Do you have suggestions for the PowerPoint team?
What do you imagine this might be?
(Photo courtesy of Shawn Villaron, PowerPoint program manager at Microsoft)
Let me explain ...
Do you have an idea for a feature that'll make PowerPoint easier to use? One that'll help you make your presentations more compelling? Or even one that'll get you out of the office and on the way home to your family and friends an hour earlier?
Or is there some bug or bad design feature that makes your blood pressure rise every time you use PowerPoint?
Tell Microsoft
Tell the PowerPoint team at Microsoft about it.
For years, there's been no one, central location for making this kind of suggestion to Microsoft's program managers. Microsoft has attempted to provide channels for user feedback in the past, but they've been short-lived and using them has been rather like tossing stones down a bottomless well.
That, as they say, was then. This, as I'm about to tell you, is now.
Enter UserVoice
Microsoft has engaged UserVoice.com to provide a site where we can make suggestions about PowerPoint (and many other Microsoft products) or vote on suggestions that have already been made, and see a running tally of how many votes each idea has received.
If you see an idea you particularly like, you can give it lots of votes AND comment on it.
And while you won't get direct feedback from Microsoft in response to your suggestions, they do take them very seriously. The suggestions that get the most votes are the ones that are most likely to appear in upcoming Office updates.
Sure, but does Microsoft pay any attention?
Yes indeed. That mysterious photo? It's a huge monitor that hangs in one of the main hallways in the PowerPoint development office. The developers and program managers who work on PowerPoint see it several times a day. It summarizes your UserVoice suggestions and Twitter feeds that mention PowerPoint.
You can make suggestions that are specific to various versions of PowerPoint (Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, etc) or make suggestions about the other Office programs. Word.uservoice.com, Excel.uservoice.com and so on will get you there.
And don't forget to share the love
Once you've posted your suggestion on UserVoice, share a link to it on Facebook, Twitter, online forums ... wherever your PPT people congregate. Encourage them to vote for your suggestion too.