Ms. Dewey Search Engine and World Usability Day 2006
As I type this in Firefox, my MSIE browser is also open and the sound is turned on. The new Microsoft search engine, MsDewey, is talking to me from that other browser. Every once in awhile, a female voice shouts “Hello! Type something here!” and I hear her impatiently sigh in frustration.
A minute ago, she knocked on my laptop monitor.
Though in Firefox, opened up to WordPress, Ms. Dewey is growing increasingly impatient with me over at IE. She’s just told me that I need to type in something, so she can “Rule the world.” I know if I don’t feed her some keywords, she’s going to rap, rap, rap on my laptop “window” again. (Get it? She taps a Window), and she asks, “Anyone there?”
She also sings.
I could take her annoyed, “Anyone there?”, to mean just about anything, including a possible snipe at the fact that so many of us abandoned Microsoft search engines and became Googlers. Ms Dewey is determined to change that, trust me.
In honor of today, World Usability Day, I thought I’d do the unthinkable and update yet another FLASH plug-in so that I could meet Ms Dewey. I had heard she’s far more fun than “Clippyâ€.
I’m not sure why Microsoft makes it just about impossible to read the landing page. Squinting and hunting for what a link is and what are practically invisible text instructions, I prep my computer for her grand entrance, by first upgrading FLASH.
As I wait for the FLASH to load, I meet MsDewey for the first time. She’s pretty. Playful. An arched eyebrow and pursed lips signal me she’s in control of my experience. She begins by pausing FLASH from loading the website, flashing a sly “Gotcha!†look, and then permits the thing to continue.
I know my women’s equality bells are already going off, because for starters, she’s sexy, gorgeous and when I first meet her, she’s flirting with an astronaut.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where to enter keywords. You do, however, need to do it quickly, or else she’ll make a face or three that makes you feel stupid.
If you take too long to search, she makes more faces, taps her fingers, shows cleavage and otherwise makes it deadly obvious that you’re so totally wasting her time.
I know *I* look just like this when I’m thinking.
Oh my gawd. I hit refresh to reload the search engine, and now Ms. Dewey has a wrench, and is “working” on a shiny red motorcycle, in her slinky black dress, and talking about being “passionate”. Is it any wonder men want to use this search engine?
Hitting refresh again, she’s got her whip out again (did I mention she has a whip?) and is pushing around army men and tanks on a play battlefield. She asks me to “pay no attention” to what I just saw. As if women don’t normally play with army men…
Hit refresh again, because now I’m insanely curious to know what she does next. This time she’s sharpening a cutting knife and then casually throws it off-screen (at Google, I’m sure), all the time still wearing her slinky low cut black dress and making goo-goo eyes at me. Trust me honey, I’m not your target market.
She shows her feistiness when she yells at Ricardo (some guy you never get to see, btw). By the time she resorts to reading a magazine, furiously flipping pages, I know she’s fed up with me. She reaches for a cell phone, just to give herself something to do. She’s still asking me to “Keep asking questions. The more you ask, the more I know, and soon, I will rule the world!†(Which is necessary if you’re trying to compete with Google.)
It’s become my mission today to totally piss off Ms. Dewey.
I catch her taking notes, “for dinnerâ€. She’s still banging on my window and as time goes on, her sighs get louder (or is it my imagination?) She pouts in that, “Please honey, just a little longerâ€, kind of way. She wiggles and stretches and bends in many ways that suggest she’s hoping a breast doesn’t fall out of her dress.
Finally, after at least 30 minutes of watching MsDewey and not giving her anything productive to do, I get an error message (an add-on is not working?) from MSIE and the browser shuts down.
Essentially, Ms Dewey has just stalked off my laptop in a big huff.
World Usability Day is a day where we consider how things work and how to make them work better. It’s a day for considering everybody and “creating an experience where users can alter their experience as they choose so they can best experience the site” (Source: Joe Dolson)
As much as I get a kick out of this gloriously expressive woman chatting with me as I search, I can’t help but think how much I’d unabashedly enjoy a male hottie up there. And, keep the whip. That was a nice touch.
The Other MS Search Engine
What would World Usability Day without a word from Google Ads? Or, even better, the lack of them?
Live.com is the old MSN Search, all re-launched with a new name. It’s got a lovely shade of white nothingness on each page, in the places where Yahoo! and Google cram their text ads. Sure, Microsoft can’t get away with this blank space for very long, but just seeing it is a welcome reminder of the good old days when search engines weren’t biased with paid spots.
Now, they’re just sexist.
Happy World Usability Day!
Stumble it!
Comments (12) to “Ms. Dewey Search Engine and World Usability Day 2006”
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Joe Dolson wrote:
“It’s become my mission today to totally piss off Ms. Dewey.”
Brilliant. You’re absolutely right: why didn’t they create multiple avatars? Would’ve greatly increased the chance of this interface appealing to a wider audience - although I’m still of the opinion that it’s sole appeal is of the “fleeting fancy” sort…
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 12:23 pm | Permalink
cre8pc wrote:
I’m sure it was easier to call it “Ms Dewey” because of the “MS” for Microsoft.
That said, the actress is sultry, expressive, seductive and flirty. Just the sort that would appeal to men and perhaps certain women.
Sex is a gigantic traffic draw. I’m no sex goddess, but the fact that I use the word “sex” freely has consistently brought traffic to my blog. It’s a common search word and it amazes me how much traffic I get from a Google search on “Sex”. (Untargeted, but traffic all the same.)
For that reason, I think we equate sensuality and sex with the female gender more than the male and hence, they chose a woman to debut that engine.
From a technical perspective, I like it. It’s a view of the future, where there is likely going to be more visually appealing interaction between us and software. Eventually I would think there will many “msdewey’s” that will look like the countries the engine is serving.
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 1:20 pm | Permalink
Joe Dolson wrote:
“Eventually I would think there will many “msdewey’s†that will look like the countries the engine is serving.”
I immediately visualize animated countries pointing out search results.
Didn’t even notice the “MS” relationship…noticed the “Dewey”, (as in librarian/research) helper connection but not the obvious Microsoft hook!
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 1:45 pm | Permalink
cre8pc wrote:
The story continues, because I’m married to a software performance tester. Therefore, he’s now flirting with MsDewey. I keep hearing her say, “Whoa, down boy.”
She’s gotten out riding crop. He typed in “kitten with a whip”, to which she got something used by, well, I can’t tell you here. Programmers have so many private jokes. There’s likely hundreds of them programmed into this SE.
Type in “painting”, “President Bush”, “Gmail”, “Congress”, and see what she does. For painting, she got out a paint gun. She’s very naughty sometimes, such as when you get her talking about what she did with 3 friends once. I just heard her say, to my husband, “There are farm animals that don’t even do that sort of thing.”
What is Eric asking her, anyway?
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 9:49 pm | Permalink
Search Marketing Gurus | Search Marketing Tips, Advice, Strategies wrote:
World Usability Day…
Did you know that today is World Usability Day? Until this morning I didn’t! That’s why I love RSS and the ability to read a lot of different types of blogs and find out things I have never had a clue about before. I’m still a newbie in the usabilit…
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 10:54 pm | Permalink
Mike Cherim wrote:
Ms. Dewey is neat. For about five minutes — tops. As a search tool, though, my goodness. Talk about unfriendly, hard to read results.
Back to Google for me. Google isn’t nearly as sexy, but I don’t use search for thrills
Posted on 14-Nov-06 at 11:03 pm | Permalink
cre8pc wrote:
\”For about five minutes\”…No!
I thought the same thing, LOL
But, this is not a search engine (Google and Yahoo!, those are search engines for the working people.)
But this one is a free video game with a flirty female who will entertain you for free! I know this because she and my husband had a grand old time last night for a serious two hours. He\’d be reading forums and emails, hitting F5 at Msdewey and I\’d be listening to \”their\” conversion, while working on my laptop nearby.
Closest thing to seeing him with another woman I may get. Knock on wood. Heh.
No kidding. He ran some search on \”dancing\” and she started to dance and take off her shirt!
Posted on 15-Nov-06 at 11:22 am | Permalink
Darren wrote:
At first I thought it was a gimmick but its entertained me.
I had to admit my experiment degenerated into how many offensive swear words I could enter to see her reaction - some great retorts that I found highly amusing.
The best I got was “Any one know the emoticon for anyone clearly sad and lonely?”.
After the question I gave her (which is just too rude to mention here) it was a wonderful retort….
Off to try the “dancing” keyword just to check! Us men…. !
Daz
Posted on 15-Nov-06 at 12:47 pm | Permalink
Mike Cherim wrote:
Hmm. I guess I’ll have to give her more than five minutes
Posted on 15-Nov-06 at 2:52 pm | Permalink
SiteLogic - Marketing Logic » Microsoft unleashes Ms.Dewey by Matt Bailey wrote:
[...] Via Kim Kraus’ increasingly unhealthy obsession with MS Dewey. (really Kim, I am starting to become concerned) Kim blogged yesterday about Microsoft’s new search engine MsDewey. My first thought was “interesting.â€Â Ask finally dropped the butler, Jeeves, in order to change their image, and Microsoft has unveiled a sort of Jeeves 2.0. [...]
Posted on 15-Nov-06 at 3:15 pm | Permalink
kid disco wrote:
I’ve seen Ricardo… Don’t remember the search, though…
Posted on 16-Nov-06 at 4:13 pm | Permalink
Ren wrote:
Entertaining yes, but a search engine? No way. Type in something like apple or steve jobs, or even ipod and you get a bit fat nothing. I guess that tells me that all this information is censored through some big MS factory?
Not to mention the fact that it is way too slow for any intelligent browser.
Posted on 13-Dec-06 at 6:12 pm | Permalink