Advanced interface productization: lessons learned

  • Authors:
  • David Kurlander

  • Affiliations:
  • Industry Consultant, Seattle, WA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the International Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Over the years I have managed several research projects relating to advanced interfaces and have turned them into shipping products. Microsoft Comic Chat uses automatic illustration generation and the visual language of comics to present online conversations. Microsoft's Mobile Internet Toolkit renders web interfaces on a variety of mobile devices. Microsoft Surface is a multi-touch, object-sensing table-top display. More recently I have been advising start-ups in the mobile content/ubiquitous computing area. Juggling the competing interests of research and product development has been often interesting, sometimes painful, and always challenging. In my invited talk, I will discuss lessons learned while productizing interface technology, including selecting the product to ship, balancing research and product requirements, navigating management's whims of the day, setting goals, and evaluating the results, as well as what has worked and what has not, and why certain efforts have been more successful than others. Here I present a sampling of these lessons.