Bob’s Their Uncle
Sons of Bob, clockwise from upper left: Clippy (Office 2000 version), Bob's own Rover as Windows XP's Search Assistant, the Microsoft Agent Merlin, and BONZIBuddy
Does Bob have a legacy? Its most obvious one is Microsoft’s multiple latter-day attempts to build Bob-like features into its most popular programs. For instance, far more people were exposed to Microsoft Office’s “Clippy” and the other Office Assistants than ever encountered Bob. (As Rogers Cadenhead has shown, the Office 97 Assistants are based on code so close to Bob’s that it’s possible to drag and drop the personal guides into Office.)
Almost seven years after Bob was announced, Microsoft brought back its protagonist Rover as the Search Assistant in Windows XP. He was jarringly out of place–especially in Windows XP Professional. But considering that XP is still the world’s favorite operating system, Rover isn’t out of work yet.
In “Bob and Beyond,” Microsoft veteran Tandy Trower writes about the Microsoft Agent, the Bob offshoot he spearheaded. The Agent was an open platform for building Bob-like characters for use in software and on the Web. It never truly caught on either. (One of the places it did get used was in Bonzi software’s BONZIBuddy, a piece of adware in the form of a talking ape with a reputation even worse than Bob’s.)
When Clippy was young, several newspaper articles appeared that he and other similar features proved that Bob had been ahead of its time. But the Assistants ended up as widely mocked as Bob. And all of Microsoft’s later social interfaces eventually died: The company eradicated the Office Assistant as of Office 97, nuked the Search Assistant in Windows Vista, and ended support for Microsoft Agent in Windows 7 (although it ended up making the Agent unofficially available again due to popular demand).
What’s more, no other major tech company has found success with anything remotely Boblike, or even seemed interested in pursuing the idea. Bill Gates may have blamed Bob’s failure on daunting hardware requirements, but in 2010, even the most mundane netbook could run the voice-controlled 3D parrot he demoed in 1995–and none do. If anyone revived the idea of talking-animal guides today, every review would bring up Bob in the first paragraph. Not in a good way.
And yet…
Certain aspects of Bob’s interface live on, and usefully so. Bob archivist Dan Rose, who’s a fan–”the social interface gave a personal computer a more personal feel, and I think that was a very good idea”–makes a compelling case that fragments of Bob survive in Windows 7′s word-balloon alerts. Countless Web sites that step you through a process do so with menus that are reminiscent of Fries and Linnett’s Publisher and Bob interfaces. And when Apple wanted to ensure that the iPad was simple and approachable, it made some of the same decisions that Microsoft made back in the 1990s–most notably, it chose to have all apps run in full-screen mode.
I see aspects of Bob in Siri, a new iPhone app whose creators describe as a “personal assistant.” You speak requests into your iPhone; Siri listens, converts your speech into text, figures out what you meant, and responds with information. It works remarkably well. Yet the people behind Siri–who, as with Bob, include Stanford researchers–didn’t feel a need to jazz it up with talking animals knocking themselves out to be ingratiating. Like Bob, the program puts its information into conversationally-worded balloons, but they don’t emanate from a character. The balloons themselves are all the anthropomorphizing that Siri needs.
Which leaves me thinking that Bob’s biggest mistake was that it tried way too hard. I acknowledge that computer users in 2010 are infinitely more sophisticated than they were a decade and a half ago. But maybe even the newbies of 1995 would have been receptive to something more subtle than Bob’s cutey-cute menagerie. Something, in other words, that treated them like smart grownups who happened to be new to computers.
If Microsoft had pushed Bob in that direction–either initially or through upgrades–there’s a decent chance that it would have been remembered today as a landmark. Could it be that there’s some alternate universe in which new products are compared to Bob just as often as they are here–but it’s a compliment?
More Microsoft Bob on Technologizer:
A Guided Tour of Microsoft Bob
Bob and Beyond: A Microsoft Insider Remembers
The Secret Origins of Clippy: Microsoft’s Bizarre Animated Character Patents
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March 28th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
I worked for a consumer electronics manufacturer that developed digital satellite receivers. In this time frame, we had a "living room" interface for our receiver that was part of Bob-think. This interface was graphics-heavy with pictures of functions instead of menus. The choice of graphical or menu was selectable by the user. I believe most chose menus.
From a technical standpoint, the graphical living room interface was difficult to do with the hardware/cost constraints of the day.
March 29th, 2010 at 7:02 am
wow, the fatal flaw was of Bob was in the last paragraph. Software that's built to make computers easier for beginners to use but require an expensive high end computer that only a much more seasoned user would have. Way to go microsoft, got any more good ideas?
March 29th, 2010 at 8:00 am
I’ve never heard of Bob. Most of the people I work with were still in high school in 1995, but I enjoyed this look at recent computer history.
I have a feeling that iPad will become the MS Bob of the coming generation.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:56 am
I have a copy of Bob still in shrink wrap and license #. I remember installing this OS on computers for schools and a boss’s home computer. I still laugh about this OS.
March 29th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Thanks for the look back at Bob. I do recall when it came out and as I worked in I.T. I had a good finger on the pulse of the industry feeling about it. Even Microsoft fans derided Bob from the start. It was apparent to all that it was geared towards kids and those afraid of a computer. Add to that the fact that it was layered atop Windows 3.1, and you had a doomed product. If they’d waited just a bit and included it with Windows 95 (released a mere 6 months later to much fanfare). Had Bob been on every Win95 CD (yes, OS’s were small enough for CD’s then), at least there would have been masses willing to give it a try. Then MS could have taken feedback and made a viable Bob 2.0. Instead, the separation of teams in Redmond prevented such cross-pollenation.
@Paul: The reason the iPad won’t be another Bob is that cross-pollenation does occur in Cupertino. Apple integrates all its products together and lets each one be marketing and support for the others. Also, you have the Steve Jobs vision behind each one; he simply won’t allow the iPad to fail, even if it has issues. He’ll fix it instead of abandoning it as MS did with Bob.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Thanks for a wonderfully balanced account.
I’d like to add an example of how the implementation of the ideas behind Bob was deficient: If you entered three wrong passwords in a row, your assistant would offer to change your password for you! The zeal to make things simpler led to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:49 am
I remember Bob fondly, I had a relative with some limitations to movement who used it devotedly. I still believe the fundamental idea was sound, simple user interface. Even though the graphics were limited, the fundamental uses of the computer were simple and ready to use. Actually, I believe there is still room for such a product–many older and non-technical users still would benefit from a more graphic and simple user interface. It would actually be interesting with such advancement in graphics what an ungraded Bob would look like. Wish Microsoft with its resources hadn’t drop the project-it had a lot of potential.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Ad for Microsoft Bob can be seen at Wired Reread:
http://www.wiredreread.com/2010/03/hi-bob-bye-bob.html
March 29th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Wasn’t the name of the Stuart Cheifet show The Computer Chronicles (not the Computing Chronicles)?
March 29th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
“fragments of Bob survive in Windows 7’s word-balloon alerts.”
Try Balloon Help, introduced as part of Macintosh System 7 in 1991.
March 29th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
> Bob’s characters–seem to come straight from kindergarten.
> They’re drawn as if the program’s target audience were the
> under-12 set
That was the biggest problem, in my opinion. First, Microsoft looked down their noses at newbies and treated them like kids, instead of, for example, a lawyer who has never used a computer before. Second, they had software engineers create the art and animations, instead of artists and animators.
It was amazing to see them keep reusing these characters. The Windows XP search dog stunned me when I first saw it, which was in 2008 or so. I thought I was in a time warp back to Bob. I thought somebody had added that to the XP machine I was using. I couldn’t believe it was a built-in XP feature. Ironically, it’s so much harder to use than the Mac’s Spotlight search.
> I have a feeling that iPad will become the MS Bob of the
> coming generation.
Sheesh.
In its very first hour of being on sale, iPad outsold Bob. Just the preorders alone for iPad (even with a 2 per customer limit) will outsell TabletPC. Yes, every TabletPC ever sold. iPad is on pace to outsell both every Kindle and every Zune by the end of its first quarter of sales. So you’re already wrong.
It’s really a stretch to compare Bob and iPad anyway, especially because of running apps full screen. Apps ran full screen on the PC from 1982-1993, and many users still basically run that way today, using Alt+Tab to toggle between them. The Adobe apps even have their own desktop background on Windows. One of the first things many PC users ask when they switch to a Mac is “how do I maximize all my apps?”
March 29th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Meanwhile, over in the Linux camp… Slackware… ;-)
– J. R. “Bob” Dobbs
March 29th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I was working in tech support for a retail computer company when Bob came out. We fired up a copy so we could support the rush of sales the store management expected. I drove, while the other support staff watched.
After a quick run through all the ‘rooms’, I decided to create a short text document. When I started to save the doc, we all started counting how many steps were required.
About the time I hit EIGHT clicks, people started going back to real work.
When I finally finished on click number 17, I was the only one paying attention. And then there was none.
No worries, though, because we never had to support Bob, except to route callers through to the sales office for returns.
(OTOH, it was really easy to mod the official Bob logo into Microsoft Bob Dobbs, complete with pipe.)
March 29th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I was seven when we bought a Gateway that came with MS Bob pre-installed. I remember my friends and I spending hours setting up our rooms and then comparing them.
It was great for a 7 year old, I cant imagine it being used to get anything done, for that I use Slackware 13 or Win7.
March 29th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Played with Bob for a bit and iirc, my take was that rooms are a stupid metaphor. Hiding something off screen does not make it easier to find.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:02 am
Wow, Hats off to Harry this was a good effort in trying to compare the Ipad to Bob. I believe you missed the concept of Ideation to Market. The IPAD numbers alone speak for itself. Please next time more statistical and analytical information that would add weight to your comparison.
March 30th, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Great article. Microsoft did come back to the well one more time in a product called Creative Writer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Writer
It was a product for kids and it contained an imaginary world with a character who guided you through operations. The character was much more friendly and the cut down applications made more sense as a learning tool for kids. But it still didn’t catch on.
March 31st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
I had a lot of fun with Bob. It was completely useless for doing any actual work, but it was kind of creative, and more interesting than solitaire. I kinda miss Bob, but more as a pointless game than a GUI. Wish it hadn’t constantly crashed my system!
April 18th, 2010 at 3:10 am
Ah, Bob. This article brings back memories of my software engineer friend who took a job at Microsoft shortly before the Bob debacle. When Bob went belly up I teased her that it must have been her first project. It wasn’t. She is now semi-retired at age 49, living in her posh custom country home east of Seattle. I’m being laid off as my telecom employer downsizes. I guess she, and Bob, had the last laugh.
April 23rd, 2010 at 2:55 am
I read Nass’ and Reeves’ book about their research, and in itself it’s very good stuff.
But when you let academics and software engineers design a computer interface that’s supposed to be ‘social’, you get the sort of overly-literal ‘real life metaphor’ that Bob is. It’s like dressing up a brute as a clown and calling him friendly. Easy to do, but beside the point.
Many current applications actually implement a lot of the advice in Nass’ & Reeves’ research, but I wouldn’t call that the ‘legacy of Bob’, quite the contrary actually. Bob is like a blinking red warning light about what *not* to do.
The real challenge is about user-friendlyness, politeness, etc. Whether there’s a 3D parrot involved or not is totaly irrelevant for the user-computer relationship. No extremely brief or incomprehensible error messages, continuous useful feedback, intuitive interaction, responsiveness, those are the things that matter if you want people to consider a computer to be ‘friendly’ and easy to use.
I haven’t laid my hands on one, but I guess this is why the iPad is so succesful. It has a limited set of parameters, limited features and an intuitive, well-designed interface.
April 24th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Bob was I realy nice try by that time. Today we have real assistants like the Denise at http://www.guile3d.com
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Microsoft could re-release it as Microsoft primary school…All the cartoons make it perfect for kids…
September 4th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
"I acknowledge that computer users in 2010 are infinitely more sophisticated than they were a decade and a half ago."
I read through your entire article, and found it very interesting and smart (just as the other ones), but this just makes no sense. If anything, people have been severely dumbed down since 1995…
October 20th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I'm looking at my circa 1994 BOB cd that arrived with whatever storebought computer I was using at the time and I see that this version did not include a booklet. I recall that I tried installing it and running once. It was more trouble than it was worth, though not as bad as those AOL disks from the same era.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
After reading this whole article I can't see anything that was revolutionary about MS Bob. It was basically a room metaphor with some annoying animated characters.
November 19th, 2010 at 4:22 pm
Well, I recently installed Windows 95 on an old computer I have and it works great! I also had a copy of MS BOB on hand, and installed it on the computer. It gets barely anything done, but it's still fun to use, and I can say "I have MS BOB" even after 15 years of it being released! Ah, vintage computing. Never fails to amuse me :)
March 4th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Bob Wiley: I'm sailing! I'm sailing! I'm sailiiiiiing!
Dr. Leo Marvin: Keep sailing, Bob….
March 25th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
16 million units sold in one year, universal acclaim from non-geeks… Yup, you are completely effin wrong.
You LOSE!. Goodday sir!
April 5th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Did you really just make a positive reference to Clippy?
April 8th, 2011 at 12:12 am
I had a Apple version of a shoddy imitation of Bob, which was designed for Mac OS6. It was peddled to poor, ignorant me, and my first Mac. When I found out that it could work with Mac OS7.5.3, which cam with my little Powerbook, I tried it for a while. What a sloppy and sham idea; rooms in the house for all users. Cabinets with drawers, desks, and so on. I quickly joined a Mac group, and once I had established my eager newbie credentials, openly invited scorn for being huckstered so easily, to test the group. The group stood by me and let me forswear henceforth never to use a Microsoft-imitating piece of software, especially one as poorly implemented and the one I had, the exception being any Microsoft product designed for the Mac, clumsy and bloated as they might be.
July 10th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
In 1996 I had a brand new Packard Bell. It was super fast with 32mb of ram and had a 166mhz cpu, wow it was the bomb. Anyway PB packaged a Bob-like interface too. Whist watching the movie with Gates in it I recognised the whole desk/room/filing cabinet interface. It wasn't very practical, as it was a resource hog, but it was far out at the time.
September 1st, 2011 at 12:42 am
When a new piece of technology is due to come out immanently, it creates a great sense of excitement and anticipation. At the moment, that focus is on Apple, due to the pending release of the new iphone 5.
September 1st, 2011 at 12:45 am
When a new piece of technology is due to come out immanently, it creates a great sense of excitement and anticipation. At the moment, that focus is on Apple, due to the pending release of the new iphone 5.
September 1st, 2011 at 12:49 am
Bob is realy great i must agree and you alll tooo.
iphone 5
October 11th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Believe it or not, Bob really did teach me a lot about using the computer. I was just a kid when it was in use, but it was one of my favorite things to use on the computer. It was fun for me and taught me a lot…good for kids…not so for adults! :)
December 26th, 2011 at 6:31 am
It was a product for kids and it contained an imaginary world with a character who guided you through operations. The character was much more friendly and the cut down applications made more sense as a learning tool for kids. But it still didn't catch on.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:25 am
I worked for a consumer electronics manufacturer that developed digital satellite receivers. In this time frame, we had a "living room" interface for our receiver that was part of Bob-think. This interface was graphics-heavy with pictures of functions instead of menus. The choice of graphical or menu was selectable by the user. I believe most chose menus.Ghana news
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:51 am
This was the end all software for Microsoft. An easy version to completely eliminate Apple. Well it did not do that, but sure did get a lot of press and heavy marketing. Love the shirts.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:47 am
Really remarkable article to read on.. I’m very impressed with this post. Looking forward for future posts.
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