Video and slides synchronized, mp3 and slide download available at URL http://bit.ly/1P227JQ. Bill Buxton argues that the market is about to become overwhelmed by the cumulative complexity of an ever expanding wave of individually delightful, simple, useful, affordable, desirable technologies. If we fail to rethink how we design software and how we think about applications, he suggests, our entire industry will stall. Filmed at qconsf.com. Bill Buxton is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. He has had a 35 year involvement in research, practice and commentary around design, innovation and human aspects of technology. Bill has been awarded four honorary doctorates, is co-recipient of an Academy Award for Scientific and Technical Achievement, received an ACM/SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award, and is a Fellow of the ACM.

1. Bill Buxton
Principal Researcher, MSR
wasbuxton
bill.buxton@Microsoft.com
www.billbuxton.com
Wile E. Coyote: Looney Tunes (Chuck Close)

2. InfoQ.com: News & Community Site
• 750,000 unique visitors/month
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Portuguese)
• Post content from our QCon conferences
• News 15-20 / week
• Articles 3-4 / week
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• Interviews 2-3 / week
• Books 1 / month
Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations
/cumulative-software-design

3. Purpose of QCon
- to empower software development by facilitating the spread of
knowledge and innovation
Strategy
- practitioner-driven conference designed for YOU: influencers of
change and innovation in your teams
- speakers and topics driving the evolution and innovation
- connecting and catalyzing the influencers and innovators
Highlights
- attended by more than 12,000 delegates since 2007
- held in 9 cities worldwide
Presented at QCon San Francisco
www.qconsf.com

4. The Long Nose
$1B
Radar
1984
Early Multi-Touch
2007
iPhone
~

7. Weiser, M. (1991). The computer for the
21st century. Scientific American, 265(3),
94-104.
• everywhere
• transparent
Ubiquitous Computing

8. Boards, Pads & Tabs

12. 55” Surface Hub84” Surface Hub

13. Range of reach
Screen Width

16. Ribbon as Palette?
Compare
to PPT
Draw tool
Ribbon
Example of In-
Place Commands

17. Ribbon as Palette? 9

19. The RoT

20. The more you eat,
the more you want.

21. Of the collection of
devices
Of the individual device
Threshold of frustration
Complexity

22. 2Rules
1 Every new product and service must provide
great experience and excellent value—it
works, flows & has demand.
2 But each must also reduce the complexity
and increase the value of all of the others.
Things work together.

24. Seamless
Graceful
Aggregation & Disaggregation
Augmentation & Degradation
TechFn

25. Seamless
Graceful
Aggregation & Disaggregation
Augmentation & Degradation
TechFn
TransitionsQualities

28. Current Slide Slide
List
Speaker Notes

30. Slide List
Speaker
Notes

34. Do you know this guy?
Are you this guy?
Natural?
Fix on device?
Do you like this guy?
Do you like who makes you this guy?

36. What if things just worked?
What if things just worked together?
What if things just worked together seamlessly?
What if in so doing, complexity went down, and value up,
for everything?
Questions of Aspiration

37. What if we created developer’s tools to
facilitate making this happen?

38. Now that we could do anything
What should we do? Photo: Marko Prezelj

39. wasbuxton
billbuxton.com

40. Watch the video with slide
synchronization on InfoQ.com!
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/
cumulative-software-design