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The Death of Clippy

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the annoying-desktop-mascots dept.

AppScout interviews Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris on the subject of Office 2007. Harris reveals that Clippy, the bane of all semi-sentient Office users everywhere, is officially dead. The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

26 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the general annoyance of clippy was the fact it kept popping up whenever you did something. In many ways it was actually successful for Office. It showed people that they could use other features that people didn't know it had. Which really did put a nail in the coffin for tools such as word perfect. Now that people know how to do a lot of these advanced features and got use to them, they got frustrated when other word processors don't have or they don't know where the features they enjoy are. That being said because Microsoft successfully monopolized the Office software, they don't need advertise all there features all the time.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. by HappySqurriel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Personally, I think clippy represents what is wrong with office more than anything else. For most users Office is far too complicated, and has far too much functionality, so it "needed" a way to inform average users how to use some of the features.

      Personally, I see three classes of Office users and there seems to be a reasonable argument that there should be three seperate classes of Word/Office for these people; the classes are students/home use who want something which they can write a paper or resume on, office workers who want a little more control over their presentation, and professionals who want complete control over their presentation.

    2. Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. by drsmithy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the general annoyance of clippy [...]

      Funnt thing is, most non-expert users I've interacted with actually _like_ clippy (well, they often change it to another avatar, like the silly little dog, but the point is they like the idea of a "helper").

      The help system that sits behind "Clippy" is excellent. It does what its designed to do very well - the problem expert users have is that they're not interested in what it does.

    3. Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. by Skater · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think what bugs me most about Clippy these days is that one of my coworkers uses Word with it turned on...and her speakers turned up. Way up.

      So every time she saves a file, I hear: "*click* *clank* *ker-chunk*"

      Yes, she's quite inconsiderate about making noise - all day I hear "AAHAAHHHH! I DON'T KNOW HOW ANYONE GETS ANYTHING DONE AROUND HERE!!" (referring to the amount of email she gets), and similar things. Yeah, thanks for spreading the disruption around, lady.

      My boss is no help - well, more correctly, she sympathizes, but she also realizes that we're never going to be able to change this woman's behavior, so the rest of us have to suffer or use headphones and turn the music WAY up to drown out her rantings.

      She and Clippy deserve each other.

  2. Goodnight sweet prince by Salsaman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just heard some sad news on talk radio. Clippy, the Microsoft assistant, was found dead in his Redmond, Seattle apartment this morning. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

    1. Re:Goodnight sweet prince by JamesTRexx · · Score: 5, Funny

      I suggest we all shut down our pc's for a minute at noon tomorrow in remembrance of his death.

      After which we all celebrate by installing *BSD and Linux. Clippy would have wanted it that way.

      --
      home
    2. Re:Goodnight sweet prince by 10e6Steve · · Score: 5, Funny

      He will be buried next to Microsoft Bob.

    3. Re:Goodnight sweet prince by jjeffries · · Score: 5, Funny

      I heard he was found almost completely straightened out, stuck in the emergency eject hole of an old 4x CD-ROM drive... he'd also been receiving emails threatening that someone was going to "f***ing kill" him, yet they're calling it a suicide!

      He will be interred next to his cousin Bob in the solid-gold family crypt.

    4. Re:Goodnight sweet prince by TCM · · Score: 4, Informative

      Beware, though. He might just come back.

      --
      Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
  3. Clippy is NOT dead ... by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The rumours of my death are somewhat exaggerated."

    Clippy is alive and well - he's been ported to linux so that we can hate him too ... http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/

  4. Moments from Clippy's life by babbling · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think the "I'm alright, thank you, fuck off" response pretty much sums it up...

  5. Oh, NOW... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They talk about UI consistency!

    Consistency or not, it was a huge failure of something in the development process.

    I mean, the HATE heaped upon poor Clippy, from the most novice to the most advanced of users, is hard to comprehend. For something to be so wrong for such a wide range of users means it is truly bad. How on Earth did this get past the supposedly rigorous user-testing facility that Microsoft has? Nobody said at some point, "You know, that Clippy thing isn't really helpful. It just gets in the way and is annoying." Nobody? For years?

    From the article, after talking about people who liked him: "There were also an equal number of people who looked at it as interference or an annoyance..." Equal? Equal?!! What kind of bizarro statistics is MS collecting from their user feedback system that it took them years to figure out the problem and at least turn it off by default?

  6. so long clippy by torqer · · Score: 5, Funny

    R.I.P.
    rust in pieces.

  7. Clippy's Mental State by pilsner.urquell · · Score: 5, Funny

    The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.

    Yep, Clippy was definitely incoherent.

  8. Enough! Clippy was the MAN! by LibertineR · · Score: 5, Funny
    Who stayed up with you that night and taught you how to import your old PST's into your new Outlook?

    When you were pulling your hair out trying to expose the BCC field, who saved your ass?

    Who taught a million admin-assists where to learn how to mail-merge?

    ALRIGHT....I admit it.....Clippy was my......lover.

    IS THAT SO WRONG?

  9. One of my Nightmares, Unillustrated by ettlz · · Score: 5, Funny

    \documentclass[11pt]{article}

    "Hello! It looks like you're writing an article. Would you like me to:

    • Prepare a set of subsections for you?
    • Help you publish your work?
    • Do a trick?"

    "By Lamport's Beard! What are you doing here?!"

    "Well, Microsoft chucked me out."

    "How the hell did..."

    "It's this Emacs thing — got a darn powerful LISP engine, you know. It's very roomy in here."

    Meta-M doctor

    "Oh, sorry, it's not that big. He's been evicted. Now, about that article—"

    "Look... just... bugger off!" [Click!]

    \usepackage{amsmath}
    \usepackage[varg]{txfonts}

    \begin{document}

    "Hello! It looks like you're writing an document. Would you like me to:

    • —"

    "Sod off and die."

    \author{The Holy ettlz}
    \title{The Art of Paperclips}

    "Oh."

    "Yes, 'Oh'! Now get out of Emacs before I drag Donald E. Knuth himself over here."

    "No need to get nasty. Hmmph."

    A few hours later:

    Integrate[1/Sqrt[x^3 - 2], x]

    "Hello! It looks like you're trying to evaluate an integral. Would you like me to:

    • Add limits?
    • Draw a graph?
    • Do a trick?
    Oh, and by the way, it's very roomy in here!"
  10. Who killed Clippy? by rlp · · Score: 4, Funny

    It was Steve Balmer in the library with a chair.

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  11. clippy lives in vi! by eneville · · Score: 5, Funny

    anyone seen the vi clippy? http://www.petebevin.com/archives/vim.gif

    --
    Why UNIX?
  12. Vorpal bladework by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "And, has thou slain the Clippywock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
    He chortled in his joy.
    Good heavens, that's almost ... almost... enough reason to suggest upgrading to MSOffice 2007. Of course the fact that the rest of the UI is being needlessly changed is enough reason to suggest not upgrading. "You seem to be trying to figure out how to open a document, or where the hell the Tools menu disappeared to. Would you like to take a remedial word processing class to learn how we want you to do it now?"
    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  13. It looks like you're trying to post to Slashdot... by celardore · · Score: 5, Funny
    Would you like help:
    • Trolling
    • Being interesting or informative
    • Posting something obvious
    • Flamebaiting
    Drat, there's no help for being funny =(
  14. While you're at it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could someone put down that miserable dog in the XP search module?

  15. This must be a sign that Bill is really not as by Growlor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    influential or at least not as feared by MS leadership. The REAL reason clippy was inflicted on us was because he was (as another slashdot poster mentioned) the "last piece of MS Bob technology." The project manager for MS Bob is now better known as Mrs Bill Gates.

  16. Clippy Cartoons :-) by mrcgran · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clippy Goes Undercover
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJCv8ru3L98

    Clippy Gets Clipped
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB03aRifPLU

    Clippy faces facts
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMShkAZR1-Q&NR

  17. Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task by Fred_A · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This exactly sums up my experience with those little assistants.

    While the idea in itself isn't bad, the execution just didn't work. The help offered was either completely off the mark (as above) or apparently targeted at people who had seen a computer for the first time just the week before (a bit like the Windows on-line help - this is how you format a floppy).

    I haven't used MS office a lot since I don't use Windows but get exposed to it every now and then and could use a decent interactive assistant since I don't know my way around it very well. OTOH of course it's pretty much the same as any other such piece of software so I can always find what I'm looking for by poking around a bit. But a competent assistant would be a time saver.

    It would however be very difficult to do properly.

    I guess users are better off without the assistant than with screen space devoted to a useless one.

    --

    May contain traces of nut.
    Made from the freshest electrons.
  18. Don't go, Clippy by Lazerf4rt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sure, it's easy to only remember the bad times. But who among us can honestly say we won't miss him? His knowing winks, his cute little antics. His sage, though sometimes random and unrelated, wisdom. I already feel a piece of my heart missing and I fear it will never be clipped back together.

    Cue Cinderella's "Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone".

  19. The original clippy was good by ericlondaits · · Score: 4, Informative

    When one of the developers/researchers working in MSN Search came to my university to give a one week course on probability based models for search applications he told us that originally Clippy was meant to run with a quite advanced AI (based on a probability model), but was changed before shipping for the much more simpler version we all knew. I'm not sure but I think it was to decrease CPU utilization.

    The mostly crappy AI made it extra annoying, the rest is history.

    --
    As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.