Preview the Office 2007 Ribbon-Like UI Floated For OpenOffice.Org

recoiledsnake writes "OpenOffice.org has prototyped a new UI that radically changes the current OO.o interface into something very similar to the new ribbon style menus that Office 2007 introduced and which have been extensively used throughout Windows 7. The blog shows a screenshot of the prototype in Impress (the equivalent of PowerPoint), but this UI is proposed to be used across all OO.o applications. Some commenters on the Sun blog are not happy about OO.o blindly aping Office 2007, and feel that the ribbon UI may be out of place in non-Windows operating systems."

Comments

How about some nice menus instead?

[russotto]

The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[haifastudent]

The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.

As a casual user with no time or interest to do a full OOo course (or even RTFM usually) I welcome the Ribbon UI. I understand that experienced and advanced users may not like it, but assuming that the original interface is not removed then the addition of the ribbon would certainly help weekend users like myself.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[A Friendly Troll]

The Ribbon is no good even in Windows. And isn't it patented? There's no reason Open Office needs to ape Microsoft's mistakes.

What mistakes?

Microsoft invested an incredible amount of time (and money) into usability research for the Ribbon, conducted with vast thousands of people (close to 10k, I believe) with various levels of computer literacy. The Ribbon is a result of that, and it's - objectively speaking - a massive improvement over standard Office menu hell.

Calling that a mistake is, well, a mistake.

If you have a problem with the Ribbon, it's YOUR problem, and it's statistically insignificant.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[pixelpusher220]

GUI usage is great for 'objects' like files where the variability between objects is relatively few.

*Actions* however are orders of magnitude more numerous. When you have to memorize an icon for every single action, it gets unwieldy. Icon graphics can only be so detailed before they are just blurs. *words* (little w) represent pretty specific ways to describe things and have done pretty well through the years me thinks.

Given Word's penchant for "everything including 5 kitchen sinks" in available functionality, it doesn't scale well to the icon/ribbon concept.

Most of this would be completely moot if MS has simply made the ribbon AN OPTION...but they force fed it to everybody. I don't want OO doing the same thing.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[Chapter80]

Any toolbar that needs a SEARCH to find SEARCH is broken.

That flippin' Find and Replace moves all over the place, from application to application. And if the Ribbon moves items based on usage (which it seems to), then it's a nightmare for support personnel:

"See the little icon next to Sort & Filter? You don't have Sort and Filter? OK what Icons do you have?"

Not to mention that Microsoft's categorization is just plain bad. Want to Insert a Powerpoint Slide? Don't press the Insert tab. Want to insert a row in Excel? Surely that's on the insert tab (nope).

Want to find out the Properties of a document in Word? Let's see, would Properties be under Home, Insert, Page Layout, Mailings, Review, View, or Add-Ins. I could make a case for several of those, but View seems to make the most sense... as in View Properties. But noooooooooooo .... it's under the "Click the unnamed icon with multi-colored squares on it, and press Prepare". WTF???

I've griped about this before... I'm sure the Ribbon has potential, IF IMPLEMENTED WELL, but it wasn't. Maybe Open Office will get it right.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[swilver]

The worst thing you can possibly do in a UI is hide stuff inconsistently (ie, outside of user control) or move stuff around.

For example, hiding menu options based on use patterns. What purpose does this serve? To save screen space? The user remembers the option they want (if they donot use the hotkey) by placement (almost at the top, just below the middle, etc). Hiding options screws this up. These experts seem to believe users actually READ all the options (or look at icons or something). They don't. They just remember that the recycler was somewhere bottom right, the file menu with open option is top left, tools is somewhere on the right side next to help, etc..

The same thing goes for moving options around, it doesn't matter for what reason. Moving them around means that the option that was in the right corner last week is suddenly somewhere in the middle this week -- mega fail.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[tftp]

You know, pull-down menus are pretty confusing to first-time users, too.

But they are not "in your face". People can work Word just fine without ever using the menu bar. Standard toolbars have everything for a common man. And those toolbars don't flicker on their own, so once you learn where the "Open File" button is, it's always there and the mouse movement is automatic. With ribbon you always need to look and comprehend why you see something else where another button was just a moment ago. That "feature" requires learning the whole palette of ribbons just to figure out where you are each time you need something.

Also, menus are structured far better. Everything insertable is generally under "Insert", everything about tables is in "Table" etc. In ribbons of MS Office some functions are duplicated, some are bound to the right-click event, and some are simply impossible to find. I remember looking for a footnote for 10 minutes; I did find it somewhere, but if I need to do that again I have no clue how that ribbon/button looks like.

Also, not everyone is image-oriented. There is a reason why most languages on Earth use limited character set, and why Chinese and Japanese and Korean scripts (CJK) [plus a couple more] are so hard to learn. Humans do better with fewer characters and longer words because our ability to distinguish shapes is not as good as our ability to form one complex object out of several simple ones.

Re:How about some nice menus instead?

[Allicorn]

with no obvious reading order

Absolutely bang on. You've hit the nail on the head with that.

The menu has a simple structure which can be understood instantly and extrapolates indefinitely. Go to the word that seems most relevant -> then to a more relevant word -> ... -> reach the exact word you were looking for. Once a user flips through a menu or two, finding any option - no matter how deep - only depends on whether the authors have made sensible organizational and linguistic choices.

The ribbon, as a wide rectangular region of varyingly sized/shaped/functional widgets - rather than a consistent tree of words - is a UI nightmare.

Knew this was going to happen.

[mingot]

It only sucks in office until OO.o can implement it. Flame on.

Sounds like a bad idea to me

[danaris]

They want to take what's probably the single most reviled "feature" of MS Office 2007 and put it into OpenOffice? When one of the big selling points of OpenOffice, among people I've talked to, is that it looks and feels more like the Office they're used to?

Please tell me they're only thinking of putting it in as an opt-in option, not as the default or only option...

Dan Aris

Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me

[Hatta]

This is why the interface should be distinct from the core. They should just focus on writing a good word processing engine, and let others design user interfaces for it.

Re:Sounds like a bad idea to me

[Desler]

I'm extrapolating from what I hear on Slashdot, what I hear on other online sites, and what I see and hear in my own workplace and personal life.

So basically you have little to no basis to make such a sweeping claim.

I don't know of any scientific studies that have investigated the matter, but if you know of some proving that the ribbon is the best thing since sliced bread, please feel free to share them with us.

No one said that the ribbon is the best thing since sliced bread, but to claim make a claim that the ribbon is "the single most reviled "feature"" requires some actual evidence beyond what a few tech sites say. If one were to listen to what Slashdot users and other tech sites say, people were supposed to have dropped Microsoft and anything closed-source years ago and we're all supposed to be running Linux on our desktops.

out of place in non-windows OS'es?

[Shakrai]

Let me be the first to assure that the interface is also out of place in Windows OS'es. I'm still at a loss to figure out exactly what functionality that new interface added to Office. It did require us to purchase all new manuals and devote a considerable amount of time to retraining our users. Perhaps that was the "goal"?

Underwhelming

[dyingtolive]

Its a nice idea, I guess, and I understand that if you keep it closer to that one big name competitor, then you can make it easier for people to transition, but I prefer to dedicate my limited real estate on my screen to what I'm actually trying to work on, not the tools that I can use to get the job done. I can't imagine this interface on my eeePc. I think the only thing I'll be trying out on this interface is the option to set it back to the old one.

As long as they make it optional I'm ok with it.

[pecosdave]

When I started rolling out Office 2007 at a company I used to work for I was asked, often, if the ribbon could be disabled. I went to the office support site (which is something Microsoft actually has right) and started watching training videos to see which ones I should suggest to users. The first thing the video said when addressing the ribbon was you were stuck with it, can't turn it off.

I personally prefer OpenOffice.org. I have a copy of Office 2008 for my Mac that I was given, I don't even have it installed now that I don't have that job anymore, I prefer using Neo Office on my Mac, and OpenOffice.org on my Linux machines.

That being said - the interface is fine, as long as it's optional, I'm all about customization and user preference.

Re:Sigh. Someone else who complains without using

[Chapter80]

Word and Excel have SOME consistency (except that they sometimes call it Find, sometimes Find and Replace. Sometimes it's an icon, sometimes it's not.) Sometimes it's a big icon, sometimes it's small. Now, let's go to Outlook:

Let's try to follow your instructions, when creating a new message in Outlook. Home tab? there isn't one. Maybe you mean the Message Tab which is located where the Home tab is in Word: Far Right? That's Spelling. No, Find is under "Format Text". How intuitive.

Next try to find "Find" when you are reading someone's message to you. Where's Find?

Now let's say you want to find a message in your Inbox. Where's find? OK let's try to find a message in a file folder. Where's find.

OK, let's go to Internet Explorer. Where's Find?

See? So much for consistency.

And using Ctrl-F proves my point. OK, so we're supposed to tell our users what? "I know the Ribbon sucks - just memorize this control sequence."