The people behind Windows 11: Listening, solving problems and designing with purpose

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As a kid, Charles Taylor was always interested in tech – though he didn’t know exactly what that meant, beyond translating to a job related to computer science. Growing up in Littleton, North Carolina – an actual little town with less than 700 people – he went to school with the same group of about 60 kids through high school graduation. He would be one of the first in his family to attend college. Taylor went to Duke University. He took classes in computer science, visual and media studies and information science, trying to get a feel for a future career. He questioned whether it was the right fit. Then a work-study program at a Duke University medical center connected him with a mentor, an IT chief who took him under his wing and opened him up to new possibilities, in product management. He introduced Taylor to new design prototyping tools and encouraged him to talk to people and come up with solutions to their problems using those tools – a mindset he’s adopted into his daily workflow. “As all the pieces started to come together, I realized he was starting to show me what it could look like to be in the tech industry through a different lens, exposing me to other paths,” Taylor says. “He was the first one to put it in my head that I didn’t need to be a software developer or a technical expert to be successful in the industry.” It would take a few more years exploring strategy, design and engineering in corporate settings, before he found his way to Microsoft, where he’s now a taskbar product manager working on Windows 11. “I wanted to pursue product management at a company that had a really great connection with customers; a great mission, in terms of impact; and I wanted to work on experiences that were bigger than just internal facing,” Taylor says. “It’s important for me to work on something I’m passionate about, something I can be a great advocate for the people who actually use the product. As a product manager, it’s really important you can empathize with your customers and design for a broader, wider and more diverse group, folks you don’t usually get to hear from. Windows just seemed like a really great place for me to work on something that I use, both in my personal and professional life.” Taylor has become a steward for customers through his work on Windows 11, driven by the realization that the PC plays such an important role for people in so many ways, whether it’s empowering other businesses to deliver their products to their own customers, inspiring creativity, keeping families connected, or even bringing people together for entertainment purposes. “The PC is such a central aspect across so many lenses of lives,” he says. In improving upon a much-used part of the desktop, he put a big emphasis in taking the best of Windows and making it accessible to everyone. “My goal, with Windows 11 and all the releases thereafter, is to get at the root of what the problems are and determine how we can elegantly solve those problems in a way that’s not only meeting their needs, but also delightful.” The biggest change in Windows 11 for the taskbar is where it lives: still at the bottom of the screen, but now in the center. “As devices continue to evolve, wider screens have become the norm for TV, monitors and other screens. So we’ve put the taskbar at the forefront of device.” The taskbar represents the hub from which people switch and launch apps, he says, so it has to work harmoniously. Here, the intersection with Start makes it of upmost importance and daily use for most people. Christian Valencia, whose team helped reimagine the Start experience for Windows 11, also places a premium on listening to feedback. Research showed people wanted a cleaner and simpler Start, and that since so many people have smartphones, design paradigms from those devices could successfully carry over into a new Start – being able to pan different pages with touch, for instance. As shown in the video above, Valencia’s team saw how people arranged what they envisioned for Start in modular pieces, and they found that Search, Apps and Files came up most often as what people used at Start. Valencia, who has been at Microsoft for nearly eight years, says that it seems like he was meant to work on Windows. [caption id=attachment_176088" align="alignright" width="768]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/08/Christina-1-627x1024.jpg Christina Koehn (Photo by Ulysses Curry)[/caption] After that, she landed a contract role at Microsoft that turned into a full-time position. This fall, she will celebrate her 12th anniversary with the company. She’s worked on Bing, Bing apps for Windows 8 (her introduction to the Windows ecosystem), Windows 10, MSN, the Edge browser and the Microsoft Store. And over the years, she saw how the company’s growth mindset propelled teams to work together, culminating in Windows 11. “We are all working for our customers, trying to solve problems, to do what’s right for people using our products,” Koehn says. “Marketing, developers, PMs – all these different disciplines came together to make this product. We took advantage of the brain trust in the diversity of people throughout the company and focused on the needs of customers. As designers, we have empathy for the people we’re designing for. Not that we haven’t done it in the past, but we really pointed the focus on human needs first.” Koehn built upon the Fluent design style Windows 10 introduced (after the Metro design style of Windows 8), signatures of which include added depth, light and color in icons, rounded corners, fewer pixels – overall a softer, more simplified feeling. At the same time, she considers it a visual rejuvenation. Her team focused on fonts, typography and iconography. “We want people to feel more comfortable,” Koehn says. “What people need is their computing to adapt to them. An operating system like Windows, it’s got over a billion people using it. Computing really can empower people and must adapt to scale for all different needs.” Find out more about Windows 11 and stay tuned for more stories about the people bringing Windows 11 to you. Top Photo: Charles Taylor (Photo by Ulysses Curry)

 

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