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Recently, I installed Office 97 onto Wine just for curiosity. I could still do much with it. The only feature I really missed from Word was academic references

Recently, I installed Office 97 onto Wine just for curiosity. I could still do much with it. The only feature I really missed from Word was academic references. I could create documents indistinguishable from modern Word using the old drawing features combined with modern fonts. The drop down menus, combined with the floating toolbars were much more intuitive than clicking up and down some "ribbon". The drop down menus map directly to the logical path of a task in my mind, eg "Insert -> Image -> From File". Having a small toolbar at the bottom with basic graphical tools is much more convenient than clicking back and forth from tab to tab. It's a shame MS couldn't accept that what they had until Office 07 was a workflow polished near to perfection, perfected after years of refinement and familiarity.

ghaff 6y ago
>perfected after years of refinement and familiarity That can be a problem though. One person's familiar tool with its well-known quirks and peculiarities is a newcomer's inscrutable and illogical interface.
- fsloth 6y ago
  Generally, though, you shouldn't optimize GUI:s for new users but for intermediate users. [0] Cooper, "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"
  - HeckFeck 6y ago
    That should be a tenant of UI design, especially for any kind of productivity software. Think of the Blender, GIMP or Sony Vegas GUIs. Daunting the first time you open them, but after you've successfully finished a few creations you'll begin to appreciate their power. For any serious work, overly-simplified GUIs are quickly exhausted. They may get a pass for IM or social media apps, but I can't think of many other useful applications.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  You're thinking like an SV webdev who's largest concern is to onboard as many new users as possible so you can flip your startup. Office is a professional productivity tool that's been around for decades and is used by millions of people for their entire workday, every day. Learning to use a new tool takes a tiny fraction of the time you're going to be using that tool. One should make the tool best at actually doing what it's going to be used to do.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I'm neither in SV nor a webdev. I just remember how many ordinary users hated the ribbon when it first came out. Presumably they adapted over time; I can't really speak to whether Microsoft would have been better evolving the existing menu system. Personally, I could take it or leave it--and at least intellectually the arguments for the ribbon made sense to me.
    - _jal 6y ago
      Ordinary users hate change. They always do, regardless of how successful (or not) the changes are later judged to be. This doesn't argue against change so much as argue that the costs need to be worth the disruption - you don't move houses over a carpet stain, and you don't rebuild your UI lightly, either.
angus-prune 6y ago
> eg "Insert -> Image -> From File". In the latest version of word the progression is: "Insert > Pictures > From This device"
- einpoklum 6y ago
  So, it's catering to tablet and smartphone users rather than desktop users, who have many "devices" on their system. :-(
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Answerawake 6y ago
I went through a recent experiment like this as well. Instead I installed Office 2003(The last of the old toolbar offices) on a clean Windows 10 system. I was looking to validate my theory about the speed and bloat of the new versions of Office. I just had this nagging feeling that the software wasn't as fast as old versions. It was confirmed. Using the old Office just felt so pleasant with how fast it loaded and simple it is in terms of cognitive load.

ghaff 6y ago

>perfected after years of refinement and familiarity That can be a problem though. One person's familiar tool with its well-known quirks and peculiarities is a newcomer's inscrutable and illogical interface.

fsloth 6y ago
Generally, though, you shouldn't optimize GUI:s for new users but for intermediate users. [0] Cooper, "About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design"
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  That should be a tenant of UI design, especially for any kind of productivity software. Think of the Blender, GIMP or Sony Vegas GUIs. Daunting the first time you open them, but after you've successfully finished a few creations you'll begin to appreciate their power. For any serious work, overly-simplified GUIs are quickly exhausted. They may get a pass for IM or social media apps, but I can't think of many other useful applications.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
You're thinking like an SV webdev who's largest concern is to onboard as many new users as possible so you can flip your startup. Office is a professional productivity tool that's been around for decades and is used by millions of people for their entire workday, every day. Learning to use a new tool takes a tiny fraction of the time you're going to be using that tool. One should make the tool best at actually doing what it's going to be used to do.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I'm neither in SV nor a webdev. I just remember how many ordinary users hated the ribbon when it first came out. Presumably they adapted over time; I can't really speak to whether Microsoft would have been better evolving the existing menu system. Personally, I could take it or leave it--and at least intellectually the arguments for the ribbon made sense to me.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Ordinary users hate change. They always do, regardless of how successful (or not) the changes are later judged to be. This doesn't argue against change so much as argue that the costs need to be worth the disruption - you don't move houses over a carpet stain, and you don't rebuild your UI lightly, either.

angus-prune 6y ago

> eg "Insert -> Image -> From File". In the latest version of word the progression is: "Insert > Pictures > From This device"

einpoklum 6y ago
So, it's catering to tablet and smartphone users rather than desktop users, who have many "devices" on their system. :-(
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Answerawake 6y ago

I went through a recent experiment like this as well. Instead I installed Office 2003(The last of the old toolbar offices) on a clean Windows 10 system. I was looking to validate my theory about the speed and bloat of the new versions of Office. I just had this nagging feeling that the software wasn't as fast as old versions. It was confirmed. Using the old Office just felt so pleasant with how fast it loaded and simple it is in terms of cognitive load.