Gayna Williams has been involved in user focused research at Microsoft for 12 years. Before moving to her new position as Director for Product Customer Partner Experience, she was the User Research Director for Windows Vista. In her user research role she managed a team of researchers that comprised usability engineers, ethnographers and data miners who pioneered original approaches to understanding users and impacting products. These include persona use, wide-scale real-time consumer data collection, and exploratory ethnography. During her tenure at Microsoft Gayna has worked on a broad range of products including Windows, Internet Explorer, MSN, NetMeeting, and consumer products. Her new role at Microsoft allows her to leverage her user research experience and also have an even broader view of what it takes to satisfy Microsoft customers and partners. Her undergraduate training was in ergonomics at Loughborough University of Technology, England; her undergraduate project on the use of video to support teams was presented at the 1997 European Computer Supported Cooperative Work conference. She earned a MS at the University of Minnesota in human factors, conducting research on advance traffic information systems for use by general and aging driver populations. She has presented research papers and methods overviews at several conferences and universities.