A report from Microsoft's 'Board of the Future'

During their visit to Microsoft, the students on the Board of the Future focused heavily on concepts of simplicity and usability, as reflected in many of their recommendations to the company. “Make toolbar functions more obvious and accessible,” read one of their suggestions, as recorded in the notes from one of their sessions.

Simon Moss

On that front, Microsoft made a big push toward accessibility with the introduction of the Office “ribbon” interface starting in Office 2007, giving many tools and features more visibility.

“In terms of Office, I think 2007 was a huge step forward,” says Board of the Future member Simon Moss, now 27, an Australian living in London as one of the leaders of the Global Poverty Project, an offshoot of the Oaktree Foundation international development agency, where he was previously chief operations officer.

He says it "made entry-level users much more aware of the power of features available to them" and "got rid of a lot of the messy features."

However, Moss says he believes Microsoft's teams "have been slow understanding the move to the cloud and have been outflanked by Google and Apple in getting that most consumers need simple products that deliver cleanly and consistently."

He has transitioned completely to Macs, in part because the Global Poverty Project focuses heavily on video, animation, presentations and online content.

“I spend a huge amount of my time in Keynote (Apple's presentation software), and see Powerpoint's inability to work with video as the bane of my existence,” he says.

Microsoft may have an answer for him in the PowerPoint 2010 release, which adds new video embedding and editing capabilities. The company is confident enough in the improvements on that front that it includes the feature in its list of "Top 7 Reasons to Try Office 2010."

Another big issue during the Board of the Future sessions was information overload, particularly in email, recalled Steven Sutton, now 27, a native of New Zealand who worked as a lawyer for two years at the country’s largest law firm before returning to school, recently finishing his masters thesis at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

Steven Sutton

“Certainly Outlook now incorporates features that help wade through the mire, such as incoming message alerts and searchable email folders,” he says. “This is on the right track, and further (and more intuitive) developments that make finding and storing emails easier would be most welcome.”

In this area, as well, Microsoft has attempted to make progress with the Office 2010 release, with new Outlook features including the ability to ignore and clean up conversations.

Microsoft has done a good job in recent years making the “discoverability” of features a priority in its Office products, with the ribbon and other changes, said Rob Helm, who follows the Office business as an analyst with the Directions on Microsoft research firm in Kirkland.

But Office will be grappling with bigger issues in the years ahead, as the world embraces new forms of online information and mobile devices, where Office isn’t traditionally as strong, Helm said. Microsoft has made a push into online collaboration and social networking with its SharePoint server software, but he said the company still needs to make some major shifts.

“More and more information is going into something that’s not a document — a web page, user profile, web discussions,” Helm said. “Office isn’t particularly suited for that.”

Special Report: Microsoft and its 'Board of the Future' in 2010
Intro: Imagining the future: Microsoft's international advisory board
Part 1: A social movement for technology in the workplace
Part 2: Making Office more usable: What has worked, and what hasn't
Part 3: The technology they use: Office at work, alternatives at home
Part 4: Long-term impact: What the board meant for its members

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