122480 Windows Insider Podcast EP42 Briana Roberts Nathalia

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

Windows Insider podcast – EPISODE 42 – THE ICE CUBE TRAY EFFECT Talent: Jason Howard (host), Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

[MUSIC]

JASON HOWARD: Welcome to the Windows Insider Podcast, where leaders from Microsoft and Windows Insiders discuss tech trends, careers, and innovation. I'm your host, Jason Howard.

This is Episode 42, "The Ice Cube Tray Effect”

But first, if you're not yet a Windows Insider, head over to our website, insider.windows.com and register for free. Insiders get access to upcoming Windows features before they're released to the public, plus exclusive opportunities to experience all Microsoft has to offer. Without further ado, let’s get on to the show!

The journey of customer-obsession has many different paths that can be taken. In the modern age of freely- flowing data, providing the right information in the right way is paramount to providing a great experience. While learning lessons on which path to take can be difficult to navigate at times, there’s no better outcome than providing the right solutions. Educating and enabling customers is the goal and it’s a focus of each effort we put forth.

Joining us this month to discuss one such effort are Briana Roberts and Nathalia Scrimshaw, a dynamic duo of Program Managers who drive exciting work that directly benefits customers in the gaming realm. And if your mind jumps to Xbox when you think about Microsoft and gaming, you’d be right! But while that’s where this particular adventure begins, it's definitely not where it ends! How does this relate to an ice cube tray? Let’s jump right in and find out!

[MUSIC]

JASON HOWARD: Briana and Nathalia. Welcome to the show. Can you introduce yourselves for the listeners and tell them a bit about what you do here at Microsoft?

BRIANA ROBERTS: Hi, I’m Briana. We are in Xbox. We are responsible for all the awesome things that customers see in their store experiences.

JASON HOWARD: And how about you, Nathalia?

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: I’m Nathalia. I’m a PM, also working on our gaming store experiences. And been at Microsoft for about three and a half years, most of that time in Xbox. Spent the last year and a half on the Xbox app on PC. So, working on our PC stores.

JASON HOWARD: Well, it’s great to have both of you here. I appreciate you making the time. We’ve got some interesting things to discuss today. As we hop in, I do want to say one really funny thing, Briana. I’ve known you for a while, back from when you were over in the engineering systems org in Windows. Can you tell listeners a little bit about what you did back in the day?

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah. I had a three-year stint in the engineering system. I ran a small team that was responsible for all of our developer documentation and training. So, we worked on the move to Git, and that was a pretty significant effort.

Before Xbox, that was actually probably the most technical PM role I had, learning about Git. So, Nathalia and I are kind of two halves of the same coin, where she has more focus on truly the front-end user experience of our storefronts and the experiences that we build for our customers. And as my PM role is more focused on the back- end side of the house. So, Windows was my previous most technical role, and now this is my most technical role as PM.

JASON HOWARD: It’s always good to keep growing and challenging yourself along the way. There’s actually a very funny story about how Briana and I met virtually at work. It’s a bit like a Star Wars moment, for those of you who are fans of that series. It was pretty much a “this is not the Jason you’re looking for” moment. You have to tell them the story.

BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, so, funny story. Because I was new to the ES and I had met a couple of Jasons and I was positive that this Jason was the Jason that I was following up about something that was funny and obviously an inside joke that he would not have understood if he wasn’t the right Jason.

So, I IM’d him and I’m messaging him and whatever the context was. And he just went along with it and didn’t even tell me that he was not the Jason that I thought I was talking go.

So, the next time I see this Jason in person, it was just – it was just awful. But it was, like, oh, we’re going to get along just fine. It was pretty funny. I was so confused as to why the IM conversation was not as responsive as I was expecting it to be when he had no clue, no clue about what we were actually talking about – because it wasn’t you. Wrong Jason.

JASON HOWARD: That’s the funny part is, you know, getting random messages from people at Microsoft, it happens quite frequently because there’s somebody you need to work with or somebody gave somebody else your name so you can connect the dots and keep business efforts moving forward. So, I get a message from Briana, who I didn’t know at the time of course.

BRIANA ROBERTS: No, never met.

JASON HOWARD: I was, like, oh, hey, this is Engineering Systems, our team in Fundamentals at the time, you know, hey, we work with them closely. This is probably something I need to pay attention to. And it’s completely out of left field and I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m just, like –

BRIANA ROBERTS: It wasn’t even work related.

JASON HOWARD: Sure. I’m happy to whatever, like, wait, who is this? (Laughter.)

BRIANA ROBERTS: I was so sure of myself. I found Jason all by my – I was, like, oh, I didn’t even know his last name before. I’m sure this must be it.

JASON HOWARD: So, about thought. (Laughter.) Oh, my goodness, hey, everybody has a fun story that starts somewhere.

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

BRIANA ROBERTS: Still friends five years later.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah. So, couldn’t have been all too bad.

BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, exactly.

JASON HOWARD: Well, now that we’ve covered those bases, I guess we should probably jump in on today’s topic. So, I originally spent some time trying to catch up and see how things were going, you know, you know, being work friends after five years, right? It’s always good to stay in touch.

And, we got to chatting about some of your current work efforts and a lot of your current work relies heavily on connecting with customers – something that we pay a whole lot of attention to here on the Insider Program. And especially, I mean, just look at our episode last month where we talked about listening to customers and actually valuing their feedback and kind of keeping that continuity cycle going.

So, in the space that the two of you work in, your team just released some very important work that was based directly on user feedback. Briana, can you share some of those details about what it was you released?

BRIANA ROBERTS: Yes. For those that – who might not have seen it, there was a recent Xbox Wire post talking about the supported languages effort. And what this means for a gamer is that they are now capable of seeing whether or not their game supports any in-game localization – which is huge, we didn’t have this before.

So, as a gamer, I speak French. Let’s say I’m strolling through the catalog and I’m looking for my favorite game and I want to know if I can play it in French. Now, I can. And there are three capabilities that you are able to see. You’re able to see if the menu, call it input, the menu, whether or not all the controls are localized in that language, the audio – so, the spoken audio that one would hear while playing the game, and then the third component is the subtitles against that spoken audio. So, this was a huge effort, and it was directly tied to customer feedback – pretty specific customer feedback that we had received over the fall.

JASON HOWARD: Wow. That is a significant change. So, how long ago did this feedback come in? Was this something you’d heard for a while? Can you provide a little bit of the context on where this originated?

BRIANA ROBERTS: Yeah, definitely. We had heard some grumblings about a year ago this time, maybe a little less than that. And we were looking at the industry and what other platforms do, what other ecosystems do. And hearing some feedback from customers. And then really it amped up in October – in the October time frame. There was a Windows Central article that was pretty specific – rightly so – about our lack of in-game localization support.

And, really, the angle here is that there was not a way to know prior to making a purchase. Then, folks would make this purchase, they’d hope that they could play this game, they’d make this purchase and they’d be sorely disappointed, which that’s a really negative cycle. I don’t even know, so I’m playing a guessing game. I buy this game, I spent my money, and then I’m actually not able to play it. And then I go through a refund process.

So, that’s not fun, that’s definitely not a good experience. And so, we released this just last month and you’re talking October to February time frame of going from customer feedback input heard, pivoting from an engineering standpoint, and immediately making a change. And that includes all of our console-supported

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw languages. So, there are 27 console-supported languages, and this localization information is against each one of those languages.

And it’s a really big effort with our publishers as well, right? They own the content. It’s on our platform. We’re privileged to have it on our platform, but they own the content. So, we had to work really closely with the publishers to make sure that their game content was updated.

JASON HOWARD: That actually connect a dot in my head to actually a previous podcast episode that we had done related to accessibility. And folks who have accessibility needs have been historically somewhat in the same boat. Now, granted, I feel like I’m comparing apples to oranges here a little bit, but the premise is a bit the same, where folks would go and purchase a game and not necessarily know if the content that would be available in- game was actually accessible in the way that they needed it to be.

So, they would go spend $30, $40, $50, $60 – whatever it was – to purchase a game, only to hope that with whatever particular needs they may have, that they could actually play the game. Otherwise, the potential of having to work through the refund process and things like that, it just becomes a barrier to entry. And, you know, how many times do you – I don’t know, it seems like a bit of a crap shoot. Like, how many times do you go through this process hoping that you’re going to be able to actually play a game only to be disappointed when there was nothing indicating ahead of time what type of support was actually available.

So, it seems like this same scenario plays out with the language aspect, because there are tons of international game publishers and now this seems to enable and bypass some of those potential hurdles, where it enables users to make a more conscientious and educated decision before spending their money.

BRIANA ROBERTS: Absolutely. And I love that analogy. I was going to say, when you think about accessibility, most folks immediately go to, well, I have a disability, and therefore, I need this feature. Well, you can think about any number of scenarios where maybe I am now in a cast because I’ve broken my wrist. Like, you know, there are lots of scenarios. So, with the languages one, what if I want subtitles on so that my kid can – as he’s learning to read, can experience the game, right? Like, these are not just scenarios that impact the individuals that we tend to, you know, “bucketize” into these categories of, like, oh, someone who doesn’t speak English as their first language or, oh, someone who has a disability. No, they’re applicable for everyone. And so, yes, absolutely, we see this benefiting, you know, all of our players.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah, and anytime we get into this space, my mind always jumps to an example that somebody gave me a long time ago. And I’ve actually said this on a webcast back in the day as well was you look at sidewalks and it has the little dip where folks who are – who have mobility impairment, whether they’re in a wheelchair, on crutches, or whatever, it helps them either roll up or gives them an easier step up to get on the sidewalk.

But then you look at folks who are just going about their everyday business, say they’re trying to catch a cab to go to the airport and they’re pulling luggage behind them. It makes it a lot easier than trying to jump it and bang it against the curb and all that kind of stuff. It allows them to pull it straight up on the sidewalk.

JASON HOWARD: And so, when you make these small little changes, and while it may have originally been intended to help support one particular group or audience, it ends up benefiting a whole lot of people along the way in ways that weren’t necessarily thought of originally.

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

BRIANA ROBERTS: Absolutely.

JASON HOWARD: So, expanding on the things that you’ve said so far, there’s a couple – couple, like, detailed questions I want to ask was, number one, really, how did you prioritize this? Because knowing the scope of what teams are working on at any given moment in time, there’s a ton of stuff. And this is one of the things we work through when it comes to bugs in the Insider program. We know there’s feedback, we know there’s bugs, there’s suggestions that have been outstanding for a while. But in the grand scheme of things, there’s a direction we’re taking the product, there are certain bugs we have to fix depending on priority and all this kind of stuff, the listeners out there have heard this song more times than I care to have sung it in the past. But, you know, it remains true.

So, in the scope of where you’re focused on, obviously this has come to pass now. What was it, I guess, aside from maybe like the article you mentioned that happened on Windows Central, was it just you knew this was the right thing to do? Did the opportunity open up on your calendar to make this a priority? Like, how did that – how did those pieces come together?

BRIANA ROBERTS: There are two factors that are at play here. We learned what customers were doing to get this information and they were going through – they were tracking this information in spreadsheets; they were sharing it with other players. Like, we learned – we basically sat with the community to understand what they were doing to try to tack this information.

And so, from a store standpoint, this is discoverable and easy to find, which is part of the reason there are the tags that you can easily see that a game has this language capability before you even click into the details section.

And so, we’re weighing – that we just launched this, you know, new console store recently. And we’re trying to get people to get the right content as fast as possible, and they are literally tracking spreadsheets elsewhere, outside. Like, we’re making more work for them. So, yes, it’s the right thing to do. But I think it’s the combo of we went through a lot of effort to build a brand-new store on our console to get users to find the right stuff as fast as possible. Then, we’re saying, but that language piece, we’re not going to help you there. Like, that just does not feel right.

And so, really, sitting with the customer experience – the community of this is what they’re doing and they’re sharing it, right? Because as soon as you alluded to the how many hurdles are we going to put them through? Well, as soon as I get the game that I know can play in Japanese or Korean or French or what have you, I’m going to share it with my other – with my players, right? Like, the Xbox community is so strong.

And so, I’d better bet that if I’m playing it, I’m going to tell Nathalia to make sure she doesn’t have to go through those same hurdles. So, as soon as we learned that this is what folks were doing, it really did become higher up on our priority list and we had the opportunity to take it on.

JASON HOWARD: I mean, it’s awesome to hear how much the community supports itself to help enable others to kind of not have to go through these same hoops. But it, of course, doesn’t sound like – at least beforehand, there was nothing specific that eliminated the hurdles that people were jumping through. Somebody had to go and do the hard work up front and then go and share the good word.

And then, of course, there are always folks who weren’t necessarily in the know so, you know, trying to reach 100% audience wasn’t necessarily possible.

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

So I’m curious, what is the scope office you want for the languages that are in place? Like, how many different languages are supported and kind of acknowledged in this particular space?

BRIANA ROBERTS: So, right now, and actually, I’m going to transition to Nathalia here. But with respect to, you know, how – is this capability available to any – any game in the store? Yes, it’s available to any game in our store. There is a continued relationship that we want to have with the publishers to encourage them to add this information, right? And it’s currently available on the console and also within the Game Pass app on mobile. So, they have two mediums right now that folks can see this language information. Right now and, Nathalia –

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: And soon to be available on the Xbox app on PC. So, that is the central place where you go to redeem your Game Pass games, manage your Game Pass membership, browse the store on PC, connect to your social experiences, and within those game details pages, we’re going to have support for supported languages as well. This is benefiting our PC gamers, really expanding the support throughout the Xbox ecosystem, which is super exciting.

JASON HOWARD: That is awesome.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah!

BRIANA ROBERTS: You heard it here first!

JASON HOWARD: (Laughter.) This is the kind of, cross-platform narrative that you’ve heard mentioned before. And I know, like, you know, you hear some of the stuff like when Phil Spencer gets out in the public, when he starts talking, everybody listens because he’s always got something cool or exciting to say.

But these are the types of things that he’s alluded to in the past. And I know that in the Windows space, right, PC gaming has a very long and rich historical legacy. Console gaming, for a long time, you know, wasn’t necessarily connected in the same way. But as we continue moving forward, you know, to use some of Satya’s old words, the whole cloud-first, mobile-first type life changes that are happening with the way technology continues to evolve, this – this overlap between, you know, the multiple platforms, it was destined to happen. I don’t think that people necessarily want to continue engaging in their hobbies or life activities kind of like in isolation, where it’s like, oh, I’m doing this one thing. Okay, let me shift over to a completely separate medium and interact and do something similar, but in a very completely separate way and bringing these two things together, like, this feels like it’s an important piece of, in essence, your worlds kind of colliding together, right, driving this cohesive experience across both of these platforms, and then who knows what the future holds beyond that?

BRIANA ROBERTS: When we think of adding a capability like metadata, which is the supported languages is a metadata capability, just information – more information about that game. We have to think about it holistically. And PC is a huge piece of our ecosystem. So, that barrier of, like, well, it’s on console, but it’s not necessarily on – like, no, it’s in gaming. Like we are supporting it for our ecosystem, and we have to think about it that way.

And that’s where Nathalia and I – definitely, our worlds collide and we get to work closely together, as we should, right? And it shouldn’t be, you know, oh, this is my space, and this is your space and I get to put blinders on. Like, quite the opposite. We have to say, “How does this look? We want to get this capability. How does this look here? How does this look on PC? How does this look here?”

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah, and it’s really a testament to the Xbox ecosystem continuing to grow and meet gamers wherever they are, right? Console is usually what people think of when they hear the word “Xbox,” but it’s really on PC now, it’s on mobile. We have so many more avenues where players are engaging with the Xbox ecosystem and it’s important that we meet them on all of those services.

So, as Briana mentioned, you know, we’re on the Game Pass app on mobile with this information and it’s another touchpoint that we’re really excited to see grow. And PC gamers are going to get a huge benefit from this. So, it’s just great to see that the Xbox ecosystem continues to grow on all these different platforms, and we’re building everything with the intention in our stores to make sure we serve all of those gamers equally.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah, and I think this alludes back to a point that Briana made a moment ago about having the information and it makes me think back to her comment about, the Excel spreadsheets that people were putting together and whatnot. Like, the information is there, but it doesn’t do folks any good if they don’t have access to it. If you don’t know where to find it or you don’t see it where you happen to be looking for it, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to know to go look for it somewhere else.

And so, kind of creating a world where this information exists, but it’s visible on all these different touchpoints, it reduces the customer burden for them trying to go and better understand this piece of the ecosystem or, you know, I’m trying to get this game, what is the support that’s available for it? Is it available on one platform or both? You know, like, how am I going to able to interact with this? Am I not going to be able to? Is this a game that I potentially shouldn’t buy because it doesn’t have the right level of support? Things like that. It just kind of keeps this whole narrative going of, you know, what should we be looking for? Where am I going to find that information?

BRIANA ROBERTS: And you’re going to see a consistent experience for the language information no matter where you see it. So, you’re going to see it on console, you’re going to see it on the Xbox apps, Game Pass app, you’re going to see it on PC, and it’s going to feel and look the same and that’s a huge piece of it.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah, especially having it presented the same way, that same – or at least a similar look and feel drives that native experience, where it’s – you don’t get one experience in one platform and something completely different on another, where people then have to have that mental model of, okay, I need to do it this way in one spot and this way in another spot. Driving that cohesive experience is absolutely vital.

So, you know, now that the information is available, you all are – seems like you all are working pretty much in sync to make sure that this is broadly available. I don’t think gamers could ask for much more in this space, like, it sounds like you all are doing an awesome job.

BRIANA ROBERTS: I mean, we’re always listening. I’m sure there’s more feedback out there, Jason. (Laughter.)

JASON HOWARD: Oh, there’s always more feedback.

JASON HOWARD: Just ask the Insiders, there’s always more feedback. (Laughter.)

Nathalia, can you share a little more about PC gaming kind of in general? Its evolution within Xbox over the past couple years and kind of where that’s headed?

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: So, the Xbox app on PC launched in June 2019. It was really our first kind of app experience on Xbox for PC gamers to engage with, one, our exciting new PC Game Pass offering. Previously, users were only able to have the Game Pass subscription for console to get access to hundreds of console games. And in June 2019, both the Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription and the Xbox app launched. So, it was really our dedicated space to provide PC gamers a unique area for them to engage with this membership, to engage with our PC offerings, and really create kind of a single touchpoint for them to engage with our content and also their friends, because there’s a social tab in the app, too, where you can connect to your Xbox friends, you can chat with them. And we also have the game bar experience, which lets users record their game clips, listen to different music. They have tons of different widgets. It’s a really great combination of these two apps to provide a dedicated PC gaming experience.

JASON HOWARD: I will admit, I am completely guilty of having used game bar for things that were not gaming related. It’s actually super awesome functionality, so, for any Insiders who haven’t explored what that is actually capable of, there’s a quick keyboard shortcut to grab it. I think it’s Win-G –

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Windows G. Yes.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah, see? I got it right. Yay! It does super well in the gaming side of things, what it was designed for, but I’ve also used it to grab some other content, especially things we do for Insiders. So, again, you know, I mentioned earlier about the unintended side effects of creating something for a subset of users. I doubt game bar was designed for the way that I’ve used it in some contexts, but hey, I’m glad it is there, because it comes in handy.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah.

JASON HOWARD: Hopefully I don’t do a bad job of what I’m about to say. But I’m going to adapt a bit of a quote from Panos Panay, the chief product officer of the Windows and Devices org, hopefully everybody who’s listening has heard his name or seen him on stage announcing hardware and products and all this kind of stuff. Super great guy. Love working in his organization. That’s not even a quick pander to the boss, I just absolutely think he’s a great person and he’s super passionate about what he does.

So, I’m going to hijack one of his quotes. And the gist of what it said is, in relating to the important aspects of technology, which are super relatable to the gaming arena, is what you actually mentioned earlier, is to try and meet customers where they are. I know that there’s more that we should dig into this space. Nathalia, can I just ask you to kind of open that door a little bit further and kind of expand upon some of the things that we’ve talked about?

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: So, since the Xbox app launched in 2019, we’ve spent a ton of time continuing to evolve the experience in conjunction with expanding the Game Pass catalog to really understand what customers want to see out of the app. We’ve added a number of great features recently that came back from a lot of PC gamer feedback, especially around mods enablement – so, being able to see which games support mods, giving you a way to access and enable that through the app.

By offering areas of the app that show you all of your content in one area, so we launched the My Collection feature, as well as the install management center which lets you kind of manage all of your downloads, prioritize which games to download. If you have a lot of things that you’ve downloaded recently, you can see them all

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw there. Things that a lot of gamers really want to see because they like seeing the details of what they’re able to do with the content that we offer them.

So, a lot of these investments have been something we have been proud to work on. And recently, last September – in September 2020 – we were able to remove the beta tag of the app because we have hit so many of our quality milestones. And it’s really been something that I think our gamers have appreciated and seen how far the app has come in really the short time span of a couple years.

JASON HOWARD: And that is not a milestone to be taken for granted, because something with that level of scope to actually put it into full prominence and put that stamp of approval on it, I’m not even sure I could quantify the number of hours that have gone into the development, the thought of how does it – should it work, how can we engage? The number of partners you have to connect with along the way to make something like this work to begin with, but then to actually get it out of a preview-type environment and actually put it into, I guess, the right way is just general availability, that is a huge milestone. That’s something to be very proud of.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah. And it’s something that we just continue to see more excitement and enthusiasm for. We really enjoy seeing the ecosystem grow. We’ve included, you know, tons of new games in the PC Game Pass catalog in the recent months. One of the most exciting additions has been teaming up with Electronic Arts – also known as EA. So, as of March 18th, Xbox Game Pass PC and ultimate members will be able to enjoy all of the benefits of EA Play – the EA subscription on PC – so that includes more than 60 of EA’s games coming to Game Pass with games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, FIFA 20, Titanfall 2. And some of the most popular games from the EA franchise like Battlefield, Madden NFL, Command and Conquer, and the Sims.

And, really, with the partnership with EA, we’re bringing the best of EA to Game Pass. And there’s not really a better way to say, you should give it a try. This is really one of the most exciting times that we’ve seen the content just continue to grow on PC, and it’s something that our customers are excited about and we’re super pumped to be able to offer that experience in the Xbox app.

JASON HOWARD: Yeah, I mean, the users of EA Play were excited about the games they had access to, the ability to go through and kind of play them all and this – this unique pass-type experience. Having that experience come natively into the Xbox realm, that is huge. I don’t think it’s an understatement at all to say, this is a blockbuster-level partnership. This is a huge investment on both parties.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Definitely, yeah. It’s been a really great experience to be able to offer this to our customers.

BRIANA ROBERTS: Nathalia’s not going to do herself enough justice here, like, it’s been a huge undertaking. And to your point, a massive partnership for both parties, and I think she’s done a phenomenal job. And she’s all subdued over there, but like, this is huge, this is awesome. (Laughter.)

JASON HOWARD: I will say that I don’t think people who put in big work into big projects, not everybody gives themselves enough credit for the amount of work effort that has gone into this. Some people just take it as, hey, this is my job, this is what I do, yeah, it was kind of hard, but you know, we worked together as a team and got it accomplished. Like, these are milestones to be celebrated. These are major accomplishments where, people cross team, cross platform, cross company come together to make things like this successful. Yeah, like this is nothing to be understated. You should absolutely be proud of your accomplishments here, so –

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Well, I’m going to cop out and say it was a team effort. (Laughter.) But, yes, it’s been a super awesome journey. And, yeah, it’s just exciting to be able to talk about it publicly for the first time.

JASON HOWARD: So, hearkening back to our last episode, listeners hopefully recall the theme, which was connecting with customers. It was super integral to the discussion that I had with Ryan. Leaning into this, you know, avenue of conversation, where we’re talking today, how is it that each of you spend your time connecting with customers? You mentioned that, you know, you listened to feedback, you saw things coming in, there were some external articles that were written, right? You get this kind of context of what the marketplace and what end users are looking for.

I asked earlier a little bit about this, which was kind of prioritizing some of the work, determining what you should work on next. Building a product roadmap is no simple task. Right? You have all these ideas, and if you consider them darts, you’re kind of throwing them at a dartboard, trying to get them in the right place, kind of prioritizing them, things of this nature. There’s a lot that happens behind the scenes, but I’m really curious – and this is the whole Insider in me coming out – I am super curious as to how customers influence your overall decision-making process.

BRIANA ROBERTS: I will talk a little bit about some upcoming work and the extensive user research process that we’ve gone through. We have a really great UI team that actively listens – both listens and solicits feedback. So, I know when I talked a little earlier about the supported languages work, that was mostly reactive. But we are also proactive and in seeking customer feedback and in conducting user research studies.

For something that’s coming up, and it touches a little bit on the product roadmap, it’s all well and good if I set the ideal roadmap that I’d like, but we go through, you know, our legal reviews, our privacy reviews, our accessibility reviews. We make sure that the feedback that we get is heard, acknowledged, and we redesign for it.

So, sometimes no, your product roadmap doesn’t hold. And I think that’s okay when the reason it’s not holding is because we’ve learned some really key pieces of information that we need to pivot and adjust for. And so, something that we’re working on right now is taking longer than I think we all would like, but at the same time, it’s taking longer because the information that we’re getting is so valuable. And it would be a significant misstep to launch and go forward in the way that we had originally intended to meet that timeline and not take this feedback into account.

So, we both are reactive to feedback, specifically from published articles. That’s how supported languages was definitely pushed forward to the forefront, but we are also very proactive in seeking customer feedback and not just seeking customer feedback, but making some tough decisions sometimes that maybe our roadmap does not hold and it’s the right thing to do. And I know Nathalia has experience recently with integrating feedback into the Xbox Insiders app on Windows.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah, there’s definitely kind of a nice part of being an application where you do get to leverage the system that would have, which is the Xbox Insiders app on Windows. And when you use the Xbox app on PC, if you click on the menu, you can actually submit feedback. And that feedback gets collected through the Insider app. You can actually kind of upvote different issues that you’re seeing or themes that you’d like to see. And we get a report of that feedback through aggregate information directly to our e-mails, right?

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw

So, that feedback is coming directly to the people on the product teams. And it’s really powerful to be able to see, hey, customers have an idea, they’re running into an issue. They submit the feedback, and it does come directly to us. And that just gives us a great area to continue to learn from and really take point on, hey, if there’s a huge trend in an area that we see customer feedback from, it’s an area that we’re going to look at as a product team and evaluate and see, is there work going on in this space? Is there not in this space? You know, how does this fit into, you know, our key metrics that we’re looking at? How can we support our customers who are experiencing this issue?

JASON HOWARD: I’m hearkening back in my head just to the number of times we’ve discussed in the past – call it the product lifecycle, right, where there’s this idea that comes out, some dev work happens to try to get a first- run implementation of it, it shows up, it goes out in a preview. Right? And I may be a little more biased on the Windows side of things, you know, while I’m talking through this, right? But we release it into preview, we take some of that user feedback. We look and see, hey, did we get this correct? Is it something people really wanted? Right? And of course, you mentioned user research, which is absolutely vital to even making some of those initial “should we do this” type decisions.

But then we get the feedback, we combine that with some more of the insights coming in from user research, and it just spawns this kind of continuous cycle. And if you go back to the Insider webcast we did when we launched that series four-plus years ago, has it really been that long? My goodness. I’m having one of those “shocked” moments and, like, has it been that long?

BRIANA ROBERTS: You’re just doing such a great job. (Laughter.) Right?

JASON HOWARD: Well, I appreciate that. It just kind of reiterates the point that this isn’t something that’s a one- time topic. This isn’t something that we come in, have a quick conversation about, oh, we listen to customers, we appreciate their feedback. And then we just keep developing on in a silo, where the feedback doesn’t ever get pulled back into the product lifecycle.

And it’s blatantly obvious in Windows that while the speed of some of those changes may not happen as fast as users would like, there is still a roadmap. There are things we’re trying to accomplish over the course of time. It is good to see when an important topic like this having languages available and just general information available to users when they’re making some of those purchase decisions, to help drive them in a way that simplifies their life a little bit, saves them some time, helps them make more educated purchasing decisions. And hopefully in some way exposes them to new content in a way that allows them to be engaged in the community in a broader way.

Because if I can go through and search for things that happen to be in a language that I speak that I didn’t have an easy way to find it before, I might find new content that I never knew existed. So, things like that, it all kind of comes back together where there’s a user need, there’s a way to go and solve for that. In the end, hopefully we put those two things together in the right way. Customers are happy. We’re happy the customers are happy. Then, we take on and kind of see what the next step in that evolution is going to be to continue that virtuous customer-centric cycle.

BRIANA ROBERTS: I was going to say something along those lines of, like, I’m my customer too, right? So, the feedback that we get, I want these features. And so, it is hard when we get negative feedback, certainly, and we wish we could do everything as fast as possible, but you know, the customer feedback definitely weighs into how we’re able to prioritize and what comes next. And I think it’s really cool, you know, having not just empathy for your customers, but feeling like, yes, I am – I own this. I am the customer that we’re building for and making sure

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw that I see myself, using the product in this way. And we would be remiss to just think we can build it and just let it go and you know leave it be for weeks or months or you know and not listen.

JASON HOWARD: So, as we wind down here, I get all excited because, you know, I’m a little giddy because I get to ask my favorite question. Of course, don’t get yourself in trouble, don’t need to do any pre-leaking of anything, I don’t need to get calls from people that are upset with me, but I’m going to ask my question now: What’s next?

BRIANA ROBERTS: Oh, Jason, nice try. You heard two exclusives here from Nathalia with respect to PC gaming, which is awesome. That’s my “come on.” But then my formal response is, obviously, we have work to do to make sure we can reach all of our three billion plus gamers. And we will continue investing in even more markets including non-English regions, non-English speaking regions to ensure that our offerings are localized and relevant for all players. So, speaking from the supported languages standpoint, we recognize every market is different. We’re always exploring new ways to support additional localization and supported languages tags are just our most recent example of our continued work to make sure that we welcome all players to Xbox.

JASON HOWARD: Wow, that is –

BRIANA ROBERTS: That’s what I got for you.

JASON HOWARD: I got the warm fuzzies now, like, I just – it just makes me appreciate the work that you’re doing. Nathalia, how about you?

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah. I think just kind of building on what Briana said, you know, on the Xbox app for PC, we’re constantly trying to create inclusive experiences for our new and existing players as part of the Xbox ecosystem. We’re always listening to the community for how we can make gaming more accessible and relevant. And we’re always looking for ways to improve the player experience. So, we really welcome feedback for the community, you know, like I said, we use the Xbox Insider app on PC and that’s a great way to start leaving feedback directly for the team.

JASON HOWARD: Well, this has been a super fun conversation. A little bit of a walk down memory lane. Got to talk about customer experience, which is near and dear to my heart. I mean, it’s pretty much what I do for a living. So, anytime I get to jump into those topics, it’s, you know, it’s always exciting for me. So, in closing out, I’ll just open the door. Are there any parting words? Things you want to share with the Windows Insider audience? Anything you want them to go poke around and try or, you know, any last words of wisdom?

BRIANA ROBERTS: Just to say thank you and I love that you’re having us to talk about it. And it’s not even a question of how this relates to Windows. It’s like, this is Windows. Like, it’s part of the experience. So, thanks for having us.

NATHALIA SCRIMSHAW: Yeah, it’s not just about one app, it’s really about listening to customers in whatever form that happens to be. And it was great to just talk about the ways that we do that on the Xbox side of things. So, thanks for letting us share.

JASON HOWARD: No, absolutely. I’m super glad to have had both of you here. A huge thank you to both of you. I don’t know how to follow any of that up, but by saying thank you. It has been fantastic having both of you on this episode. Really appreciate you both making the time. Briana, Nathalia, thank you so much for joining us. Super,

Windows Insider podcast EP42 Guests: Briana Roberts, Nathalia Scrimshaw super fun. No doubt, we’ll be in touch in the future as more changes come along because the Windows Insider audience is always eager to learn more of what’s coming next.

[MUSIC]

JASON HOWARD: If you listened to this podcast episode after reading the title and wondered what we’d be discussing, hopefully that question has been answered! What originally started as the voice of Xbox customers has created a direct impact in the experience Windows users will now have, flowing from one product to the next to drive a cohesive cross-platform experience. With as many times as we’ve discussed the importance of feedback, we’re excited to share stories of the impacts your voice has in how we develop products here at Microsoft. We continue to learn alongside you, our customers, an opportunity we’re endlessly thankful for.

And with that Windows Insiders, this episode draws to a close. As always, thank you for tuning in to the Windows Insider podcast! Join us for a new episode each month, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app.

Until next time!

ANNOUNCER: The Windows Insider podcast is hosted by Jason Howard and produced by Microsoft Production Studios and the Windows Insider team. Listen to our previous podcasts and visit us on the Web at insider.windows.com. Follow us at @WindowsInsider on Instagram and Twitter.

Support for the Windows Insider podcast comes from Microsoft, empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Join us next month for another fascinating inside look into Microsoft, tech, innovations, careers and the evolution of Windows.

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