14 DAY TRIAL // Vista Product Manager Nick White has revealed on Windows Vista Team Blog an initiative aiming to better integrate and incorporate customer feedback into the Redmond Company's latest operating system. Scenario Voting will bridge a more intimate relationship between Microsoft's customers and its Windows Client, under the motto: "leveraging the wisdom of crowds via customer feedback."
"Scenario Voting is a new way for Microsoft to listen to its customers. It leverages James Surowiecki's theory of The Wisdom of Crowds by enabling customers to try different user-related scenarios within Windows Vista and then vote on their experience. Each vote represents a customer's satisfaction score for a certain scenario. This information lets product teams throughout Microsoft know what they need to change, but keeps the voter anonymous," wrote Aseem Badshah, an Intern with Windows Client.
Scenario Voting will deliver feedback opportunities for people from all walks of life, enhancing its capabilities that have so far been limited to reports from tech beta users. The increased usability is in actuality an open invitation to scenario voting addressing the general public.
"A scenario is a user activity, and the scenario voting site presents a list and description of these activities and asks for your opinion and comments. Scenario voting enables us to get your perception of various Windows features and activities. We are a part of the core development team, and review these results daily, and share specifics with individual feature owners across the product teams," reads a message posted by Microsoft.