So Microsoft has a new “viral” site out that hopes to dispel the myths around Windows Vista. They conducted several focus groups and asked participants their opinion about Windows Vista of which most were negative. Then they showed the participants the new Microsoft OS called “Mojave”. They see, and love the new version.

For full disclosure, I upgraded to Vista and have several likes and dislikes but overall am happy with the upgrade. But I’m more interested in the psychology at play.

There are several factors influencing the perceptions of the participants:

Negative press and full assault from Apple from day one.
The launch of Vista seemed to be mismanaged from the start. I remember the lines at the store when Windows 95 came out. This was nothing like that.

Past experience using Windows products (good or bad)
Windows has been such a strong part of our day-to-day lives. We expect really big things from upgrades.

The luxury of having someone explain all the new features to them
This is a big one. Users rarely every dig through documentation to figure out how all the features work. They slowly learn only the ones that are relevant to them.

The opportunity to see a “new product” before anyone else
Users who are asked to participate in “new” designs are more optimistic than those who are asked to provide feedback on a product they already know.

Overall I think it’s a great case study on perception versus reality.

One last point of criticism for Microsoft: If you are building a product called SilverLight to go head to head with Flash why in the world would you put this together in Flash?

Update: Looks like the whole project has been upgraded to use SilverLight.