I’m late to this, but on Thursday Robert Scoble blogged that Tjeerd Hoek, the director of user experience design for Windows is leaving to join Frog Design. Most of the comments focus on the Google vs. Microsoft angle, but from an RIA perspective, this is VERY interesting.

Frog Design is one of the best design firms in the RIA space, and they do great work with Windows Presentation Foundation, Flash, and Silverlight. It could be that after Vista shipped, Tjeerd just wanted new challenges. But the fact that he went to a design firm that is known for its technology agnostic approach is worth thinking about.

If the great design minds gravitate towards the people building solutions instead of the people building platforms, users are probably better off.

[tags]Tjeerd Hoek, Microsoft, User Experience, Frog Design[/tags]