5 ms·

When the ribbons first came out, all the techies I knew groused about them with all the technical reasons that people have mentioned here (which I feel are most

by orev 7y ago

When the ribbons first came out, all the techies I knew groused about them with all the technical reasons that people have mentioned here (which I feel are mostly weak arguments and reek of resistance to change). I wasn’t sure myself. Until I saw some non-IT people using them for the first time. They LOVED them. They could easily see and get things done way better than before. The people who didn’t have the confidence to poke around in traditional menus had no problem looking through the ribbons and trying things out. In many cases they started doing things that they had no idea existed. The ribbons really opened up these tools for the users, which is really the whole point. In the case of the ribbons, the techies who rail against them are unequivocally wrong. The arguments against them are the same ones we heard when going from DOS to Windows. It completely loses sight of the point of IT, which is to allow the users to be productive (and no, just because it broke some muscle memory you had, that is not an argument that it broke productivity, that’s an argument that you don’t like change), not to force people to remember random incantations because the greybeard says is “the right way” to do it.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
I was one of those techies. I was wrong. It was one of the things that completly changed my perspective of computing. That, and teaching, and working on a streaming website. I suddenly saw apple products differently. Linux differently. I started to design things from the UI instead of the data model. And eventually, it lead to accepting many of my limitations in other area, because I took in consideration users limitarions in my area of expertise. Funny how being wrong can be good for you.
badsectoracula 7y ago
> Until I saw some non-IT people using them for the first time. It shouldn't be surprising that people who hadn't any prior experience would be fine with ribbons, since it is mainly the people who had experience with the same applications but without ribbons that saw the decrease in their productivity. > and no, just because it broke some muscle memory you had, that is not an argument that it broke productivity, that’s an argument that you don’t like change And that is a very good argument, change for the sake of change (or worse, for something inferior) is a waste of time. Building muscle memory is a very good thing when it comes to UIs, the entire point of Windows having a standardized UI in the first place was that people who spent time to learn some program's UI they could apply the same knowledge on another program's UI that they hadn't used before. Ribbon works against that and as a quick example check File Explorer, WordPad, OneNote (the Windows 10 app) and Windows Paint that all use ribbon-ish interfaces that come with Windows. They all look different, have different tabs and even their default state is different. The closest they have in having a common UI is the File tab and OneNote doesn't even have that. Ribbon applications not only do not look like other applications but sometimes they do not look like older versions of themselves, since they had to move stuff around to make space for new or changed functionality. And not all ribbon implementations even behave the same - Windows itself probably comes with 3-4 different implementations that all have little weird differences and that doesn't count all the 3rd party implementations (i think there are more ribbon implementations out there than applications actually using ribbons :-P).
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  On that last point, it sounds like the Fluent Design team is working hard to merge all the Ribbon implementations. That ongoing effort is interesting to watch because it is going to move everyone's cheese again soon in Word and Excel (and PowerPoint), as the modern Fluent control is the "Simplified Ribbon" control that OneNote today uses (and Outlook optionally; and all the Word/Excel/PowerPoint web apps that people don't pay attention to). (As the Fluent design team decided 2D ribbon layouts were too complex both for implementers and users; the 2007 Office implementations had a ton of work put into UX testing the 2D flows and basically no other Ribbon implementation did.) It feels ironic/iconic that the Simplified Ribbon just looks like a menu bar and single command bar again, but with the years of insight that "tabs" instead of "menus" gives people a better sense of "space" than traditional pull down menus used to.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    Merge all implementations or have all of their programs use the same implementation? I find the former a little weird since there is, e.g., an MFC implementation and then a Win32 implementation (available as a COM object) and AFAIK those two are completely separate (i think the MFC predates the Win32 one and was made by some external company) and "modern apps" use XAML which is completely different from the MFC/Win32 stuff.
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      Bit of both, I believe. On the one hand, Office as the first Ribbon adopter has to maintain a lot of backwards compatibility (especially for add-ins), and so likely can't move all of its ribbons to a single implementation (though OneNote supposedly is using the WinRT/XAML control). Plus the React Native for Web control (Fabric UI) will always have to be a different from platform-specific implementations. But the impression I have is that "soon" the MFC/Win32 one and the WPF/XAML ribbon implementations will both be marked deprecated and developers encouraged to use the WinRT/UWP/XAML one (which OneNote supposedly will continue to share moving forward), with Win32 (and WPF) developers expected to use XAML Islands. (Where "soon" is some release milestone I'm fully not sure about. WinUI 3.0 General Availability, presumably? I think that's still scheduled for "second half 2020".)
benhurmarcel 7y ago
At the time I couldn't understand why some people hated it. And I knew how to use the previous version, I was fairly used to it. But the ribbon made sense. You had the organization of the menus, and discoverability for more uncommon icons since they now had labels. You could always find what you wanted quickly the first time. Plus, it was collapsible if you needed space, and it worked with the keyboard if you wanted to learn it.
- mcswell 7y ago
  "discoverability for more uncommon icons since they now had labels." This is like what my father used to say about hitting yourself over the head with a 2-by-4; it felt so good when you stopped. Icons are good if they have a menu label attached. If you have to look for the menu label (which I always do, despite having used MsOffice at work for forever), what do you need the icon for? "You could always find what you wanted quickly the first time." Wrong. We have now switched to Office 365. In some ways the ribbon is similar, but it's enough different that I'm constantly hunting for something that I sort of knew where to find before. I've resorted to looking for on-line help several times today (you know the kind with the screenshots.) So I'm definitely not finding things quickly the first time. And even after I've used a widget several times, I still don't find it any quicker than I do with the menus in LibreOffice (at home).
deleted 7y ago
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grawprog 7y ago
I still don't understand what the ribbon provides that customizable toolbars don't. Even after years of using the ribbon, I still don't have the location of even basic things memorized. I used to jump back and forth between excel and a program with toolbars regularly. After setting up the toolbars once, everything was exactly where I wanted it and fit my work flow perfectly. The ribbon in excel on the otherhand I always had to.change tabs to find what i wanted, everything seems kind of arbitrarily laid out, nothing is movable or customizable. I find it limiting by comparison.
- orev 7y ago
  You can customize both the ribbon (right-click and select 'Customize the Ribbon), and the Quick Access toolbar (the part above the ribbon).
  - grawprog 7y ago
    Can I group individual elements into custom tool bars that can be docked on any side of the window or be free floating? Can I change the sizes of said tool bars independently to allow larger or smaller buttons for different toolbars? Can I have independent labels for each toolbar?
    - orev 7y ago
      When something works fine for 99.9% of the users, you have to ask yourself if the things you’re demanding are really necessary. Is it possible that your workflow is so unique and important that you need something that everyone else is doing just fine without? Sure, maybe — but I doubt it.

by orev 7y ago

BiteCode_dev 7y ago

I was one of those techies. I was wrong. It was one of the things that completly changed my perspective of computing. That, and teaching, and working on a streaming website. I suddenly saw apple products differently. Linux differently. I started to design things from the UI instead of the data model. And eventually, it lead to accepting many of my limitations in other area, because I took in consideration users limitarions in my area of expertise. Funny how being wrong can be good for you.

badsectoracula 7y ago

> Until I saw some non-IT people using them for the first time. It shouldn't be surprising that people who hadn't any prior experience would be fine with ribbons, since it is mainly the people who had experience with the same applications but without ribbons that saw the decrease in their productivity. > and no, just because it broke some muscle memory you had, that is not an argument that it broke productivity, that’s an argument that you don’t like change And that is a very good argument, change for the sake of change (or worse, for something inferior) is a waste of time. Building muscle memory is a very good thing when it comes to UIs, the entire point of Windows having a standardized UI in the first place was that people who spent time to learn some program's UI they could apply the same knowledge on another program's UI that they hadn't used before. Ribbon works against that and as a quick example check File Explorer, WordPad, OneNote (the Windows 10 app) and Windows Paint that all use ribbon-ish interfaces that come with Windows. They all look different, have different tabs and even their default state is different. The closest they have in having a common UI is the File tab and OneNote doesn't even have that. Ribbon applications not only do not look like other applications but sometimes they do not look like older versions of themselves, since they had to move stuff around to make space for new or changed functionality. And not all ribbon implementations even behave the same - Windows itself probably comes with 3-4 different implementations that all have little weird differences and that doesn't count all the 3rd party implementations (i think there are more ribbon implementations out there than applications actually using ribbons :-P).

WorldMaker 7y ago
On that last point, it sounds like the Fluent Design team is working hard to merge all the Ribbon implementations. That ongoing effort is interesting to watch because it is going to move everyone's cheese again soon in Word and Excel (and PowerPoint), as the modern Fluent control is the "Simplified Ribbon" control that OneNote today uses (and Outlook optionally; and all the Word/Excel/PowerPoint web apps that people don't pay attention to). (As the Fluent design team decided 2D ribbon layouts were too complex both for implementers and users; the 2007 Office implementations had a ton of work put into UX testing the 2D flows and basically no other Ribbon implementation did.) It feels ironic/iconic that the Simplified Ribbon just looks like a menu bar and single command bar again, but with the years of insight that "tabs" instead of "menus" gives people a better sense of "space" than traditional pull down menus used to.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  Merge all implementations or have all of their programs use the same implementation? I find the former a little weird since there is, e.g., an MFC implementation and then a Win32 implementation (available as a COM object) and AFAIK those two are completely separate (i think the MFC predates the Win32 one and was made by some external company) and "modern apps" use XAML which is completely different from the MFC/Win32 stuff.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    Bit of both, I believe. On the one hand, Office as the first Ribbon adopter has to maintain a lot of backwards compatibility (especially for add-ins), and so likely can't move all of its ribbons to a single implementation (though OneNote supposedly is using the WinRT/XAML control). Plus the React Native for Web control (Fabric UI) will always have to be a different from platform-specific implementations. But the impression I have is that "soon" the MFC/Win32 one and the WPF/XAML ribbon implementations will both be marked deprecated and developers encouraged to use the WinRT/UWP/XAML one (which OneNote supposedly will continue to share moving forward), with Win32 (and WPF) developers expected to use XAML Islands. (Where "soon" is some release milestone I'm fully not sure about. WinUI 3.0 General Availability, presumably? I think that's still scheduled for "second half 2020".)

benhurmarcel 7y ago

At the time I couldn't understand why some people hated it. And I knew how to use the previous version, I was fairly used to it. But the ribbon made sense. You had the organization of the menus, and discoverability for more uncommon icons since they now had labels. You could always find what you wanted quickly the first time. Plus, it was collapsible if you needed space, and it worked with the keyboard if you wanted to learn it.

mcswell 7y ago
"discoverability for more uncommon icons since they now had labels." This is like what my father used to say about hitting yourself over the head with a 2-by-4; it felt so good when you stopped. Icons are good if they have a menu label attached. If you have to look for the menu label (which I always do, despite having used MsOffice at work for forever), what do you need the icon for? "You could always find what you wanted quickly the first time." Wrong. We have now switched to Office 365. In some ways the ribbon is similar, but it's enough different that I'm constantly hunting for something that I sort of knew where to find before. I've resorted to looking for on-line help several times today (you know the kind with the screenshots.) So I'm definitely not finding things quickly the first time. And even after I've used a widget several times, I still don't find it any quicker than I do with the menus in LibreOffice (at home).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

grawprog 7y ago

I still don't understand what the ribbon provides that customizable toolbars don't. Even after years of using the ribbon, I still don't have the location of even basic things memorized. I used to jump back and forth between excel and a program with toolbars regularly. After setting up the toolbars once, everything was exactly where I wanted it and fit my work flow perfectly. The ribbon in excel on the otherhand I always had to.change tabs to find what i wanted, everything seems kind of arbitrarily laid out, nothing is movable or customizable. I find it limiting by comparison.

orev 7y ago
You can customize both the ribbon (right-click and select 'Customize the Ribbon), and the Quick Access toolbar (the part above the ribbon).
- grawprog 7y ago
  Can I group individual elements into custom tool bars that can be docked on any side of the window or be free floating? Can I change the sizes of said tool bars independently to allow larger or smaller buttons for different toolbars? Can I have independent labels for each toolbar?
  - orev 7y ago
    When something works fine for 99.9% of the users, you have to ask yourself if the things you’re demanding are really necessary. Is it possible that your workflow is so unique and important that you need something that everyone else is doing just fine without? Sure, maybe — but I doubt it.