Skype 4.0
Today, Skype has released version 4.0 of its program for Windows, which combines various innovations that affect both the interface and the actual quality of the transfer of naked and video. Below, I provide a translation of the post by Peter Parsk from the Skype blog, which describes how the latest version of the program was developed.
Translation of the second part is here .
***
This is the first part of the story about how to make Skype 4.0 for Windows. The second part - a little later, but for now - about how the work is being done in Skype and what to expect next.
')
Why do I need version 4.0
Online communications have changed significantly over the past 10 years - both the people themselves and the tools they use to communicate on the web. Voice and video calls, as well as text messaging (instant messaging) have become part of everyday life.
Despite this, the current generation of tools for online communication has not changed much since the mid-1990s. Most messaging software, for example, looked and worked almost the same - and Skype was no exception before the release of version 4.0 for Windows.
In part, this was of course dictated by common sense - these were familiar, familiar user interface metaphors that make working with it simpler and lower the barriers for new users. However, in the course of our research, we found out that there is a big difference between how people use programs like Skype and how they work with clients for IM from the mid-90s.
That's when it all started
In May 2006, we launched a project, the result of which was Skype 4.0 for Windows. Skype has become something much more than what our director of product strategy with love describes as “talking on the sidelines with friends” - conversations on Skype have become an independent phenomenon.
The number of people making video calls has grown so seriously since this opportunity appeared in 2005 that we realized that this would be the most important aspect of using Skype for the coming years. Now, more than 25% of all Skype calls include video, and if you imagine that up to 300,000 calls are being made at the same time, this is a huge amount of video information. Therefore, instead of trying to fasten these new functions, and first of all - video, to the design (and the design metaphor itself), which is already 10 years old as outdated, we decided to start over.
From this point on, we began to ask serious questions about how to approach the development of a new large release of Skype for Windows.
Study
The first year and a half of the project was mainly research. We spent a lot of time experimenting with different designs, developing one prototype after another and conducting usability tests to see what worked and what didn't.
We learned a lot about how people behave with computers, and it was not without surprise that we found the vast majority of people focused on one window while working with programs like Skype. We talked with usability experts from other leading software vendors to check out our “discoveries” and they agreed that most people find it difficult when one application is scattered across multiple windows.
Picking up the pace
At the end of 2007 we began the actual work on the software. Instead of setting ourselves one big final task, we worked for periods of one month, trying different versions of how this can be done with each new iteration and introducing Skype 4.0 4.0 alpha builds to the company's employees.
This allowed engineers and designers to quickly respond to reviews, experiment, and release releases again and again, until we reached a state where we were able to release the first public beta of Skype 4.0 "into the wild" in June 2008.
This was followed by an intensive process of data collection, research, re-design and processing, but this, as they say, is another story.
Translation of the second part is here .
***
This is the first part of the story about how to make Skype 4.0 for Windows. The second part - a little later, but for now - about how the work is being done in Skype and what to expect next.
')
Why do I need version 4.0
Online communications have changed significantly over the past 10 years - both the people themselves and the tools they use to communicate on the web. Voice and video calls, as well as text messaging (instant messaging) have become part of everyday life.
Despite this, the current generation of tools for online communication has not changed much since the mid-1990s. Most messaging software, for example, looked and worked almost the same - and Skype was no exception before the release of version 4.0 for Windows.
In part, this was of course dictated by common sense - these were familiar, familiar user interface metaphors that make working with it simpler and lower the barriers for new users. However, in the course of our research, we found out that there is a big difference between how people use programs like Skype and how they work with clients for IM from the mid-90s.
That's when it all started
In May 2006, we launched a project, the result of which was Skype 4.0 for Windows. Skype has become something much more than what our director of product strategy with love describes as “talking on the sidelines with friends” - conversations on Skype have become an independent phenomenon.
The number of people making video calls has grown so seriously since this opportunity appeared in 2005 that we realized that this would be the most important aspect of using Skype for the coming years. Now, more than 25% of all Skype calls include video, and if you imagine that up to 300,000 calls are being made at the same time, this is a huge amount of video information. Therefore, instead of trying to fasten these new functions, and first of all - video, to the design (and the design metaphor itself), which is already 10 years old as outdated, we decided to start over.
From this point on, we began to ask serious questions about how to approach the development of a new large release of Skype for Windows.
Study
The first year and a half of the project was mainly research. We spent a lot of time experimenting with different designs, developing one prototype after another and conducting usability tests to see what worked and what didn't.
We learned a lot about how people behave with computers, and it was not without surprise that we found the vast majority of people focused on one window while working with programs like Skype. We talked with usability experts from other leading software vendors to check out our “discoveries” and they agreed that most people find it difficult when one application is scattered across multiple windows.
Picking up the pace
At the end of 2007 we began the actual work on the software. Instead of setting ourselves one big final task, we worked for periods of one month, trying different versions of how this can be done with each new iteration and introducing Skype 4.0 4.0 alpha builds to the company's employees.
This allowed engineers and designers to quickly respond to reviews, experiment, and release releases again and again, until we reached a state where we were able to release the first public beta of Skype 4.0 "into the wild" in June 2008.
This was followed by an intensive process of data collection, research, re-design and processing, but this, as they say, is another story.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/51002/
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