If you are among those who have used Microsoft Word Between the late 90s and the early 2000s, it is likely that you remember that animated staple with wide eyes and expressive eyebrows that suddenly appeared on the screen. His name was Clip (even if we have always called him all “Clippy”) and was a Virtual assistant designed to help the user during documents writing. It was not the only interface of the Office assistant: there were also a robot, a cat, a magician and Albert Einstein. For example, it appeared as soon as you started a letter with “Dear Tizio”, suggesting to use a preset model. In theory, he had to facilitate his life, making us access to the guide of Office, offering us advice and showing us various help functions. In practice? His intrusive presence and limited skills made him one of the most hated tools in the history of the software. Developed with the ambition to humanize the man-macchina interaction, Clippit was based on still immature artificial intelligence technologies. Introduced in November of 1996 and definitively withdrawn in 2007Clippit represents an emblematic example of how a good idea, if implemented badly, may not be hoped for success.
The birth of Clippit
At the origin of Clippit there is the project “Microsoft Bob”an interface designed to make the use of the PC more intuitive through virtual environments similar to rooms of a house, available on versions 3.1x, 95 and Windows NT. Although that system has never been successful, one of the characters created for Bob – an animated staple – was reused as a virtual assistant for the Office suite. Microsoft commissioned a Kevan Atheberry The final illustration of the character, chosen from 250 different prototypes. The result was Clippit, made active by default setting starting from Office 97.
Small moment curiosity: since Attorberry preferred Mac to Windows PCs, digitized his design on his macintosh. Really paradoxical that an iconic graphic element of Microsoft has been produced thanks to an Apple computer!
In its operation, Clippit made use of a behavioral engine who was looking for anticipate the intentions of the user. This technology, however, was not yet able to interpret the context reliablely. The assistant ended up intervening in the least appropriate moments, proposing unsolicited aid and constantly repeating the same suggestions. It was designed to be “optimized for the first use» – To use the words of Chris Pratleya Microsoft employee – but quickly became a source of frustration. Some users have even manually modified the software folders to deactivate it completely, a sign of a general and widespread discontent.
It is noteworthy that, before actually inserting it on its software products, Clippit was the subject of study by some sociologists. Roz I havewho worked several years in Microsoft, reported that the Redmond giant carried out many tests using the technique of Focus Group (which consists of a group interview led by a moderator). In remembering those tests, the lady I have, she says:
Most women (present at test sessions, editor’s note) thought that the characters were too male and that they looked at them badly. The engineers present in the room were willing to throw away the data provided by the Focus-Group-data for which Microsoft had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars-because they did not correspond to their expectations.
Another problem that emerged from the tests was the perception of clips as a character with a vaguely intrusive, if not disturbing behavior. Ignoring these tests was not a very intelligent move, given that the result was an assistant perceived as little empathic and inadequate, both in the form and in functionality.
Why was Clippy deactivated?
Clippit was updated in 2000 e deactivated by default in 2002. Came Completely removed from Office in 2007but his cultural legacy survives: so much so that he has become the subject of memes and parodies. In the 2021 Microsoft “exhumed” it making her image available as emoji in Microsoft 365, after a survey called on Twitter (now X).
