{"id":42907,"date":"2021-08-20T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/the-people-behind-windows-11-using-psychology-familiarity-and-inspiration-to-create-widgets\/"},"modified":"2021-08-20T01:34:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:34:23","slug":"the-people-behind-windows-11-using-psychology-familiarity-and-inspiration-to-create-widgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/the-people-behind-windows-11-using-psychology-familiarity-and-inspiration-to-create-widgets\/","title":{"rendered":"The people behind Windows 11: Using psychology, familiarity and inspiration to create widgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The people behind Windows 11: Using psychology, familiarity and inspiration to create widgets
\n
\nBefore moving to Seattle with her husband seven years ago, Priya Chauhan had never worked in digital design. She came from the print publishing world, where she worked on children’s books, coffee table books, travel guides, catalogs, window display posters, chocolate and biscuit tins and all kinds of seasonal marketing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you lived in London at that time, you probably\u00a0saw her\u00a0designs\u00a0throughout the city and in magazines.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Priya
Priya Chauhan (Photo by Ulysses Curry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But once she started working for Microsoft five years ago, she\u00a0entered a\u00a0fast-moving\u00a0space\u00a0where she could make global impact.\u00a0(The first time\u00a0she\u00a0used a PC or\u00a0Windows was\u00a0her\u00a0first day\u00a0at\u00a0the company. Now\u00a0she\u00a0only uses PCs\u00a0and\u00a0Windows.)\u00a0Chauhan\u00a0started on services and store fronts, then Microsoft Rewards. Then\u00a0she moved to the Windows team.\u00a0As a designer\u00a0working on\u00a0a new, signature feature for Windows 11 \u2013<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>widgets<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/span>\u00a0she measured success by one thing: how it could make people happy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She wanted something that would give people\u00a0a peek into what’s most important to them.\u00a0Widgets, which may be\u00a0familiar to anyone who\u2019s used a smartphone or tablet, offer a\u00a0personalized\u00a0pop-up collection of\u00a0information\u00a0on weather, sports scores and other bits of information<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t have to switch between devices and break your workflow,\u201d\u00a0says Chauhan, whose own work last year was paused when<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>she had\u00a0her first child. \u201cWith one swipe you can access the widget\u00a0board, which gives you just a quick glance to what you need to know. Like,\u00a0when is my next meeting?\u00a0Is it going to rain when I go for my run?\u00a0The quick kind of information you need without stopping to check\u00a0your\u00a0phone and then come back.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She drove the user interface of the widget experience, its visual framework that includes color, typography and layouts.\u00a0Chauhan drew inspiration from a variety of sources \u2013 everything from the big, bold typefaces on coffee packets to the\u00a0soft color palette animations of\u00a0weather apps. She gathered images that sparked her creativity in digital mood boards.\u00a0With her background in graphic design, she\u2019s always looking at core foundations and elements: layout, negative\u00a0space\u00a0color and hierarchy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And with widgets, she and her team weren\u2019t going to reinvent the wheel.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>We’re just trying to bring it in line with what people are used to using,\u201d\u00a0Chauhan says.\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>What we’ve tried to do with Windows 11 is make it not just about\u00a0work, but\u00a0also about play,\u00a0home,\u00a0family and entertainment.\u00a0I think people probably are going to be surprised. I think it’s just a fresh outlook for us\u00a0and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0really going to resonate with people.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dorothy Feng also worked on widgets \u2013 as a user experience (UX) designer\u00a0who\u00a0incorporated<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>her background in psychology\u00a0in\u00a0improving the experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dorothy
Dorothy Feng (Photo by Ulysses Curry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a student at Duke University,\u00a0she originally thought she would end up in\u00a0clinical psychology or research.\u00a0But she had always been interested in design,\u00a0teaching herself\u00a0Photoshop\u00a0and\u00a0creating freelance illustrations\u00a0in her free time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then,\u00a0in her sophomore year, she joined a tech group at the school called Hack Duke, which focused on organizing hackathons.\u00a0She became the group\u2019s\u00a0director of design, which entailed marketing assets\u00a0such as\u00a0branding\u00a0and website design.\u00a0That led to more exposure to people in the tech space\u00a0and\u00a0consulting\u00a0for tech incubation start-ups, which is how she began to do UX design.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Feng also took\u00a0a computer science class. She did well and thought she was going to be a software engineer. But she met someone who interned as a product designer,\u00a0who\u00a0introduced Feng to the intersection of design and tech\u00a0\u2013 a combination that\u00a0appealed immensely to her. It would change the course of her life, as she had\u00a0never thought that there was a way to combine art\/design with technology.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge shift in my career path,\u201d says Feng, who interned for Microsoft before\u00a0starting\u00a0a full-time position in 2018. \u201cI majored in psychology and computer science\u00a0and at that time, I did not see\u00a0an intersection. Someone told me those are two completely opposite things;\u00a0how\u00a0would\u00a0I make that work?\u00a0But,\u00a0I’m interested in both.\u00a0When I studied\u00a0psychology,\u00a0I was very deeply rooted in writing and focused on research, but on a higher level that has helped me approach design in a very methodical way.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the artsy\u00a0side of Feng\u00a0draws inspiration from\u00a0nature, its simplicity and complexities, as well as\u00a0daily life, appreciating what she sees around her\u00a0when she\u2019s walking in her neighborhood. She\u00a0even gets ideas from the grocery store, through\u00a0how aisles are laid out and\u00a0the checkout experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span> I think people probably are going to be surprised.<\/p>\n

Working at Microsoft, she\u00a0used that knowledge of knowing how things are built to create rapport with developers, but she also had a solid understanding of design.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my journey as a designer, I leaned quite heavily on my background in psychology. I’ve written a lot of psychological research papers and I’m really familiar with synthesizing different areas of research,\u201d she says. \u201cThat gave me a really deep understanding of the need to incorporate user feedback and research into my work. I couldn’t design anything without consulting research.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Feng says user feedback shaped the experience and validated the need for the space widgets occupy, \u201cwhere people can see everything that they care about, that\u2019s easy to access and can fully customize.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Find out more about Windows 11<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and stay tuned for more stories about the people bringing Windows 11 to you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Top photo: Dorothy Feng (Photo by Ulysses Curry)<\/em>
\nSource: The people behind Windows 11: Using psychology, familiarity and inspiration to create widgets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The people behind Windows 11: Using psychology, familiarity and inspiration to create widgets Before moving to Seattle with her husband seven years ago, Priya Chauhan had never worked in digital design. She came from the print publishing world, where she worked on children’s books, coffee table books, travel guides, catalogs, window display posters, chocolate and biscuit tins and all kinds of seasonal marketing.\u00a0\u00a0 If you lived in London at that time, you probably\u00a0saw her\u00a0designs\u00a0throughout the city and in magazines.\u00a0 But once she started working for Microsoft five years ago, she\u00a0entered a\u00a0fast-moving\u00a0space\u00a0where she could make global impact.\u00a0(The first time\u00a0she\u00a0used a PC or\u00a0Windows was\u00a0her\u00a0first day\u00a0at\u00a0the company. Now\u00a0she\u00a0only uses PCs\u00a0and\u00a0Windows.)\u00a0Chauhan\u00a0started on services and store fronts, then Microsoft Rewards. Then\u00a0she moved to the Windows team.\u00a0As a designer\u00a0working on\u00a0a new, signature feature for Windows 11 \u2013\u00a0widgets\u00a0\u2013\u00a0she measured success by one thing: how it could make [ more… ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[201],"class_list":["post-42907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-windows"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42909,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42907\/revisions\/42909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jirak.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}