Where did the ribbon come from? Office is basically one of the 2 or 3 pillars that drives MS Earnings. On what basis of research did it come from? I hate it too

Where did the ribbon come from? Office is basically one of the 2 or 3 pillars that drives MS Earnings. On what basis of research did it come from? I hate it too. The fashion in UI is so horrible. Since Windows 95 I've basically watched UI fashion as pure churn for change's sake, to the detriment of all users. Computer UI needs a cultural foundation, so software can be usable by many many generations. But with the state of desktop OSes, with OSX in an increasingly walled fortress, Windows still doing the horrible dual-desktop with tiles and other insanities, and Linux just... failing, we regressed it seems around 2005-2010 and now nothing will fix the sad state of affairs.