I read on Seth Godin's Blog something interesting, if not exactly earth shattering today. Seth posed the age-old marketing question of whether we as consumers expect to interact in new, unique ways with a "brand," and by association the company behind the brand.

And it got me thinking about the way we use computers. Do we expect a unique experience when we turn on a computer these days? Or are we simply hoping it works and leave it at that?

Take Windows, for example. I think we've long ago stopped believing that the latest and greatest version of Windows will "wow" us with new features and functionality. We've given up the fantasy that we're going to wake up one morning and our computer's operating system will have magically transformed into an enormously better user experience. And it shows in how Microsoft is perceived. Nobody's out evangelizing Microsoft--well, very few people are anyway.

But Mr. Godin's words got me thinking, why not? Why have we stopped expecting to interact with our computers in novel and unique ways?

One, I suspect, is that the barrier to entry is so high now. You have to know so much "stuff" about the "stuff" to begin with--hardware specifications, protocols, "computer speak," markup languages, terminologies, program interfaces, digital media components, and the list goes on. It's very difficult to enter the realm of the personal computer if you're completely uninitiated. To interact with your computer in novel and unique ways, you have to know how to use it now , and that can be a daunting task.

But more than that, I think it's because the entities providing the experience--in this case, Microsoft in conjunction with the major hardware vendors--have stopped trying. Windows is Windows is Windows, especially since the advent of Windows XP. We all get what Windows "does for us," or at least what it's supposed to do.

But do we think about what it's not doing? For example, has Microsoft ever considered trying to educate its users on the principles behind a typical error message? Yes, they provide an error screen, and a programmer report. But how useful would it be for the typical consumer to have the option to view an educational document written in layman's terms explaining just what exactly a "Fatal Exception Error" actually means? Sure, not every user will read it, or take advantage of it. But if the material was presented cleanly, intelligently, and consistently, eventually Microsoft would build an entire user base of people that would become increasingly self-educated. After a while, with the right approach and interfacing, users would naturally learn to check programs for patches, check connections from the computer system to peripherals, make sure they have the latest drivers loaded.

And some may say that they can do this already via the Web, but it's clearly NOT the same level of activity. Having to go to Google, type in what I hope is the correct search phrase for my error message, and then sift through the results is a vastly different experience than the computer seeing an error message, and prompting the user with an intelligent, coherent suggestion to educate them about the problem. Microsoft obviously has tried to do this, but there is so much room for improvement that it's clear they've barely scratched the surface.

Such an approach is a radical departure from the current state of affairs. It's no wonder that the average Windows PC comes loaded with bloatware; it's because the companies that provide the hardware and software don't want users to have to think about it at all. Which is easer--to educate the consumer enough so that they can competently manage and update their own software, or simply build a memory-resident updater to do it for them? In the short term, the auto-updater wins every time, and in 99.9 percent of cases can be implemented without the user even having to agree with it.

Yet there's an enormous lost opportunity here for software makers to build unique and novel interfaces--if they are committed to do so. But as long as it's simply easier to program an auto-updater to do the work and then assume you're just going to live with it, software makers have little incentive to provide these kinds of innovation.