Larry Hryb (AKA Major Nelson), Xbox Live’s director of programming, recently posted an interesting question on his blog about what Microsoft doesn’t ‘get’ when it comes to designing and implementing new services.

This is the comment I made in response to that question. Let me know what you think.

I think Microsoft’s main problem is they think too logically and not emotionally enough when developing new services.

I like Microsoft’s products because of this (I’m an intensely logical, pragmatic person,) but I also recognize that a lot of people don’t like them for the same reason.

Take Zune and the Zune Pass for example. Pay a little bit every month, get access to millions of songs. But if you stop paying, you lose access to those songs. I love that kind of service; it’s totally logical and it makes sense to me as a great, cheap way to indulge my eclectic musical tastes. But lots of people hate it; all they see is that you pay and pay, and in the end you come away with “nothing”. That’s purely emotional, because you don’t come away with “nothing”, you come away having had the chance to listen to tons of great music you might not otherwise have heard. But that doesn’t jibe with the human emotion to want to “own” stuff.

Xbox Live works because one of its key aspects is the concept of “identity.” Xbox Live members even have an “identity card.” The Gamercard neatly encapsulates everything an Xbox Live member is, and it’s pervasive, so that member can take it wherever he/she goes. This is something that appeals to emotion; the human desire to be somebody. The Zune Card promises to do the same for Zune. PlayStation Network doesn’t have it, neither does Wii and neither does iTunes, and I think that will be a key differentiator for Microsoft.

They didn’t have to come up with a Gamercard or a Zune Card, but they did, and I think that speaks very positively about Microsoft’s mindset in the services they are building now, in terms of thinking how your services impact people on an emotional, not merely practical level.

Look at Google, practically everything they do is designed to appeal to a human emotion of some sort. Their barren front page appeals to human desire for simplicity, their innovative webmail focuses on how people *actually* use email rather than how people are *supposed* to use it, their context-sensitive advertising appeals to the human desire for personal service, etc.

Microsoft really needs to think more about appealing to human emotions, not just practicality.