

Obviously you're saying I should make more use of the d-pad, because there is no way an adult person can get away from using the stylus for navigation and other tasks, much less typing. Growing long fingernails is not why I opted for a touch screen either ;-)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:34:20 GMT

I consider the following keys be be necessary for navigation on a touch screen windows mobile device.

DPAD

Soft Keys

Start Key

Ok Key

In WM6, I can navigate to almost everywhere using only those keys. I literally never pull my stylus out on devices that have those keys.

Now, you're right about typing. If your device doesn't have a qwerty thumb board, you'll need to use the stylus to enter text. Personally, I type email on my devices all the time, so I consider some sort of thumb board to be a requirement. But I can understand that some people who don't enter much text might not want the extra size that a keyboard brings. Still, if you're entering text frequently, real keys beat even the best touch screens, no matter how well implemented.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:00:13 GMT

Well, that's the point I was trying to get across. It's as though consumer focus groups were left out of WM development. How else do you explain the iPhone's finger friendly popularity?

Why wasn't the Windows for PC model followed? From Win95 on up, I can resize Windows based on screen resolution. Seems Windows Mobile is a 1024x768 design that was simply reduced in size rather than adapted to small screens. Resizing capability was left out and that's a shame.

Anyways, I appreciate the fact you're engaging users through this blog. This is as close as any of us insignificant consumers will ever get to comment and hopefully see improvements made based on them.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:54:36 GMT

Here's a link that describes why we didn't go with the desktop model for resolutions:

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2006/02/14/531972.aspx

As for focus groups, we do a ton of them. Everything from those groups to our experience to comments here say that a strong majority of users prefer buttons to touching the screen with their fingers.

Let's not confuse the two aspects:

Touch vs Buttons

Touch with Stylus vs Touch with Fingers

If you're going to touch, I agree that having the targets large enough to hit with your fingers is better than having them small enough to require a stylus.

However, I strongly believe that having the ability to hit physical buttons beats any kind of touch screen. We've been focusing our efforts on the latter, not the former.

As for explaining the iPhone's finger pointing popularity, they haven't sold anywhere near enough phones to draw any conclusions yet. There are many phones on the market both by us and our competitors that have each sold considerably more units than the iPhone yet have no touch screen at all. It's dangerous to make business decisions based on perceived popularity.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:10:35 GMT

It's equally as foolish to base business decisions on competitors' lack of entry level units sold. Two words: Datsun & Wii

You don't need a 10 year head start in the mobile industry to realize something is right when complete newbies feel at ease with their device right out of the box. I see these guys (whoneedsaniphone.com) trying to build a new GUI. Do you think they'll get it done before Microsoft even begins to acknowledge the fact it may be one of its major deficiencies? No need to answer that one ;)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:41:25 GMT

Agreed. The best thing is to base business decisions on solid research and development and let competitors do whatever they want. Apple's going to be very successful selling to the kinds of people they're targeting. We'll certainly pay attention to their strengths and weaknesses, but we won't throw out everything we've learned about our customers and the phone industry in a knee-jerk reaction to be just like them.

I don't know the Datsun story very well, but I can talk at length about the Wii (though this is probably not the right place for such a discussion). The bottom line is that neither the Wii nor the iPhone being successful is a "problem" for Microsoft. In both cases, they're going after a different set of customers than we are.

Yes, there will probably be some people who currently use Windows Mobile who will switch to iPhone. Anyone who thinks that the most important part of using a phone is controlling it by touch screen with their fingers is very likely to be swayed to Apple. But, as much as I appreciate that customer's business, he's not the one I'm focused on. I'm much more interested in the user whose information is important and shudders at the thought of carrying his company's secrets around on a phone that shipped with a known administrator password.

As much as I'd like to appeal to both the "my phone's got to be secure" user and the "I want to touch it with my fingers" one, if there's ever a conflict in supporting both, I'm going to go with the former. If that means there's a group of users Apple can target and be successful with, all the power to them. Their sucess does not equal my failure.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:06:08 GMT

The Datsun reference was meant to highlight North American car manufactures laughing and shrugging off Japanese cars catering to what they considered menial consumers. Sound familiar?

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:16:16 GMT

Ah, I understand. I grew up in Detroit know a lot of people in the US Auto Industry. High school and college friends, people I used to do odd jobs for, etc. My father in law was an engineer at Ford for decades and was one of the guys who designed the Dearborn test track.

I'm confident that the situation between the Japanese entering the US auto market and Apple entering the phone market are different. Time will certainly tell whether or not I'm right, but we're definitely not laughing off the iPhone. They're going to be a force to be reckoned with. I just don't believe it will because you can touch their screen with your fingers.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:49:35 GMT

Great, I'll be back with a reminder should WM7 inexplicably become finger friendly. Meanwhile I'll keep sharpening the stylus until someone figures out how to get other phones working with the Company's Exchange server :)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:01:22 GMT

Even if it is, I'm sticking to my guns that buttons are better. (-:

Now, if we make it finger friendly and remove the ability to do buttons, that would make me very sad.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Bill Miner — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 00:29:44 GMT

Mike, you'd be my hero by convincing The Team to get to work on both buttons and finger friendliness :)

Cheers

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Dale Lane — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 12:39:13 GMT

What is the best way to suggest / request features for future versions of Windows Mobile?

I'm interested in general, but also because I've had an idea that would make Outlook Mobile more useful to me and am wondering if there is anywhere I could send it?

(If the answer is 'write a comment here and someone can forward it on', then the idea is to be able to copy items between the different object types in Outlook Mobile.

In desktop Outlook, if I get an email from someone asking me to do something, I can move the information to my Tasks list by dragging the email to my tasks folder. I get a new task item, with all of the information in the email copied across. Similarly, emails about events can be turned into Appointment items by dragging to my calendar folder and so on.

Dragging wouldn't be the way to do a mobile version, but even with a context menu item like 'Copy to Tasks', it would make processing a full inbox much quicker. This sort of closer integration between the core WM apps could make them more useful to people.

I've had a go at coding a plugin to demonstrate how I think this could work - http://dalelane.co.uk/blog/?p=188 - if that helps!)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Scott Yost — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:54:38 GMT

Dale, you can definitely leave messages here but I'd also suggest dropping a mail in the outlook mobile blog mailbox: http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook_mobile/contact.aspx

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Dale Lane — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:33:05 GMT

Scott - I'll do that. Thanks very much!

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

hellboy — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:04:12 GMT

the annoying thing is that the bright guys who work for big companies are paid to do the things that others tell them to do and not to do anything else. Individual ideas are out of the question. That's sad.

If you're part of the machine you're not more than a cogwheel. And the guy who is turning the steering wheel might not be the brightest one.

I think thats where open source and hobby-programmers come into play. I suppose this would be like a 500kb software that a good programmer could write anytime. He would be praised by the 10 % of the pda using population :)) and that's something.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

MikeCal — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:34:49 GMT

Would you really want it to be different? If my customers tell me what my product needs to do, and I say, "Forget that, I'd rather it do this instead," would we really end up with a better product? I mean, yeah, it would be great if the developer happens to like what you do, but I'd rather meet the needs of the largest number of customers than have a few hundred developers all doing their own pet projects and hoping it results in something good.

That said, I've been here a long time and I've never felt like a cog. There have certainly been features I wanted that didn't get into the product, but there have also been features I was able to convince people were important and that DID get into the product. Even you folks on this blog have influenced how our products are made. On multiple occasions, I've sent feedback from the blog to the appropriate developers and they've said, "Okay, I can make that happen."

We don't get to pick the large scale features, but we developers have a lot of say in how the features we do implement get implemented. I think you'll find that this is how it works in every endeavor that involves a significant number of people working on something.

Mike

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Jan Moravec — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:18:49 GMT

Good article and interesting comments.

I am a left-handed person too and obviously I also find it extremely frustrating that I cannot switch the position of the scroll-bar in WM to the left-hand side.

I can understand that you are concerned about breaking the existing apps that are not ready for the left-handed scroll-bar, but I cannot understand why it is not possible to make this configurable on per-app basis in the operating system? I have been a developer for 12 years do not see a reason why this would not be doable. The windowing system most likely provides support for left-handed scroll bars and if not, then add it.

I guess that most left-handed people can live with a few 3rd party apps on their PDA using a right-handed scroll-bar knowing that these apps will catch up sooner or later. But unless you make the left-handed options available in the system and in the core WM apps, this will hardly ever happen.

Just my two cents.

Jan

PS: Is there a page where left-handed people can vote on this feature? If so, could you pls post it here.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

8anos — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:46:08 GMT

Mike Said: Doing it the 'right' way the first time is certainly preferrable.

well, at the issue at hand it would be more prefferable to do it the 'left' way...

well, no hurt feelings, but consumers also have limited resources (money instead of time) and since i am left handed i would also prioritize stuff i will buy and would put those nice left hand mice of your competitor's (about half a dozen of them, one for each pc i use) a little higher that a windows mobile device which currently gives me limited functionality...

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Scott Yost — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:26:50 GMT

To be honest, that's how I expect it to work so there's no hurt feelings. If our products don't meet your needs then by all means don't buy them. Telling us why you're not buying them is a bonus, so we appreciate that.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:36:57 GMT

Dudes, you go to to help us lefties...its soooo dame frustrating....

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Andy — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:04:19 GMT

I'm using an I-Mate with WM6 - it supports a left scroll landscape option but still no left scroll portrait option. Why would you not implement for both?

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Andy — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:04:30 GMT

I'm using an I-Mate with WM6 - it supports a left scroll landscape option but still no left scroll portrait option. Why would you not implement for both?

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Ken — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:10:18 GMT

Forgive me if someone has already stated this, I did not read all of the posts above.

I definately understand the need to prioritize features. I don't know if the 10% numbers thrown out at the top of this article are accurate or not. I am right handed when it comes to writing/using the stylus on my touch device. Having said that I naturally hold the device in my left hand so having scrolling available on the left would enable me to use this device much easier with one hand, which I'm guessing a lot of people would agree with.

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

duke nukem — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:06:00 GMT

I hope someday they implement options for left-handed layout. That, or maybe just force all right-handers to use a left scroll bar lay out for a couple days to put the hassle and misery of left-handers into perspective for the other 85% of the right-handed world ;)

re: On the Left Hand: How Feature Prioritization Happens

Nathan Hanse — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:14:28 GMT

Hey,

Im relatively new to the wm world and as a whole am pleased with wm6.1 on a samsung i760. I am a leftie and would be

grateful for left handed features. for me to solve browsing the web left handed I download skyfire and opera wich let u scroll on the page without scroll bars. but they are limited compared to IE: for 1 they use a lot more memory and more often than not they crash my phone when loading. I don't code professionaly but I understand how frustrating adding features or debugging is on such a large "kernal". I was disappointed to find out hat MS didn't impliment that in since MS has added ( personally ) feature less important to my daily use of the phone, while they did think of many features that make me proud to own a wm device.

I've used the iphone and I am disappointed with there inability to run multiple apps ( excluding the music player ). also the on screen keyboard is a pain to use while predictive type is even worse, apple did hit a small market but few businesses would have the intigration that MS has with desktops and mobile none the less severs! I was amazed to see domain enroll and other remote features added to wm and I have used a couple that programs that older users we "jealous" of. On the manufacture's part I bevieve they jip us in power and ram on these devices: my phone has roughly 440Mz processeser with something like 8-16 Mb of ram, I can only run half the programs I want because of this. note I am not blaming MS. I wish that a future release could address the left handed "issue".

Scot I apperciate this chance to be able to discuss what we think and like/dislike about wm.