I’m Cheryl White and I’m a Program Manager for Windows Live Movie Maker. I’m here to say again how much we appreciate getting your feedback – it helps us to build a better product. Also, I’d like to talk more specifically about how users helped us shape the latest release of Windows Live Movie Maker. We’ve heard many questions about why we didn’t go with a traditional timeline model in the new Movie Maker. In this post we’re going to provide some insight into the primary reasons we changed our design, as well as a comparison between the old and new design based on organizing and editing media.

When we started building Windows Live Movie Maker, we looked at the feedback we received from our users. One of the points that stood out to us was that the average Windows Movie Maker user was intimidated by the timeline interface. Specifically, they felt there was a fairly steep learning curve to the product, and that many tasks were made difficult by the amount of steps it took to complete them. With this in mind, we wanted to use a visual solution in the new Windows Live Movie Maker that allowed both video enthusiasts and novice users a way to organize and edit their media quickly and easily. We wanted to eliminate intimidating interfaces, while still being able to manage more complex tasks. Below you will find a side-by-side comparison of the two versions with regards to organizing and editing media.

Windows Movie Maker (old) vs. Windows Live Movie Maker (new)

Adding media to your project

A big focus in the new release was to make it easy to add content and immediately see how the movie was put together. Compared to Windows Movie Maker, you first had to import your media to your collection, then add your media to your project. Only after which you would be able to preview your movie. In the new release, we simplified the process: Import your media to your project, preview your movie. The whole task can be done in seconds, yet you don’t lose any functionality. Another process we simplified in the new release of Movie Maker was to ensure that the preview window showed only the media that you were focused on in the Storyboard at any given time. The old release of Movie Maker could show media that was in your library as well as media that was in your project. There were advantages to this (as you could see photos and videos before you add them to your project) but this increased the complexity and confused novice users. The new design greatly reduces confusion, if it’s in your preview window – it’s in your project.

Based on a user study we performed in March, we made a late-breaking decision to add click on the Storyboard to add content. Since the Storyboard is the core of the application, we decided that we wanted to give you a range of options to choose from when it comes to adding media to your project: dragging and dropping files from your computer; clicking or right-clicking on the Storyboard; clicking “Add videos and photos” right in the Ribbon, from Photo Gallery clicking Make-> Make a Movie with media selected.

In the older Windows Movie Maker timeline view, users found it difficult to move items around easily and particularly difficult to adjust text. So we made adding text easier! Previously, there was a 4-step process to add title at the beginning of your movie. With Windows Live Movie Maker, one click adds the title and immediately puts you into editing mode right on the screen. It’s all WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) so you can adjust easily make adjustments by entering text and then grabbing the text box with the mouse to move it around.

Viewing the project

When it comes to viewing your project, the Storyboard view has multiple benefits over the traditional Timeline view. Something to keep in mind, both are technically linear ‘timeline’ views. But instead of the timeline being one long ‘scroll right, and right, and right to view your content’ view, the Storyboard starts at the top left, scrolls right to the edge of your application window and then drops a line to start again on the left (Like a book!). Which is automatically resized as your adjust the size of Windows Live Movie Maker. This allows users to have a broader view of what’s happening in their project. Compared to the Windows Movie Maker, the task of organizing content is made exponentially easier in the storyboard.

Below is an example of ‘viewing your project’. I have nine pieces of content plus a title slide (just for example) and I want to zoom in far enough to see thumbnails of each piece of content. On the left hand side, I have Windows Movie Maker. Here I can only see four and a quarter items in my movie. Compared to Windows Live Movie Maker on the right and I can see all my content easily with plenty of room to spare.

Zoomed Out/Full Storyboard vs. Storyboard

In making the move to the new Storyboard, we found that people who wanted to see a storyboard-like representation of their items were not getting enough information at that level. Conversely, people were getting too much information with the timeline representation, so we worked at hitting a happy medium between the two. We have a time scale zoom in the new Windows Live Movie Maker that allows you to adjust the ‘viewable’ length of your media. The scale goes from individual seconds (on the precise side – see right side Windows Live Movie Maker image below), to only showing each piece of media as a thumbnail regardless of length of time each piece plays for on the broader scale. This allows you to still use relative lengths with your clips, without it being an all or nothing approach.

Zoomed In/Timeline vs. Storyboard with Time Scale

Moving items in the project

Once people add in their content, we wanted to make sure that it was easy to move items around. Showing the thumbnail of each item at any timescale means that you can step back and take a look at the big picture and make sure everything ended up just where you wanted it. In the image below, I am dragging the Chrysanthemum picture to appear after the lighthouse. Super easy with the thumbnails, but it was very difficult to get to it in the timeline version without zooming in on the timeline.

Editing items in your project

And the last main area in which we focused was to make sure that it was easy to edit items once they were added to the project. With the new Storyboard, batch edits are a snap. Using the Ribbon, we put the tools you use most often in the most logical places. Edit a video clip is under Video Tools. Changing transitions is under Animations.

But when it comes to true ‘differences’ between the old Windows Movie Maker and the new Windows Live Movie Maker, batch editing is right at the top. By allowing users to multi-select and perform edits on more than one item at a time, we’ve dramatically decreased the time it takes to polish and edit your movie. In the case below, I had to drag and drop a transition onto each and every item. In Windows Live Movie Maker, we’ve made that so easy, you just select the items you want (or CTRL+A to select all), choose a transition and you can apply it to all of the clips. To tell if your item has a transition on it, look for the slightly transparent triangle in the lower left corner of your content thumbnails.

So there you have it. A little background into how your feedback helped us build Windows Live Movie Maker. Ultimately, we are creating the product for you to use, and if there are any areas in which you’re feeling pain, let us know. We want to change that!  We’ve already gotten some really good feedback, and hope to continue receiving more.  I love Windows Live Movie Maker and I hope you will too!

Cheryl White

Program Manager

Windows Live Movie Maker