Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Changes Office 2007 Interface Again
daria42 writes "Microsoft has modified its interface for Office 2007 yet again, after complaints from beta testers that the 'ribbon' system took up too much space on screen. The article discusses the resistance the new interface is likely to prompt in old users of the software, both at a personal and corporate level. From a format perspective, there are other changes to expect as well." From the article: "Hodgson also confirmed that Microsoft is working on tools to help enterprises automatically translate existing documents into new file formats being introduced in Office 2007. 'We've been asked by a lot of customers to provide tools to do mass migrations,' he said. 'There will be tools that will take a million documents and migrate those to the new formats.' One likely incentive for that migration will be reduced storage costs. Microsoft claims that file sizes for the new Office 2007 XML-based formats are up to 75 percent less than existing Office formats."
But you already get more document space than you used to with the ribbon UI!
I like the ribbon.
'There will be tools that will take a million documents and migrate those to the new formats.'
Three words: backup, backup, backup
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Are these new changes happening out of some desire to resemble the old Windows software as little as possible? Is there some kind of necessity to change the interface? Does it need a complete overhaul?
I'm sure lots of people are gonna respond to that with a resounding "YES", but I personally have gotten used to what it is. It took me years to learn the ins and outs of Office after computers stopped coming bundled with MS Word. Even now, I've done away with that side-by-side view in Outlook 2003 and moved everything back to the same way it was in 2000. This goes the same for most other programs which throw in an abundance of menus and graphics to try to make things TOO user friendly. Nine times out of ten, if there is an option for the "traditional view", I'll take it.
I dunno, maybe I'm just living in the past. I still use vi on Linux, I still use Notepad in windows whenever I can, and I don't feel any desire to get used to any "ribbons" flying across my screen.
--
"A man is asked if he is wise or not. He replies that he is otherwise." ~Mao Zedong
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
So all that crap about junk being saved in a DOC file must have gotten back to Redmond.
So I wonder what they'll be dropping from the format?
Articles about GUI's without images make baby Jesus cry. Google gives these as the old design, hope it helps.
--
Superb hosting 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, php, mysql, ssh, $7.95
New interface does that mean harder to use or easier to make everything disappear? or both? It really would be time saving if it just did both at once for me.
So many choices, so little tolerance.
But once converted, will you be able to save back into the old version
to communicate with un-upgraded versions of office, or is this the
way you will be forced to upgrade all copies of office?
We don't want a new Office 2007 XML document format, just implement ODF correctly according to the specifications and be done with it. Allow the older formats in order to open legacy documents, but ODF should be the default on all new Office releases.
Anyone have any ideas?
Have they done anything to counter the bloat we have seen with the most recent betas?
.NET applications may not be too severe for smaller apps, but once an application reaches the size of Office, the overhead becomes quite a problem.
But then again, perhaps nothing can be done. It has been reported that a much greater portion of Office 2007 is written in C# rather than C++, which was used for the previous recent versions of Office. The memory and CPU overhead of
While earlier versions of Office would run just fine on computers with 800 to 1000 MHz processors, and 256 MB of RAM, this appears not to be the case with Office 2007. There have been reports that it's basically unusable on such systems. Those aren't the newest systems available by any means, but they're still relatively powerful computers that are still being used by thousands of companies, educational facilities and individuals worldwide.
Presumably to make up for the >33% increase in the size of their new software? :)
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
There is nothing about any office 2007 in their silly mactopia page.
Judging from past conversions, you'd better keep the original version close at hand, because when the conversion doesn't look right, you're going to have people wanting the original. So now you're dealing with 25% more storage - the original files as a safety copy, and the new 'improved' conversions. Hmmm.
I'm a little disappointed to read that MS is changing the ribbon system. Maybe it's because I run at 1280x1024 at home and at work, but I absolutely adore the ribbon system. As rarely as I feel that it takes up too much space, I can always double-click the tabbed heading to minimize it until I click a heading again. I found the admittedly oversized ribbon to be welcoming and easy to read and click. I wish all the Office 2007 programs used it, but some (like Outlook, Visio, and Infopath) keep with the pulldown bar.
.DOC will remain the default file format until, I estimate, at least 2010, unless MS makes a .DOCX interpreter for prior iterations.
I've been using Word for about 10 years and have come to know its little foibles and workarounds and sub-sub-sub menus. That being said, the SECOND time I used Word 2007 I was able to teach others how to use it! It's an absolute triumph of GUI design and I'm really enthusiastic about its final release. I'm also dreading the coming of February when my free beta expires and becomes unusable.
And on the topic of mass migration - don't go nuts with that, Microsoft. Even if a company wants to implement Office 2007 among its entire ranks, interoperability with other shops who will be reluctant to upgrade (due to cost of licensing and training) will mean that
Exactly, then jurisdictions that have mandated an open document format have no excuse not to use Office. Office can than compete based on its feature set, ease of use and overall productivity and not due to file format lock-in. That isn't the Microsoft way, though.
And while I haven't tried the new "ribbon" based Office interface, based on screenshots alone the new interface seems to be an improvement. I can understand the complaint that the ribbon method of displaying all of the contextual options takes up a lot of space, but it does seem more usable than a toolbar of cryptic icons.
At least the new XML format will be easier to reverse-engineer than the old DOC formats.
$5 says by the time Office 2k7 comes out, it won't have the ribbon at all.
They just can't seem to make their minds up about their feature sets! Hey Microsoft, take a page from Apple's book: don't announce features until you're SURE they're going into the product!!!
I know a lot of people don't like change. Especially 'dumb' office users who just sit and use Word and Excel all day. But as an avid user of Office 2007 beta, I have to say that after getting used to the ribbon, it is quite handy, and I find it to be faster than the menu system. As for it being too big and taking up too much of the screen... I think that's a bit of crap right there. If you have the default Word layout, add one toolbar (let's say Adobe put its annoying toolbar in there for you), and that toolbar is below the default bars, then the ribbon is about the same size. Also, with the standard resolution being 1024 by 767 and most 17 inch LCDs being able to display at 1280 by 1024 I don't see why space is of so much importance that they layout has to be Altered again.
Things change, learn to use the new "tool" (read: ribbon) and move along. Its really not that big
"We've been asked by a lot of customers to provide tools to do mass migrations"
AFLAC account still pretty important, Bill?
Where were you when the voynix came?
Lets get rid of that ugly top menu and controls! And replace it with an... ugly top menu... and controls.
And call it a ribbon, so it's a new feature that suddenly compels people to purchase the software?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I really hate the UI changes in each version of Office and wish there was a "classic" setting that causes a default skin to be displayed with everything in a standardized spot. Why? Because when my mother/sister/neighbour's cat purchases a new computer it inevitably comes with a new version of Office that has features senselessly 'hidden' in different spots. It causes no end of agony to help these poor users adapt. After all, most people need little more than a glorified typewriter with spell-checking. Microsoft should offer "Office Extrasimple Basic" for folks like these.
Of course, they'd market it in a way that encouraged people to upgrade "just in case they need the ability to do something powerful."
AFAIR it's pretty easy to change the default to whatever you want. Factory setting is still .docx
This is what I've always said about people's reluctance to switch to Linux; it's not that software isn't as good for most users, it's that it's simply not what they're used to.
Many people claim to be sick of MS and the intrusiveness and high costs of being legal, but when they try Linux they complain that it's not Microsoft.
Well, now it looks like, with this new Ribbon thing, users will complain because, according to the article, there will be inconsistency between MS applications - some will have the ribbon, some won't.
It's not even whether or not the ribbon is a bad thing, it's that people don't like learning new things.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Yes! To HELL with that damn paperclip!
What's with stories that talk about something clearly visual and then not have screenshots or photos?
... and there isn't a screenshot on the first page of the article [... we'll ignore the "split a 1000 word article into 300 pages to make ad revenue ...]
... "Car rolled 98 times and then burst into flames" and the only picture is of some old dude taking viagra or whatever ad the "news" site has ...
It's a story about a new UI
Almost as bad as the stories linked to by fark
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
In any given hour of work in Word or Excel, do you know how often I use menus, buttons or anything outside the actual document/worksheet space? Maybe once or twice for Word, maybe only a little more for Excel. The reason? Shortcuts, people, shortcuts.
How office-monkeys can sit in their Dell Hells day after day, doing the same crap over and over again, without learning
a) to touch type and
b) how to do things a bit quicker and easier with the keyboard
is absolutely beyond me.
What do I need from my UI? Leave it as it is. I have exactly two toolbars in either Word or Excel, and use a fraction of each (if I'm that concerned about screen space, I'll customise more carefully). Anything beyond my capabilities with keyboard and the odd button, I will happily use a menu for. Anyone who tells me how much easier and more intuitive Ribbons are to use, I say this: I've tried it, and I found them exactly as useful as the current UI, ie not at all.
No, this is not a "I don't need no stinkin' upgrades" rant. This is a "For God's sake, people, learn to use the tools you have properly and you'll work quicker, easier and not give a damn about this either" tirade.
Meta will eat itself
I would agree with your moderation of my comment if it was directed with a generally Microsoft-bashing slant. But that's not the case. I use Office both in my personal and professional lives, and it's basically one of those software packages I cannot function without due to professional requirements. It does its job very, very well.
What it hasn't done is give anyone any compelling reasons to upgrade. Someone needs to explain precisely how this "ribbon" feature adds value. What does it say about the product as a whole when it's THE most talked-about aspect of the new version? Is the product so stagnant that the only way to get people to eye it as a purchase is to shuffle around the UI a bit?
That's what I was trying to point out, and hopefully spur some discussion about. That's NOT flamebaiting.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Who will not use the ribbon?
When you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
> There will be tools that will take a million documents and migrate those to the new formats.
Why wouldn't there be? What's hard about it? It's a small piece of data going through a simple transform.
Any script/shell cmd you can think of will process that, executing through a tool that would convert them one at a time....
Modern UI:s should use their new sidebars (like the ones seen in vista, office and so on) to help reduce the size of the top toolbars & menus. When more and more monitors are widescreen and resolution has not improved much (the most common laptop resolution today is 1280x800!) then the vertical space needs to be efficiently used. This is especially true for a word processor, which normally uses a portrait format document.
Does anyone know if this whole "ribbon" thing can be used docked on the left side, to allow the full screen height for the document itself?
And it's not just the OS changing.
The keyboard shortcuts change whether you're doing something in the OS interface or an application interface.
So someone learning ctrl-b in one app is confused when their focus is on a different app and a different function is invoked.
EVERYTHING else on the market has an interface specifically designed for it. Only computer systems use the keyboard/mouse interface for every application.
for those of us who haven't seen the ribbon ui in action
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I suspect that the reason they changed the UI so much in 2003 and now in 2007 is because they knew that sys admins could easily install OpenOffice, and users probably wouldn't even notice. I know a lot of people who don't like the 2003 UI though, and it sounds like there are more who don't like the 2007 one, so I guess it bites you in the ass when you change the UI for reasons other than helping users.
Personally, I would much prefer vehicles to be upgraded to a voice control interface, where I get in, say where I want to go, and kick back with a book until I arrive. Cars have stable UIs, but they're far from ideal UIs.
I'm all for cutting-edge design and pushing the envelope with visual metaphors, but the ribbon concept feels too much like a brainstorm of what can be done to make this version of office more sellable than any previous version. I admit that I like the concept and have played with the beta, but ribbons alone doesn't make it worth it to me to upgrade from office 2000 (which I've come to appreciate the sort of lean-n-mean look you can give it).
In essence, they're stuck: it's still a word processor, spreadsheet, and slide creator. Today's fancy computerized presses are still just variations on Gutenberg's idea; without a total re-think of writing, communication, calculation (which is pretty much beyond *my* grasp), future versions of office will be more-of-the-same forever, which means I don't feel any need to upgrade, and thus MS loses a customer.
Of course, I don't expect MS to come up with any major revolutionary products...they would alienate the business customer too much (which even the ribbon idea is apparently doing).
Two possibilities:
1. It is not XML at all. It is highly compressed, encrypted, obfuscated, binary data sitting between XML tags. Make sure no body can read/write these files. OpenOffice can read Office97 format? Well, let us see how they read Office2007 format. That will show them. Call it XML. Then make sure it is not readable by anyone else. Make sure even trying to read it an offence under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
2. DOC format is that extravagent in its use of disk space. Most of the fanboys of MS-Office talk about the very long wait times for OpenOffice to launch. Even Bill Gates reportedly derided the long file open times of OpenOffice. So it is possible, to make the difference more apparent and to drive home the advantage, some kooky manager added things to make rendering of the first screen within microseconds a high priority. Save some quick to render stuff very early in the doc file, and render it on one thread while the other thread is continuing to read the file. Such decisions have a way of coming back and biting the backsides.
Either way touting 75% lower storage requirements looks stupid these days. How many terabytes of storage one can buy if you skip upgrading to Office2007?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
For years now, OpenOffice.org users have had smaller documents both in OpenOffice.org 1.0 Format and OpenDocument format (ODF), both of which are based on XML and ZIP. Now, OpenDocument is an ISO standard. Also, many other applications already also support OpenDocument.
Since Microsoft was a member of OASIS when OpenDocument when the format was standardized, people have questioned why Microsoft created its own, different format instead of adopting also OpenDocument. In any case, now Microsoft sort of supports a third-party ODF plugin.
Eh? Is it too damn hard to double-click on the active menu tab to hide it? Geeez. This sounds like such a minor adjustment, I don't see what the big deal is. :/
The story is just talking about the option to make the ribbon minimized and autohide, in which case it looks more like a menu, but it's still a ribbon. The autohide/minimized setting is not the default setting.
6 72345.aspx
See Jensen Harris' blog entry of a July 20 for accurate info:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/07/20/
I swear, the tech media is getting worse and worse with their misleading, inaccurate, and shallow stories.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
If you used compression and no XML, it'd be even smaller than the compressed XML.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
You know your file format is bloated when the same document can be described in XML and be 75% smaller.
Game... blouses.
It's a zipped XML file. I'm a middling programmer at best and I can parse an XML doc. There will be a converter for OO.o two days after release. If Java didn't make me feel slimy inside, I'd write one myself!
Do people REALLY get bent out of shape like this when they get a format that they can open perfectly well--in fact, just about seamlessly with their suite of choice? Does your blood pressure spike when someone sends you a link to a Flash file? (Exceptions for those browsing on Linux, as then it may just not work, eh?)
AbiWord, OpenOffice, KOffice--they all can open DOC-format files, but I hear bitching and more bitching about them. Bitching about DOC isn't going to make ODF (which, as it happens, I like quite a bit, and do think *should* be the standard) any more prevalent.
Get over yourself. Attitudes like yours are why people think Linux is hard and unfriendly, and you're passing the same to the new fad cause of ODF.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Most of the reduction in file size is due to the fact that OpenXML, like other XML document formats, stores the various pieces in zip files. The zip compression is what's lowering file size.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Yep, but the problem is poor educators who allow rote learning, and even incorrect learning, instead of ensuring *understanding*. A classic example is the number of people who thing that the computer is the "CPU" or the "hard drive" because educators said "hard drive", and pointed to the computer, and students got the wrong idea. This seems like a trivial thing, but then you try to explain to someone that they've saved their file on the "hard drive" as opposed to the "floppy drive" which they think is PART of their hard drive, and the whole thing gets messed up. We just need educators who start at the beginning, with files and filesystems, and what a text file is, before allowing people to move on to how to put their pictures into their word 2003 proprietary rich document format with embedded spreadsheets.
Here's what happened: Adoption of previous editions of Office have been slowed by, among other things, objections over the cluttered and confusing interface. Microsoft tried in their own (perhaps misguided) way to improve that over the years, and in doing so, they added bars and panes ad infinitum - a taskbar, a task pane, a help pane, new context menus, etc. - without much fanfare.
Since there was no real set of organizing principles for the evolution of the Office interface, these new toolspaces naturally filled up in a hurry as different internal groups poured their junk into them. This wasn't helping to reduce the clutter any, so they simultaneously tried making the main application menu context-sensitive, further confusing experienced users.
All these parallel but disconnected efforts tended to defeat each other more than anything, so this time around, MS decided to try something different: Take about 200 different interface ideas, test them with focus groups, and may the best one win. After that, make all the UI developers retrofit their stuff into a coordinated workflow based on the new winner, which is where they are today.
Basically, this is a first attempt at escaping the chains of their poor UI legacy, and perhaps a risky one at that. They estimate that only power users will be comfortable picking the new UI up on their own. For average users, they expect that some guided training will be necessary - all combined, probably just shy of a day's worth.
Personally, I think they'd have been better off monitoring clicks & keystrokes of a *vast* test group using previous office editions, after which they could form a core set of the most important interaction elements based on the 20% or so most used actions. Also, it didn't help that keyboard shortcuts were never standardized across the Office suite; power users who expected e.g. Ctrl+Tab to do the same thing in Word as in Excel were quickly alienated, and once alienated, it's not easy to win a user back.
Pi Ran Out
GroupBar: I love this product, especially once I started playing around with some of the options. Why the current Windows taskbar doesn't incorporate all these functions is beyond me. Note: there is no shortcut created anywhere by the installer, go into \program files\microsoft research\groupbar and run from there. Scalable Fabric: I found this is the more interesting approach, however it's a buggy implementation and only good for playing around with. Jonah HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
The story is just talking about the option to keep the ribbon in a minimized and only extend when actually used, in which case it looks more like a menu, but it's still a ribbon. This is NOT the default setting.
6 72345.aspx
See Jensen Harris' blog entry of a July 20 for accurate info, including a video of the minimized ribbon in action:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/07/20/
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
that "ribbon" looks really really like the dreamweaver UI layout
ok, correct me if I'm wrong....."office" is a BUSINESS (as it is sold) piece of software. Then who cares how "pretty" it is....if it works, then leave it alone. What they "should" do is something like the UI in Windows. Allow the IT departments to have it in "pretty" mode, or "standard" mode. Most of the office monkey types that use Office are use to the old interface. Takes longer to learn something new, then, just give them the option instead of forcing a new UI on everyone.
My wife (uses a powerbook running OSX) HATES every software update I run on the computer. It always makes some change to some app, like iPhoto, that moves, hides, or changes some function she had previously figured out. And she bitches at me about it. The last time I attended a meeting where a Microsoft Rep did a presentation for the new Office UI, the Rep literally said, "Everyone has gotten so used to this old toolbar, and have learned how to do the few things they need to with it. So we're going to change it, to make it easier for users to learn how to do more with it." Brilliant. NO, they are just going to have to re-learn how to do the few things they already know how to do. And they are going to complain. And anyone that does end-user computer support is going to take the heat.
I have to agree that the ribbon is "better" in that it does make it easier to find functins and settings that you don't already know. And I use Word infrequently enough (lucky me!) that the ribbon is a real improvement. But, the wife would bitch about it for weeks, just because it's a change.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
What a surprise. The Office formats are two or three times as bloated as storing things in XML. Who would have suspected it, from Microsoft.
I was just "upgraded" at work to the current version of MS Office, and several of my Word paragraph styles now have unwanted tab stops that can only be removed one paragraph at a time with the unindent toolbar key. They do not appear anywhere in the style definitions. Great. Let's all upgrade to 2007.
I welcome our new Office 2007 overlords.
Hey guys, while we are on the topic of Microsoft, who wants to slashdot Microsoft.com? simply put some links from it on the article
Satanic Cats
Jensen Harris, the lead program manager for the Office user experience, blogged about this change on July 24. He even has videos. His blog is a very comprehensive journal that describes the evolution of the Office 2007 UI, including decisions that went into building the Ribbon.
Warning: jensenh is a good writer, probably on par with Joel Spolsky, so be prepared to spend hours reading through his archives.
How long until Alan de Botton is producing three-part documentaries on 'pastiche' user interfaces? :)
Believe with me, my saplings.
The reduction to 25% filesize is being achieved by compression. This is meant to be good as it saves disk space. However I suspect the network resource saving may be greater. For corporate use you'll have say 1,000 users on a 50 GB file server, just think about the auto save & recovery options... every 10 minutes trying to say say 5MB of open files ?
It will cut down on read/write network traffic as well as saving time/resources server side. 75% overnight would grab you an extra 3 years on your volume capacity lifespan (assuming current volume nearly full & growth rate of 60% p/a).
There may actually be an infrastructural business case to upgrade...
ZOMG! When they are asked about ODF support - they have not enough customer's demand. But when bunch of higher-ups are going to shoot themselves publicly in heads - they hear that voice very strongly.
Whoever might have made up that "mass migration" demand - s/he just doesn't have clue how it works. People shiver whenever they recall last M$Office transition they have been responsible for - but now M$ want to automate that.
But seriously, how many people think that M$ brand new DOCX xml file format would fly? After all it is not backward compatible - so more or less everybody would still use old and tried RTF/DOC files. Buying into brand new M$Office licensing to be able to use the documents internally only? - make no sense. My company for about 3 last years uses internally OO.o1/2: not the greatest stuff - but it just works most of the time. Documents for external use are still old DOC/RTF or PDFs. What would we gain by adopting the DOCX??
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
They aren't changing shit.
6 72345.aspx6 76371.aspx
5 77485.aspx
d rive.mspx
This article is rediculous FUD and increadibly bias. But yea, I know "you must be new here"....
A feature they wanted in the Ribbon from the start, but were afraid they would not have time for, got bumped in the priority queue due to customer feedback. Basically, the ribbon always could collapse, but now it can AutoHide. Whooopie! Let's bash Microsoft.
Watch the movies here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/07/20/
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/07/24/
And the Ribbon does not take up all that much space, see the comparisons and pixel height counts here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/
I've been a Office 2007 Beta 2 user since it's release. The new UI is fantastic. Try it out for yourselves:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/beta/test
http://brandonbloom.name
Despite that I have to mask as Mozilla in Opera to use it, Writely.com has become my word processor. So many people need NOTHING more than this - and it is free, easy to use and exports to many formats (HTML, Doc, PDF). Plus, I can use collaboration - also for free - without needing some bloated Sharepoint server or similar to do so. Who needs a ribbon?
Somehow I doubt this strongly.
In fact, the only customers who could even use this would be ones who not only switch over everybody to office 2K+7 in one fell swoop, but also have every outside source they'll ever trade files with also switched, including everybody's home systems.
I can see why MS will want to switch entire companies over to the new, incompatible formats, but I personally doubt that anyone outside of MS is asking for this.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"I told you so" comments which had to point out the "duh" points to Microsoft.
Screen estate = priceless. Don't squander it.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I don't think a new word processor file format is a matter of Life & Death. Not like the other devices you list above.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Even if the article is about Microsoft, I'm surprised to find that people here don't like the ribbon idea at all. When I first saw it I thought the design was revolutionary and considerably more intuitive for users new to computers. Functions are better organized toward what the user wants to do as opposed to the vague categories we have in today's menubars that frequently require people to search multiple different menus to find what they want (Edit vs. Tools, View vs. Window). I do however agree with an earlier poster's remark that the design uses precious vertical space even though today's monitors are moving towards increased horizontal space. In Word this is tough to pull off because the primary use (creating an 8 1/2 x 11 document) demands vertical space, but surely there are other non-office applications that could benefit from this new style?
Enjoy!
The two things are used and function in entirely different ways. Cars have one practical purpose: convey the driver and passengers to a destination. A word processor's practical purpose is to record and display information. The car interface doesn't need to change because its function never changes. You need these functions while driving: ignition, gear change, break, acceleration, steering. Optionally you will need radio, AC and comfort accessories. The UI for each of the functions can be spread out over a large section of the interior of the car. The word processor UI is required to be much more powerful, making thousands of functions available and organizing them coherently. Many of the functions are interdependent and change state often. Some (e.g. add-ons) are not even known to the UI designer at the time he designs it. In many ways the word processor designer has much less to work with in terms of real estate and visibility. It also has to change to meet the user's choice of custom configurations and fit into multiple screen sizes.
People like comparing computer UIs to car UIs because a car is simple, unchanging and well known. But it's a meaningless comparison. There is no perfect word processor UI and none that will make every user happy. Microsoft was right to try to better organize the UI. The screenshots the new UI, including the ribbon feature seem to show a smarter, more coherent approach. If the critics want more editing room, they should buy bigger screens. They can probably customize the ribbon to take up less space anyway. Think about what program you would rather support over the telephone: a smartly organized one whos UI is coherent and explainable or a hodgepoge of buttons and menus that have to be memorized and ferreted out.
put as many fancy ribbons on a smelly old goat as you like, but it's still a smelly old goat
I'm no fan of MS' products, but this is pure FUD. It's perhaps one of the best and easiest interfaces/GUIs I've seen so far (better than any version of WP/OOo/SO/Works/whatever else I've used - and by a long shot). Very easy to use. Yes, some of the odd options for almost obscure funtions can be hard to find, but 99% of what most people use it for is very easy to find. The other options are most often used by advanced users, which will know where to find it, or at least how to search help (just press F1) or google for the answer. If they made it easier to find, then you'd whine about clutter for stuff that doesn't matter to most people or such. They just can't win it seems.
And comparing it to page layout apps (such as Quark and InDesign - they're NOT word processors) is a quite unfair. Of course they're better at page layout related things - it's the whole point of the app!
I'm not saying I like all of the functions, how they are implemented, or that it has all the features I want or anything like that, but calling it the "worst UI ever" is WAY beyond ridiculous.
Personally, I like the ribbons and find it easier to locate the tools I want to use, after all the old style is not perfect and innovation is about trying new ideas to see if it works better this other way. After all, it is easy to go with something you know and like as well as to complain about something that is different. Try to get past the "I do not like different" so you can provide a good evaluation of it first. But, perhaps Microsoft should allow for the ribbon as well as allowing for the old ms word interface to see how people have a choice.
However, I would not buy Work 2007 just to get the new interface, but it does get my attention to want to look at the product where as I would not have otherwise. I think Word could take a page out of the Grammar checker in WordPerfect as well as other improvement in the program.
How about presenting the user with perspectives like Eclipse.
/My 0.02
A perspective is a visual container for a set of views and editor tools for a particular activity.
Lets say you start with the default or "Basic" perspective where everything is presented in a very simple and easy format. No fancy wizards or formatting tool bars. But if you want to put a graph or create a big multi column table you would switch to a perspective like "Graphs" or "Tabular Data".
All perspectives work on the same document but each perspective highlights the propoerties of the things you want to focus on.
One thing I haven't noticed anyone comment on is how similar the "ribbon" idea is to the wordperfect for Mac interface. You had basically a single toolbar, with a single row of buttons on it. Every button activated another toolbar -- ruler, edit, etc. It was actually pretty handy. The button on the "main" toolbar were all text labeled, too, so you didn't have to guess what they were. And it was easy to activate/deactivate toolbars, so you were always just looking at the one(s) you needed without taking up a lot of extra real estate.
- Alaska Jack
To those noting that DOC is 4 times larger than OpenXML, and are therefore gloating that this proves that DOC is bloated, how about Adobe's PDF?
I've just downloaded the just released ECMA Draft 1.4 OpenXML Specs. They are 5 files, available in both DOCX (the OpenXML version of DOC) and PDF.
The PDF files are 4 to 7 times larger than the DOCX files (except for the "Part 3 - Primer" doc, where the PDF file is only 1.2 times larger than the corresponding DOCX file).
For the main file, "Part 4 - Markup Language Reference", the PDF version is is 42MB and the DOCX version is 10MB.
Just adding some perspective.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
i've been using office 2007 beta 2 for quite some time now. their new ui is actually better and more user friendly than the old one. it is easier to do the functions you need in one click (mostly.) however, i just would want that old menus still be there because there are times when i am at a loss to a previous function in the menu and i can't seem to find it through the ribbons. other improvements (great productivity boost) that i liked is the 'preview' mechanism that displays changes to the text by just pointing to the selection. ex. the text adjust its size and font as you browse through the selection.
i install it in my laptop and when other people see it, they find it cool that they would also like to get a copy of it. but alas, microsoft started charging for the download of the software. i was lucky to have it before (the product key is not transferrable to other computers by the way.)
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
What the hell is the point of publishing an article about a *Graphical*UI with no pictures?
muppets!
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
How long before we see a free tool to convert them all back again?
No sig today...