Nov
18
Office 12 UI, Again
November 18, 2005 |
Everybody I’ve shown the new UI to has had the same reaction: it makes the window look too busy, too complicated, and takes space away from viewing the document.
I think the rationale for the change can be found here:
We’ve found in early tests that people find it easier to discover how to do new things in the Ribbon, and they’re more apt to explore the UI looking for better ways to get things done.
I understand the goal, but that only really applies to a small subset of users. The kind of people who want to “explore” the capabilities of an application are also the kind of people who will figure it out no matter what, as long as you give them a hint about how to do so. Most Office users are either rote workers or power users.
Now, there is one context in which this will be helpful to someone like me, and that’s that it will make things easier for me the few times a year that I have to use Excel and Access. But in Word or PowerPoint, I already know how to do what I need to do. Office 12 will make me relearn where everything is, and that isn’t good.
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