From neowin.net:

Oddly enough, a documentary called "Code: Debugging the Gender Gap" would seem to dispute the notion that Clippy was popular with focus groups before its launch. Former Microsoft executive Roz Ho stated."

Most of the women thought the characters were too male and that they were leering at them. So we’re sitting in a conference room. There’s me and, I think, like, 11 or 12 guys, and we’re going through the results, and they said, ‘I don’t see it. I just don’t know what they’re talking about.’ And I said, ‘Guys, guys, look, I’m a woman, and I’m going to tell you, these animated characters are male-looking.’

Omg. They're absolutely right.

Be as open to seeing bias as you'd like, you will always have a blindspot. Until today, this was one of mine.

Labels: microsoft, microsoft fail, sexism, Word