Microsoft Ignores Usability With All-Caps Menu in Visual Studio

mikejuk writes "The recent release of Visual Studio 2012 contained a UI element that few believed could make it into the final version — ALL-CAPS menus. After lots of user criticism and disbelief, Microsoft has moved swiftly to do something about it — by tweaking the typography. '... we explored designs with and without uppercase styling. In the end we determined it to be a very effective way of providing structure and emphasis to the top menu area in Visual Studio 2012.' This must be a new meaning of the word 'structure,' because putting the menu items into all-caps means that they are all the same height. When each menu items starts with a cap then there is structure because you can see the change in height, marking the start of the next menu item. The idea that putting a menu into all caps adds structure is something that is very difficult to see. If you wanted to put structure into a menu, well how about color? Oh wait, I forgot the design department dumped color in favour of the 'everything-is-grey UI.' Developers are the people who invented CamelCase to make sure that the structure of run together words would stand out better — and now we are asked to believe that making a menu all-caps adds structure. I don't think so."

Comments

Are you surprised?

[LizardKing]

This is the company that gave us the ribbon. Otherwise known as the chaos strip, since it seems to randomly rearrange itself to ensure that function you're looking for is never less than half a dozen clicks away. It's a bit like a supermarket, where they deliberately move stuff around in order to make shoppers seek out the things they usually buy in the hope they might chance across - and end up buying - things they haven't seen before.

CamelCase

[SJHillman]

"Developers are the people who invented CamelCase"

I think chemists has developers beat by a century or two. Now please pass the NaCl.

Re:Iâ(TM)m horrified.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great, another interface screwed up by the design department.
Someone should fire a few UI designers stat!

At least it's not the worst graphical interface sold at retail.
That honor goes to Lotus Notes.

Re:Iâ(TM)m horrified.

[VGPowerlord]

IÃ(TM)m horrified. Absolutely shocked. I tell you, this is the final nail in Microsoft and Visual StudioÃ(TM)s coffin. Oh, and ÃoeMy eyes, it burns! The goggles do nothing!Ã

Your post burns my eyes.

I assumed the joke was that he typed that text into Word, then copy-pasted it into his web browser and submitted it.

Re:Blog author knows what they are talking about

[hjf]

You beat me to it. The guy is whining about "usability" and yet:

his website is a horrible mix of:

• Late 2000's Rounded edges
• Late 1990's Awful Blue and thick lines
• Early 2000's OS X style rounded button menu
• Text in the buttons not vertically centered
• Corners around the silly rounded "logo" aren't transparent
• I had to move the jQuery picture window to see the stuff, and scroll horizontally to close it clicking on a tiny X
• "Picture window -> click X to close". Really, usability guy?

I could go on but I think I've pointed enough mistakes. I can't believe someone with a website like that has the nerve to criticize Microsoft (or anyone) for using uppercase menus.

It can be turned off

[Ececheira]

If you go to the source, http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2012/06/05/a-design-with-all-caps.aspx, they note that there will be an option to disable it.

There's also a blog post that shows the registry key that works today to disable it.