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Had the ribbon interface been the original UI and the traditional menu-based interface the new UI, it sounds like you and your colleagues would have still faced

by sxg 6y ago

Had the ribbon interface been the original UI and the traditional menu-based interface the new UI, it sounds like you and your colleagues would have still faced the same frustrations. To me, it sounds like your issue is with change rather than the effectiveness of either type of UI.

osrec 6y ago
No, not really. Some 1 or 2 key shortcuts became 5 key shortcuts with the new ribbon UI. It was a real nightmare! Especially when the old shortcuts were also remapped to a completely different function, and your moving s so fast you don't realise where your data has gone!
- ModernMech 6y ago
  The ribbon allows you to add your most common used commands to a quick shortcut list that are only 2 keys.
danShumway 6y ago
For me, that's the point. For a program as ubiquitous as Word (and as complicated as Word), unless there were clear benefits from the new interface, it shouldn't have been changed. The change itself was the problem. Your comment is getting at an important, fundamental UX principle: all conceptual change is inherently painful, and every time you ask a user to re-learn something you are always wasting their time, even if the new design is better. Sometimes a UX designer looks at two interfaces as completely separate, and thinks their job is just to pick the best one. The reality is that usually UX decisions can't be separated from the current state of the app. UX design is more like surgery, and the invasiveness of the operation has to be a consideration. Having said that, I'm mildly skeptical that the interface didn't need to be changed. The old interface for Word was extremely user-unfriendly. If you go through a few of the interviews about Ribbon[0], there was some really interesting thought put into the new approach around discoverability, and while I'm not sure I agree with all of the theory they used to justify it[1], the changes did seem to be addressing a real problem. But I think it's debatable whether or not the discoverability benefits were worth the pain, and I think there may have been better ways to roll out the changes. [0]: sorry, too lazy to hunt them down and link them [1]: I am mildly skeptical of contextual menus/toolbars. They're not wrong, they just have drawbacks that people don't always consider. Sometimes it's useful to tell people what is disabled, and to give them grounded, unchanging "landmarks" in the UX that they can use orient themselves while using a program.
- craftinator 6y ago
  I think that choices like this come from a weird symbiotic relationship between UI designers and product managers. The UI people need to justify their jobs; if they sit on their hands all day because the UI works well, they can't make that justification. Managers don't want to "see a product stagnate" and to fix that they want a "fresh new look". The users don't enter into this relationship.
EL_Loco 6y ago
Of course there's an issue with change. That's the whole point. If you were a pro Emacs/Vi user that used shortcuts to do pretty much everything and it made you fast and productive, what do you think would happen if suddenly you had to use new shortcuts for all the ones you had already commited to memory?

by sxg 6y ago

osrec 6y ago

No, not really. Some 1 or 2 key shortcuts became 5 key shortcuts with the new ribbon UI. It was a real nightmare! Especially when the old shortcuts were also remapped to a completely different function, and your moving s so fast you don't realise where your data has gone!

ModernMech 6y ago
The ribbon allows you to add your most common used commands to a quick shortcut list that are only 2 keys.

danShumway 6y ago

For me, that's the point. For a program as ubiquitous as Word (and as complicated as Word), unless there were clear benefits from the new interface, it shouldn't have been changed. The change itself was the problem. Your comment is getting at an important, fundamental UX principle: all conceptual change is inherently painful, and every time you ask a user to re-learn something you are always wasting their time, even if the new design is better. Sometimes a UX designer looks at two interfaces as completely separate, and thinks their job is just to pick the best one. The reality is that usually UX decisions can't be separated from the current state of the app. UX design is more like surgery, and the invasiveness of the operation has to be a consideration. Having said that, I'm mildly skeptical that the interface didn't need to be changed. The old interface for Word was extremely user-unfriendly. If you go through a few of the interviews about Ribbon[0], there was some really interesting thought put into the new approach around discoverability, and while I'm not sure I agree with all of the theory they used to justify it[1], the changes did seem to be addressing a real problem. But I think it's debatable whether or not the discoverability benefits were worth the pain, and I think there may have been better ways to roll out the changes. [0]: sorry, too lazy to hunt them down and link them [1]: I am mildly skeptical of contextual menus/toolbars. They're not wrong, they just have drawbacks that people don't always consider. Sometimes it's useful to tell people what is disabled, and to give them grounded, unchanging "landmarks" in the UX that they can use orient themselves while using a program.

craftinator 6y ago
I think that choices like this come from a weird symbiotic relationship between UI designers and product managers. The UI people need to justify their jobs; if they sit on their hands all day because the UI works well, they can't make that justification. Managers don't want to "see a product stagnate" and to fix that they want a "fresh new look". The users don't enter into this relationship.

EL_Loco 6y ago

Of course there's an issue with change. That's the whole point. If you were a pro Emacs/Vi user that used shortcuts to do pretty much everything and it made you fast and productive, what do you think would happen if suddenly you had to use new shortcuts for all the ones you had already commited to memory?