18 ms·

Microsoft UI has officially entered the realm of self-parody

742 points by wyclif 15y ago

zachallia 15y ago
They missed april fools day by a few months
Mavrik 15y ago
Em, if the author would actually fact-check, he'd know that most of those buttons dont't exist yet, so they'd hardly have more than 0% usage.
jdp23 15y ago
I just showed this to a Mac user who responded "Streamlined! Intuitive! Look at all that stuff, why would I use that?"
- mikeryan 15y ago
  I'm a heavy Mac user, but Finder is and has always been one of OS X's pain points and its gotten worse in Lion. Until I changed it when I opened a Finder window it defaults to a list of "All My Files" which is useless (the first 20 or so items are __init__.py)
  - igorgue 15y ago
    You're a programmer, use the terminal. Also most "normal" users do not have a single __init__.py I like the new Finder but I rarely use it... ack FTW!
sp332 15y ago
In Windows 7, the menu bar is hidden by default, that's why no one uses it. Also, "no one uses" those other commands only because no one knows they exist now. The whole point to the new UI is to change things to be better.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  So glad I discovered F10.
  - sp332 15y ago
    Just pushing Alt does the same thing, right?
    - psychotik 15y ago
      You seriously think that average users push 'Alt'?
      - sp332 15y ago
        Haha, compared to "F10"? But really, yes, because Alt activates menus in Windows applications. e.g. "Aft-F" for the File menu.
        mirkules 15y ago
        Still to this day, Alt-F is engrained in my head. "Alt-F-S" for saving, actually. I use it all the time. On a Mac. I always get annoyed at myself when I search for the letter "S"
        Stratoscope 15y ago
        Yes, but as much as you and I like keyboard shortcuts, I think we're a very small minority of Windows users. I don't think I've ever seen any of my normal everyday friends use Alt shortcuts, or even Tab and Enter in a dialog or web form. Even if I have them try it, next time I see them they are back to mousing and clicking everything.
    - Stratoscope 15y ago
      F10 and Alt do almost the same thing with some subtle (perhaps unintentional?) differences. For example, without hitting any other keys, try tapping F10 repeatedly, then tap Alt repeatedly.
encoderer 15y ago
I think the point is missed. It's hard to claim that the context menu is good UI. The fact that so few people use the menu bar means that it's currently useless and needs to be reworked. It's not as if they're replacing the context menu with the ribbon, they're replacing the currently-unused menu bar.
- Triumvark 15y ago
  True, and shortcut key functionality (the commonly used good UI) is simultaneously expanded.
- stephen_g 15y ago
  That's not the problem here - it's that they are cramming literally hundreds of different actions into the ribbon. They're taking a bad design, and making it many times harder to navigate and far more confusing.
codingsolo 15y ago
This is a grossly-skewed assessment of the interface. Wouldn't the under utilization of features warrant an analysis WHY they are not being used? Wouldn't there also be a UX overhaul to make those features/commands/buttons/menus more approachable? The data and infographics would only be relevant if they were based upon the Win8 redesign.
kingofspain 15y ago
Everything I had to explain to my ex-boss about dealing with files is there in one click. I could hide it if I wanted and have my usual experience. I really don't see the problem. I actually think that overall this a big improvement. Minimalism can go screw itself when it costs me hours of free labour :)
varunsrin 15y ago
The first problem with the article here is that some of the buttons (Move To, Copy To) did not exist previously. They are also extensions of existing functions (Move, Copy) - so concluding that half the UI is covered by buttons that were not used is an inaccurate assumption. Secondly, the actions are being moved from the context menu to the ribbon. Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus. Each of these is a 'modifier' that power users are used to, but which make the mental model of file manipulation much harder for beginners to wrap their heads around. They have to remember to apply these modifiers to see if the functions they want exist. Moving the functions into a contextually aware ribbon will make life much easier for these users. Third, Move, Copy, Delete & Rename occupy the center of the ribbon. These are the most used commands (by far) and rightfully occupy center stage. Power users will call it clutter, but it will be extremely helpful for beginners. [Disclaimer: MSFT Employee, but I do not work on Windows]
- dhimes 15y ago
  Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting if in a text document, etc. Hell, rats in a cage can learn what to push in order to eat, so I would have thought that people would be able to learn this. Of course, it would help if they were told somehow and didn't have to discover it.
  - riffic 15y ago
    agree, in fact UI like this encourages a user to develop bad usage habits, which will remain with them for an indefinite amount of time until these behaviors are (if ever) unlearned.
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      What are bad usage habits? (since we're on topic: I'm an MS employee. I do not work on Windows Explorer)
mc32 15y ago
The UI, is apparently customizable. From the Team Blog: "We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that the ribbon: -Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today. -Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for. -Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP."
- qq66 15y ago
  The rule of any customizable feature is that the vast majority of the users will stick with the defaults. So the defaults have to be optimized.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    I'd love to see some stats on this. I wonder just what percentage of users never changes a default UI.
    - kaishin 15y ago
      My parents definitely won't.
      - jarek 15y ago
        Well, that's at least 2.8741 × 10^(-8) percent of users!
        kaishin 15y ago
        What's your logic behind this number? Do you think Microsoft made all those billions selling crappy software to geeks like us?
        15y ago
AllenKids 15y ago
I generally like ribbon in Office and think MSFT has some great ideas here, like moving the info pan to better fit the wide screen reality. But at this stage it looks so very very bad, and remind me the open office mouse with 30 buttons.
planetjoe 15y ago
I'm getting off-point here, but did anyone else get annoyed that the MS blog post used bar charts when they should use pie charts to compare relative percentages?
- sid0 15y ago
  http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered-harmful http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered-h...
  - planetjoe 15y ago
    Point well taken. I can't seriously argue against Tufte or actual research, but I still like pie charts for some things.
- cabirum 15y ago
  As long as y-axis starts at 0%, its fine for me.
eddieplan9 15y ago
This reminds me of this famous quote: The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.
- hackinthebochs 15y ago
  The problem with this idea is that for the majority of users "taste" is the last thing on their mind. Functionality and ease of use are the only things that matter. Having common functions up front in your face is in fact easier to use than having them hidden away. It takes a certain level of skill using a system before you're capable of appreciating higher level constructs such as "beauty". As an analogy, we all have seen poor coders whose code is poorly formatted, sloppy looking, and just plain ugly. But when you ask them they're just not capable of noticing this. Its that their minds have not elevated past the details to see the big picture. It's the same way with most computer users.
- WayneDB 15y ago
  From the same guy that said "Good artists copy, great artists steal." If Microsoft has no taste, Apple certainly has rotten taste in my opinion.
pixcavator 15y ago
BTW, is "officially" the new "literally"?
- anonymoushn 15y ago
  I'm not sure. I haven't yet seen any companies that officially eat dog food. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s
systems 15y ago
Well, in general I agree with the comments saying that the review missed the point about reworking the Tool/Menu bar so that people start to use it more I still think, it's too crowded, and will benefit from a mode selection (i.e. Advanced with all these button, Basic with only the most used ones and Custom )
skeptical 15y ago
Microsoft UIs current state is, in general, cluttered and broken. I agree with this blogger, and my reaction was similar when I red the original post on msdn. Having been absent from microsoft office (or any office like application for that mater) for many years, I recently got to use recent versions of microsoft products such as Word, Outlook, etc. The ribbons were a big facepalm, I didn't know such bad things exist, a few co-workers of mine said that they find them practical. I spent an average of 20-40 seconds each time I needed to click one of those buttons, even after many months of usage. The buttons are jammed together in a rectangular area in ridiculous amounts. Some ribbons have close to 20 buttons, this will never be intuitive, it's just not visually easy to identify the buttons. Also, often a button is on the other site, all the away across the window in a far far away ribbon. I never managed to use any microsoft OS after XP. Did the users really need other MS OS after XP? Quite frankly, I cannot find sinigle advantage of using vista or seven. PS: The screenshots have something of a 1998 charm, I think it's that overlayed info. mspaint?
- Maascamp 15y ago
  That's because, as you stated in your post, you haven't used them. On a side note, the quality of comments has gone down while the know-it-all undertones have sky rocketed.
marze 15y ago
They entered that realm long ago.
martingordon 15y ago
Everyone I know loves managing their files, so it's great that Microsoft is finally improving Windows Explorer! WRONG! For the hundreds of nerds complaining that they don't have access to the file system on their iPads, there are millions of normal people who are delighted by a computer that they can use rather than manage. How much longer can Microsoft keep making a 20th century operating system? What's going to be the great innovation of Windows 9? Yet another reshuffled toolbar driven by all of their wonderful data?
- sid0 15y ago
  How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?
  - adriand 15y ago
    Well, the iOS way would be that documents would end up in a place that is shown when you open a word processor, and that pictures would end up in a place that is shown when you open up an image navigator.
    - sid0 15y ago
      You still haven't answered my question. I have a set of documents, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. I also have a set of pictures, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. My USB drive already has a set of documents and a set of pictures, and I'd like to get a subset of the documents and a subset of the pictures onto internal storage so that I can plug out my USB drive afterwards and still access them. Can you come up with a way of doing all that that doesn't involve a filesystem or a poor imitation of it?
      - sunchild 15y ago
        I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to, but the images could be handled as with any other media import upon attaching the drive – i.e., within the image browsing app. As for moving images to the USB drive, that's an export from the image browsing app.
anigbrowl 15y ago
The writer of this blog uses a picture of the Golden Gate bridge as the background image on the page. As someone who lives near the bridge, I can affirm that at any given time, more than 50% of the bridge is empty; that is, less than half of the bridge's surface is covered by cars or pedestrians. Clearly this is a complete waste of resources, and we should just get rid of the empty half. Also, what is up with those suspension towers and all those cables? Does anyone actually cross the bridge at those great heights? I say cut them up and stick them underneath as support piers, so that they're not obstructing the view or (more likely) sticking out of a fog bank and creating a hazard to passing aircraft.
- chetan51 15y ago
  Civil engineering is very different from UI design.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    Well, i wouldn't want you to overthink it...but they're not so far apart. Games have the best UI; ideally a game will only show you the bare minimum of information required, and make the play experience as smooth and intuitive as possible. But games also have very narrowly defined win/loss conditions, and even in sandbox games (like Grand Theft Auto) success means that that players in the middle of the normal distribution are able to complete the game and interested enough to spend time doing so. For creative or productivity software, the definition of success is open-ended, because while designers can anticipate the kind of tasks/problems users will want to perform/solve, the end product of their labors is fundamentally unknowable, rather than waiting within the software to be discovered by the diligent user (player). Sure, Michaelangelo used to say that the statue already existed within the block of marble and his job was simply to reveal it, but you should probably see that as an early example of successful branding rather than a design document. A game is like a theme park ride insofar as the riders may change but their interaction with the ride is highly constrained. An application is more like a civil engineering task insofar as it has to bear a substantial amount of traffic, but its job is to facilitate rather than fulfill. You want those things available on the toolbar, even though many of them may not see regular use, because it's the easiest way to signal the availability of such functionality. The relative utility distribution of toolbar buttons or menu items follows Benford's law just like everything else.
krschultz 15y ago
The concept of the ribbon - tabs with buttons grouped by function - has a lot of advantages in theory. Obviously you can have bigger buttons which is always a good thing, and you allow each button to have sub-buttons which actually works out really well. I personally think Microsoft is on the right track from a high level perspective. The problem comes in the implementation. The graphic design is just horrible. Where is the grid? Where is the white space? What the hell is that round button that replaces the file menu? The title bar just looks awful. If they could clean it up graphically I really think it could be just as nice as anything on Mac OS X. Ask yourself this, if Apple had come out with the buttons on tabs in the exact same groupings but done it in a gorgeous way, who would be complaining about it? We'd all be heralding it.
- kaishin 15y ago
  I think the ribbon concept is inherently flawed because no human brain can remember such an overwhelming amount of information (what command in which function group in which tab).
  - whatusername 15y ago
    And your suggestion is? How is the ribbon any different to a hierarchial menu bar? (See the Gnome drop-down menu or the iOS Settings Menu).
    - revscat 15y ago
      Limit the need for Explorer/Finder/etc. altogether. For those cases where it is needed limit top level UI elements to the most commonly used items. Move the rest to either a toolbar or a contextual menu. You know, I just checked Finder and realized that not only does it not have the things showed in this mockup, but that I have never missed them. Strange.
      - cytzol 15y ago
        Did you consider that you haven't missed these things because you aren't used to using them?
psychotik 15y ago
The best way to 'fix' Windows Explorer is to focus on improving usability of the OS such that Windows Explorer isn't something average users needs to use. Focusing on improving it is focusing on the wrong problem, IMO. Having said that, I think the author of the post seems to ignore the fact that Microsoft's research shows that not many use the menu bar currently (because currently, the menu bar is hidden by default). By adding the ribbon, I assume their goal is to improve that statistic, and in turn make it easier for users.
alanfalcon 15y ago
Reminds me of this video, which I was told was actually created by Microsoft as a self-parody, though I don't have any supporting evidence. "Microsoft Designs the iPod Package:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A
- jdp23 15y ago
  Yes, this video was done by an internal group at Microsoft.
  - huhtenberg 15y ago
    How do you know?
    - jdp23 15y ago
      I knew one of the people behind it.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  iPodObserver site appears to be the only place that was emailed by "Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla" to say that this was a Microsoft-produced video. Everyone else simply quoted them. So the authenticity of [1] looks highly implausible. [1] http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_it_Originated_iPod_Box_Parody_Video/ http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_i...
kirillzubovsky 15y ago
Maybe this is an ingenius plan by Microsoft employees to revamp the company from inside out (or outside in?). But seriously, the kool-aid drinking types are probably really flustered by your post, as they think the ginormous waste of screen space is the best thing ever invented. sad
georgieporgie 15y ago
With regards to Microsoft's usage statistics, and the counter-argument, I can't help but think of this: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-w... Simple usage statistics aren't especially valuable if you don't look at the overall picture as to why features are used (e.g. who would cut and paste if they understood how to move?). I'm not sure if either side is properly analyzing the available information.
- mirkules 15y ago
  Actually, copy/paste makes a lot of sense. Having to frequently copy or move files from one place to another, I got used to ctrl-c or -x a file, then go to a different directory, and ctrl-v. The appeal, I think, is that I don't have to use the mouse (which employs a time-costly drag operation). Dragging files into directories is also cognitively expensive - e.g. you have to make certain that you are dragging exactly into the right folder which can be about 15 pixels high, depending on what view you're using. It requires hand-eye coordination which becomes unnecessary with simple copy/paste operations. BUT, for beginner users, I agree: users have a hard time grasping the concept of a copy/paste buffer anyway, and with files it gets abstracted one more level. For more advanced users, they use keyboard shortcuts, so the buttons don't really need to be there.
mmuro 15y ago
_They use this to show that “the commands that make up 84% of what users do in Explorer are now in one tab”. But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research._ This hits the nail on the head when discussing the UI decisions made. If Microsoft had included the top 10 commands in an organized manner, plus a few more from their data, it'd probably be fine.
- elehack 15y ago
  There's a huge difference between have never used and will never use. Microsoft's data is about past usage; the article makes an unjustified extrapolation from that to future message. This extrapolation is particularly relevant when discussing a feature that largely serves to improve discoverability - if the features make sense together, putting them together and making them visible may help users get more out of the software. It would be interesting to find out how many people say "I never knew the file manager could do that" when they fire up Windows 8, even when the feature has been there since NT4.
jasongullickson 15y ago
Usability of this (and anything, really) would improve dramatically if in each system there were one correct way (based on selection by scientific usability testing) to initiate each task. The "helpfulness" of providing "n" ways of doing the same thing is an illusion and only undermines the ability for users to establish a shared context which can be used to make user actions more automatic for the experienced and easier to teach to the inexperienced.
voxmatt 15y ago
This post didn't even need words, just that progression of screenshots. Windows 7 feels almost like a nice breeze and them, wham, that Windows 8 monstrosity. Functional, data-driven arguments will never convince me that a user's first reaction to that window will be anything other than confusion.
devth 15y ago
This prototype is a failure of both design and usability. It's an offense and a joke against anyone who expects to be able to interact with a machine in an efficient and intelligent manner. - It's ugly as hell - A beginner is bombarded with way too many things to click on - An expert is annoyed by useless buttons and waste of space Sure, you can turn it off, but who wants to configure and reconfigure UI preferences for the rest of their lives (sidenote: reminds me of eclipse)? Sensible defaults, please. Contrast this with Apple, whose designs often define what good design and usability means. In their apps: - The appearance is simple, well-designed, elegant - The only actions present are those deemed most necessary to the user - Tons of functionality is hidden under shortcut keys, modifier clicks and context menus for expert users (after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance as a result of their zealous attention to detail)
- aik 15y ago
  Just one question: Are these two statements different or restating the same thing with a different perception: >> after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance and something like: "It takes me years to find some features because they're so well hidden, and perhaps unintuitive."
  - devth 15y ago
    Not at all. The things discovered are unessential to getting things done. It's usually just a nicer way or more of a "wow, I can't believe they thought of this crazy edge case". A few examples: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-x-hidden-features-or-nice-tips-tricks http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-...
pointyhat 15y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably going to get voted down for this. I'm a proponent of the Ribbon UI and I fucking hate toolbars in OS X. I use Outlook, Word, Excel and Windows Live Mail extensively. All of which have the ribbon UI. It turns out that for the sake of actually getting stuff done, this is incredibly useful. I genuiely hardly ever need to use the context menu because what I need is there "in my face" and "obvious". While this fits newbie usage patterns perfectly, it also helps us power users who don't always switch back to the keyboard shortcuts (mouse already in hand) and don't want to jump through several hoops (like faffing with context menus) to get stuff done. On the other hand, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell the toolbar buttons do when I'm using Finder or Mail on OS-X (Snow Leopard and Lion). The icons are crap, there are no visual cues and I always end up dropping to a terminal to get stuff done because I simply can't be arsed to figure it out or piss around with right clicking or the awful keyboard shortcut system on OS X. I don't think people usually get that far with OS X without getting "shiny I paid $2000 so it must be good Apple mental block" as I call it. I'm fed up of so-called self-proclaimed experts chucking out blog posts criticising user interfaces while masturbating over Apple's efforts. Microsoft's UI allows you to get shit done and get it done quickly. So it might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it works and works well for those of us with shit in our eyes. Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do).
- revscat 15y ago
  Two questions: 1) Why the anger? 2) What specific tasks are difficult for you to accomplish in Finder or Mail? The default icon set in Mail (seen here: http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png) do not seem to be difficult to parse. Ditto the Finder icons.
  - pointyhat 15y ago
    1) 2 days with Lion and ten years of Apple fanboys whinging in my ear like angry wasps. 2) Just about everything from the awful toolbar icons (the labels are turned off by default on my MacBook) to the fact that it makes an awful mess of the messages and it's impossible to stick an image attachment in it without it trying to rape you in the eye socket with iPhoto.
code_duck 15y ago
There's really no question... the screenshot he has provided is heinous. Talk about being out of ideas 20 years ago...
leeoniya 15y ago
explorer is progressively getting bloated and nasty; there's no 'power user' version and now way to bring back useful features which have existed before. i've been using Classic Shell to keep my sanity on W7 and the 'Super Bar' is big step back in productivity for me. my search for seamless Explorer replacements continues...
icarus_drowning 15y ago
I'm not sure why, but I've never really gotten used to the ribbon. Especially in Office 2010 , I find it incredibly difficult to navigate and, frankly, hugely annoying. To see it brought to something like explorer is horrifying, especially considering the large amount of vertical space it takes up. Shouldn't there be more intuitive ways of doing these things? Why is there a need for a move button or copy (one or the other) when you have drag and drop? I know it is very much in vogue to abstract the file system away from the user, and it strikes me that this is exactly the opposite, and just might be just a little over engineered.
DevX101 15y ago
Before power users criticize the UI, keep in mind the recent study that 90% of computer users didn't know to use CTRL-F to search a document. Things that may be intuitive to you, may not be so to most other users. Maybe MS did extensive usability testing, maybe they didn't. But that CTRL-F study was so surprising to me that I don't trust my instinct when it comes to judging the effectiveness of a user interface for hundreds of millions of people
siromega 15y ago
The simple answer is that MS had to add all those buttons in the ribbon to make the UI more touch friendly. You cant right click on a tablet with your finger.
- lucisferre 15y ago
  The problem here is really the ribbon itself. It is ugly awkward and hard to scan quickly due to it's inconsistent layout. I almost never find what I'm looking for without looking two or three times and I'm a regular user. Yes tablets need buttons to touch, what they don't need is a cluttered ugly ribbon.
- wisty 15y ago
  I can't believe this wasn't upvoted more. Moving to this design is a step in the right direction. They need to do more - like ax the filesystem altogether (rendering this step meaningless), but that's another story.
- danssig 15y ago
  If they want to go touch they should be getting rid of the file system, not making it easier to manage. Touch devices are appliances. The reason I left windows in the first place was because I was sick of managing it. I'm certainly not going to pay money for the joy of managing an appliance.
- r00fus 15y ago
  There are more elegant ways to add touch-usable capabilities than gobbling up real-estate (iOS implements the "context menu" as a long-click meta-mode). You could also use persistent buttons like PalmOS/Android. Discoverability is a prime way to keep things elegant (ie, don't push it in a user's face - let them find it easily). Of course, if Microsoft wants to address BOTH touch and desktop, then I wish them well... that's a herculean task and I don't think any solution work well for either.
- saratogacx 15y ago
  Press and hold is right click. Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Tablet versions of windows for at least vista and 7 all use this.
strmpnk 15y ago
While I haven't used this UI and I think it's bulky and ugly, there is one important thing to note that I think people miss on first pass. Typical use based on their research has used the context menu. On Windows that is typically a right click (IIRC). Now Windows 8 has claimed to moving towards more touch capable user interface. I'd imagine anything that is directly touchable with common controls being larger targets is a huge improvement from right-click simulation. These controls, while ugly, I could see as an improvement to usability in those scenarios. Additionally, I haven't seen any effective file management interfaces for touch devices yet. Most of them shun the filesystem in favor of flattened document collections, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out on upcoming tablet devices. Personally, I was looking forward to stepping away from filesystems and lessening their role in my regular interactions, but time will tell where valuable experiences will be spent, so I'd say we wait and see for this one.
contextfree 15y ago
Between this and the last post about the copy dialogs with their graphs etc., I wonder if they are making a conscious decision to focus the traditional desktop UI more on "power use cases" (not necessarily "power users"). It's telling that the PM prominently talks up Copy as Path and batch file scripting in the video. It makes a certain amount of sense - for casual use there's the relatively minimalist, design-y immersive UI, so the people working on the desktop UI feel free to focus on the remaining use cases and move in the opposite direction.
abhimishra 15y ago
This post seems to miss the point - obviously some of the commands that were less-visible or non-existent earlier would not show up on the telemetry data, but can still be important to surface in a redesign of the UI. The newly-added buttons on the ribbon are there to address the most-requested features (by actual customers) as well as some of the missing features users most-often go to third-party plug-ins for, per the actual blog post from the Windows 8 Engineering Blog. As for whether the UI is stream-lined or not - while simplification has its place, it is not always a good thing. The OSX Finder is surprisingly devoid of things even basic users can find useful - in many cases it isn't easy to find the appropriate menu option or shortcut to perform these actions - personally I think it goes too far by way of simplification. It is good to make computers easy-to-understand - but by attempting to remove the learning curve COMPLETELY you can also damage the productivity a computer can provide. The sweetspot, of course, is somewhere in the middle.
crenshaw 15y ago
This is an odd article, because Microsoft addresses exactly the point this person is arguing against. MS says, "Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands." And have this picture, http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8400.Figure-7-_2D00_-Command-use-with-Command-bar_5F00_2.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit... The takeaway from the data isn't that you should focus on people using context menus, because all commands haven't been available in other places. But they used their data and said, "there are the most common desired actions" coupled with their own design sense that said, "if we moved them to the ribbon they'd be easier to use". To me that makes a great deal of sense. I feel like this person, Seldo, who wrote this blog post attacked MS without either reading the full MS post or not understanding it. Statements like, "But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research" (which she bolded) simply aren't in the data MS presented. It's as if she misunderstood the distinction between location and action. And later she says, "Again, this is Microsoft’s own research, cited in the same post: nobody — almost literally 0% of users — uses the menu bar, and only 10% of users use the command bar." Again she seems to not understand that the most common actions were only available from the context menus.
fmavituna 15y ago
Article is ignoring a big thing, features such as "Copy Path" is almost hidden in Win 7/Vista unless you know where they are. In 7 you have to "Shift + Right Click" to see "Copy as Path" in the context menu. Now how many users (even power users) actually know about this? So many of my friends were really pleased to find this out when I showed them. There are lots of other features such as you can actually copy a file and when you try to paste it to a "File Open Dialog" 7 will automatically paste the path of the file, so that's why "Copy Path" was quite hidden, because for common usage it's just easier to do copy & paste. We have to understand that just like everyone know what is Ctrl + C all power users eventually gets rid of menu bars and just uses hotkeys. New Ribbon interface (with hide/customise features) provides a nice infrastructure for that while not punishing the normal users.
zobzu 15y ago
I'm probably the only one to think that it's good that MS keeps buttons that are less used. Cause you see less used does not mean NOT used. Sure cut&paste is going to be like 80% of the use, but when you make a new dir you're going to have that working and in front of you. Here's the key sentence,take note: It's not how OFTEN you use it that matters most but how USEFUL it is. Browser makers, please take note when you remove 99% of the UI. Thanks. Beside I know most "noobs" look for these functions in menus and will love the buttons. Even on OSX many just don't know how to move/copy. They can do it in iPhoto or iMovie, but when it comes to the finder they're lost.
VaedaStrike 15y ago
Oh the myopic mind has no bound. Well...except where it has to have bounds to be considered myopic... Do you expect an UI designed for someone that's never heard of HN and who is unaware that you can copy and paste pieces of text SHOULD seem attractive to a technohipster blogger? So many times HN seems like the next incarnation of the Library of Alexandria and then posts like this make it seem like a bunch of silly stupid cyber bullies stuck in myspace and high school WHILE guffawing at the teacher's assignment for the day. Microsoft is often times silly, stupid, evil, whacked out. But don't go projecting myopic mamby-pamby "critique" like you knew something. Love them or hate them or think they're falling off of the face of the earth Microsoft gets enough right to still pull in the pennies, a tad bit more than I think this poor chap manages with his blog.
lhnn 15y ago
Yes, let's get rid of advanced features, because a lot of people don't use them.
mkramlich 15y ago
I felt they entered that realm a while back. One of the reasons I switched to Mac.
blackrabbit 15y ago
The concept might be to increase their usage...
eliben 15y ago
Although I'm (very very) far from being a MS fan-boy, I find an inherent flaw in such reviews written by programmers/hackers/power users. What they all miss is the real target audience for Windows - i.e. my Grandpa.
- danssig 15y ago
  What is your Grandpa doing with a desktop? Get him an iPad, it's all he'll ever need.
  - eliben 15y ago
    Well, he has it since before the iPad. And isn't iPad kinda hard on old people? (shaky hands, etc.)
    - danssig 15y ago
      Actually I keep hearing that their great for the same reasons kids like them: easy concepts to grasp, unlike a mouse for example.
frou_dh 15y ago
It's the stuff at the top left of the screenshot that puts it over the edge. They couldn't resist having just one more menu, so there it is partially crammed in to the title bar.
antonyme 15y ago
While the Ribbon UI was intended to simplify complex UI, these screenshots suggest it may not. Take for example the "Explorer in Windows 8" image. The visual hierarchy is very confusing. The ribbon appears to have 5 pages - but File is bold and special for some reason (it invokes a huge popup menu?). But the focus of the entire app is on Files - so what conceptually would not go under File, except for Folder operations? Furthermore, above this special File menu there are three super special (and somewhat inscrutable) icons. But aren't these just shortcuts for File operations? Why don't they just live under File menu? For that matter, why have toolbar buttons been hoisted into the title bar itself? The current tab appears to be the Home tab, based on the highlight. But this has nothing to do with your "Home" directory - it is merely the "default" page for the most common operations. These operations are used to manage your files - the names of two other tabs in this hierarchy. What would the user expect to find there? The layout of the Home tab is visually confusing. There is no grid or use of whitespace to guide the eye, and it presents a non-uniform 2-dimensional array of controls of different sizes. At least the old toolbars being 1-dimensional meant the user could easily remember approximately how far along the toolbar to look for the icon - now the user must scan a far more complex terrain to find what they're looking for. There are two different sizes and layouts for action icons. So Copy and Paste are large icons with text below, while Cut is a small icon with text to the right. Why? Presumably it is less frequently used, but the inconsistency is visually jarring and non-obvious to the user. While some buttons cause immediate actions, others have a small down-arrow next to them, suggesting they will probably pop up a menu instead. This introduces another variation to the two button types, giving a third type. But some have a default action when clicking on the button itself (a fourth type), and only reveal a menu when clicking on the arrow - yet there is no visual indication of which behaviour a button has. (This is apparent in IE and Office also.) A user may wonder what is the difference between clicking on the dark blue File toolbar tab, versus clicking on the menu button in the very top of the titlebar, versus pressing Alt to reveal the hitherto hidden menubar? While the Manage ribbon tab appears at the same hierarchy level as Home, Share and View, it has a brightly coloured tab _above_ it labelled "Library Tools". Vertical lines suggest it is superior to the Manage item; yet presumably it is also higher than Home, given its placement and urgent red/orange background? What is the difference between pressing Manage and selecting Library Tools? A user not trained in the intricacies of the Office Ribbon UI will IMHO be utterly baffled by the complexity exposed in this UI and the inconsistencies therein. While it is laudable that Microsoft is attempting to refresh the design of this venerable component of Windows, this work seems to be little more than a reshuffling of features and shortcuts, rather than a rethinking of file management.
pinaceae 15y ago
The ribbon discussion reminds a lot of the iPad one - all the IT "geniuses" simply don't get it. Hate the ribbon. Hate the iPad. But for the majority of users, those are massive improvements in UI. Right-Click, Double-Click, ... arcane commands only people like and love that are good at memorizing actions. And if those memorized actions are gone, the rage begins. You need to be anal to love the old Office UI or the command line. Do you remember the hate the old Office UI got in the past from the very people who now praise it? Personally, I think the ribbon UI was the ballsiest move that MS did in a decade. It showed real guts, real vision. In Office 2010, they improved upon it, making Excel, Powerpoint and Word actually more usable. Exposing new functions and teaching me about them, from within the UI.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
krig 15y ago
I don't understand how there can be so many posts here defending this UI. Is this a concerted effort by Microsoft to flood hacker news with their viewpoint? I just don't see how this is a defensible UI, at all. Seriously, it's overwhelming. The UI is constantly shouting commands at the user, regardless of what the user is trying to do. UIs like these are exactly where the problem my parents have with computers come from. They go in with an idea of what they want to do, let's say they want to find a note they wrote previously. As soon as they open the window, they are bombarded with commands. Move! Copy! Save as! Select! Select all! It's a cacophony of nonsense to them. Copy? Copy what, where? Nothing in there helps them find their note. Really. "Easy access." What does that button do? I have no idea what might happen when that's pressed. It sounds a bit dirty, but accepting that it's probably accessibility related and not an invitation to intimacy, I still can't figure out what it might do. Ridiculous.
- atomicdog 15y ago
  All I see in this new UI is a bunch of interface designers trying to justify their jobs... >What? Most users are familiar with CTRL+C, CTRL+V these days? LALALA NOT LISTENING!! ADD MORE RIBBONS!!
- DanElectrode 15y ago
  The new Windows 8 tile-based interface will be the default way to interact with your files and applications, Explorer will be only for when you need to do some advanced file management. Your parents will most likely never have to use it.
  - krig 15y ago
    No one should have to use it.
epaga 15y ago
This makes me wonder how often I fall into the same trap when designing UIs. "Not enough people are using this feature" can lead you to think "Let's make that feature's UI more prominent" instead of what it (normally) should: "Let's scrap that feature". Simplicity, minimalism, and elegance seem to be completely elusive to Microsoft, even with their brand new developments.
Ironballs 15y ago
What people often miss in Ribbon UIs is that they are in fact very much for the power user. Here are a couple of reasons why: Every button or command on the Ribbon can be accessed via polymorphic hotkeys. Every command can be accessed as a chain of key presses. There is zero need for mouse usage -- even in PowerPoint. This is huge. This was not doable in previous versions of Office! There were some commands you could not access via anything else than the menu, and to those of us that are vim users, you know how bad that can be! I do a lot of PowerPoint presentations and besides designing arrows or shapes I have no need for a mouse. And PowerPoint is a WYSIWYG editor! The other reason is that you can hide the Ribbon. See the screenshots? That chevron symbol (^) means that you can essentially auto-hide the Ribbon and bring it back, while still retaining its usability via hotkeys. I'm by no means an all-guns-blazing MSFT fanboy, but I need Office at work, and instead of jumping on the silly bandwagon of bashing all that is Ribbon, I found my inner vim user and learnt to god damn power use the hell out of it. To those that actually need Office daily, I recommend opening it and pressing Alt. Let the funny stuff unfold.
mariusmg 15y ago
If you're not using keyboard shortcuts for file operations, you're doing it very wrong. Hide the ribon UI and problem solved.
agilemanic 15y ago
haha this made me laugh. would like to hear an official statement from the MS Design department
greendot 15y ago
I have to help "stupid users" in both the PC and the Mac world. There are "stupid users" everywhere and not more on one side or the other. I look forward to this new Windows Explorer. You would be amazed at the things regular people just do not know. MS is putting that all up front, in their face. They see it, they know where and what the commands are. It matches what their version of Office looks like. They will probably be able to figure it out instead of calling me to go show them how to do something, that as a nerd, deem "easy". Plus, I agree with the other users. Our viewpoint is skewed. We are top tier users. We're not the ones that need disclaimers on the side of our hair-dryer that says, "Do not user while bathing."
hackermom 15y ago
Someone should open a can of Apple HID on their asses.
jhawk28 15y ago
Most people I work with detest the ribbon interface.
runjake 15y ago
Seems like I've been defending Windows Phone on here so much lately, maybe it's time to balance it out. I think this is hideous crap UI design. Fortunately, it can be shut off (at least in the leaked betas). I'm not aware of anything good that's come out of Microsoft and usability tests. Apple didn't seem to use them and it turned out well for them. Microsoft, go with the Windows Phone paradigm, full force. It is your (successful) future.
rradu 15y ago
On a related and more positive note: Microsoft also released a preview of changes they're making to the actual copy/paste process. And it's kind of cool. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-win8-windows-8,13287.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-win8-win...
BonsaiDen 15y ago
Dunno... but I get the feeling that everyone thinks that computers should be easier, and nobody should have to learn anything in order to use the. Uh, what? We're living in a world where digital technology more and more becomes the dominant driving force of our society. We already lost the ability to change hardware to a - relatively small - group of people (yes, considering the amount of people using the stuff, the group is tiny). So what now? Make sure there's only an elitist circle of high paid, influential "technology gods" left? While I definitely consider my self as a geek, I would not like such a society at all. It can be the target of humanity that ordinary people get even "dumber" than they're now. Sorry, but I think people should strife for new knowledge, they should keep their spirit of discovery. By simplyfing the whole world around them, at least in my eyes, it becomes harder and harder for kids to figure out all these things on their own. And once all the knowledge is locked away from them, the elitist will choose who gets insight into the then "magical" workings of the world. Yeah, maybe my picture of the future has a little bit of a dark taint, but well that's what you get when even your colleagues, which are the same age as yourself, are light years behind in terms of thirst for knowledge.

742 points by wyclif 15y ago

They missed april fools day by a few months

Em, if the author would actually fact-check, he'd know that most of those buttons dont't exist yet, so they'd hardly have more than 0% usage.

jdp23 15y ago

I just showed this to a Mac user who responded "Streamlined! Intuitive! Look at all that stuff, why would I use that?"

mikeryan 15y ago
I'm a heavy Mac user, but Finder is and has always been one of OS X's pain points and its gotten worse in Lion. Until I changed it when I opened a Finder window it defaults to a list of "All My Files" which is useless (the first 20 or so items are __init__.py)
- igorgue 15y ago
  You're a programmer, use the terminal. Also most "normal" users do not have a single __init__.py I like the new Finder but I rarely use it... ack FTW!

sp332 15y ago

In Windows 7, the menu bar is hidden by default, that's why no one uses it. Also, "no one uses" those other commands only because no one knows they exist now. The whole point to the new UI is to change things to be better.

sliverstorm 15y ago
So glad I discovered F10.
- sp332 15y ago
  Just pushing Alt does the same thing, right?
  - psychotik 15y ago
    You seriously think that average users push 'Alt'?
    - sp332 15y ago
      Haha, compared to "F10"? But really, yes, because Alt activates menus in Windows applications. e.g. "Aft-F" for the File menu.
      - mirkules 15y ago
        Still to this day, Alt-F is engrained in my head. "Alt-F-S" for saving, actually. I use it all the time. On a Mac. I always get annoyed at myself when I search for the letter "S"
      - Stratoscope 15y ago
        Yes, but as much as you and I like keyboard shortcuts, I think we're a very small minority of Windows users. I don't think I've ever seen any of my normal everyday friends use Alt shortcuts, or even Tab and Enter in a dialog or web form. Even if I have them try it, next time I see them they are back to mousing and clicking everything.
  - Stratoscope 15y ago
    F10 and Alt do almost the same thing with some subtle (perhaps unintentional?) differences. For example, without hitting any other keys, try tapping F10 repeatedly, then tap Alt repeatedly.

encoderer 15y ago

I think the point is missed. It's hard to claim that the context menu is good UI. The fact that so few people use the menu bar means that it's currently useless and needs to be reworked. It's not as if they're replacing the context menu with the ribbon, they're replacing the currently-unused menu bar.

Triumvark 15y ago
True, and shortcut key functionality (the commonly used good UI) is simultaneously expanded.
stephen_g 15y ago
That's not the problem here - it's that they are cramming literally hundreds of different actions into the ribbon. They're taking a bad design, and making it many times harder to navigate and far more confusing.

codingsolo 15y ago

This is a grossly-skewed assessment of the interface. Wouldn't the under utilization of features warrant an analysis WHY they are not being used? Wouldn't there also be a UX overhaul to make those features/commands/buttons/menus more approachable? The data and infographics would only be relevant if they were based upon the Win8 redesign.

kingofspain 15y ago

Everything I had to explain to my ex-boss about dealing with files is there in one click. I could hide it if I wanted and have my usual experience. I really don't see the problem. I actually think that overall this a big improvement. Minimalism can go screw itself when it costs me hours of free labour :)

varunsrin 15y ago

The first problem with the article here is that some of the buttons (Move To, Copy To) did not exist previously. They are also extensions of existing functions (Move, Copy) - so concluding that half the UI is covered by buttons that were not used is an inaccurate assumption. Secondly, the actions are being moved from the context menu to the ribbon. Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus. Each of these is a 'modifier' that power users are used to, but which make the mental model of file manipulation much harder for beginners to wrap their heads around. They have to remember to apply these modifiers to see if the functions they want exist. Moving the functions into a contextually aware ribbon will make life much easier for these users. Third, Move, Copy, Delete & Rename occupy the center of the ribbon. These are the most used commands (by far) and rightfully occupy center stage. Power users will call it clutter, but it will be extremely helpful for beginners. [Disclaimer: MSFT Employee, but I do not work on Windows]

dhimes 15y ago
Most new computer users find it very hard to remember additional, non intuitive actions like right clicking & context menus I didn't realize this. In fact, if I were asked to guess, I would have answered that most new users would pick up pretty quickly how to use context menus, especially if the context menus had related commands like file manipulation if in Windows Explorer (is it still called that?), or formatting if in a text document, etc. Hell, rats in a cage can learn what to push in order to eat, so I would have thought that people would be able to learn this. Of course, it would help if they were told somehow and didn't have to discover it.
- riffic 15y ago
  agree, in fact UI like this encourages a user to develop bad usage habits, which will remain with them for an indefinite amount of time until these behaviors are (if ever) unlearned.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    What are bad usage habits? (since we're on topic: I'm an MS employee. I do not work on Windows Explorer)

mc32 15y ago

The UI, is apparently customizable. From the Team Blog: "We knew that using a ribbon for Explorer would likely be met with skepticism by a set of power-users (like me), but there are clear benefits in ways that the ribbon: -Exposes hidden features that they already use but which require third party add-ons to use in the Explorer UI today. -Provides keyboard shortcuts for every command in the ribbon, something many people have been asking for. -Provides UI customization with the quick access toolbar, taking us back to a customization level that is basically equivalent to Windows XP."

qq66 15y ago
The rule of any customizable feature is that the vast majority of the users will stick with the defaults. So the defaults have to be optimized.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  I'd love to see some stats on this. I wonder just what percentage of users never changes a default UI.
  - kaishin 15y ago
    My parents definitely won't.
    - jarek 15y ago
      Well, that's at least 2.8741 × 10^(-8) percent of users!
      - kaishin 15y ago
        What's your logic behind this number? Do you think Microsoft made all those billions selling crappy software to geeks like us?
        15y ago

AllenKids 15y ago

I generally like ribbon in Office and think MSFT has some great ideas here, like moving the info pan to better fit the wide screen reality. But at this stage it looks so very very bad, and remind me the open office mouse with 30 buttons.

planetjoe 15y ago

I'm getting off-point here, but did anyone else get annoyed that the MS blog post used bar charts when they should use pie charts to compare relative percentages?

sid0 15y ago
http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered-harmful http://www.napera.com/product-design/pie-charts-considered-h...
- planetjoe 15y ago
  Point well taken. I can't seriously argue against Tufte or actual research, but I still like pie charts for some things.
cabirum 15y ago
As long as y-axis starts at 0%, its fine for me.

eddieplan9 15y ago

This reminds me of this famous quote: The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.

hackinthebochs 15y ago
The problem with this idea is that for the majority of users "taste" is the last thing on their mind. Functionality and ease of use are the only things that matter. Having common functions up front in your face is in fact easier to use than having them hidden away. It takes a certain level of skill using a system before you're capable of appreciating higher level constructs such as "beauty". As an analogy, we all have seen poor coders whose code is poorly formatted, sloppy looking, and just plain ugly. But when you ask them they're just not capable of noticing this. Its that their minds have not elevated past the details to see the big picture. It's the same way with most computer users.
WayneDB 15y ago
From the same guy that said "Good artists copy, great artists steal." If Microsoft has no taste, Apple certainly has rotten taste in my opinion.

pixcavator 15y ago

BTW, is "officially" the new "literally"?

anonymoushn 15y ago
I'm not sure. I haven't yet seen any companies that officially eat dog food. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_a-gn0dYmk#t=1m14s

systems 15y ago

Well, in general I agree with the comments saying that the review missed the point about reworking the Tool/Menu bar so that people start to use it more I still think, it's too crowded, and will benefit from a mode selection (i.e. Advanced with all these button, Basic with only the most used ones and Custom )

skeptical 15y ago

Microsoft UIs current state is, in general, cluttered and broken. I agree with this blogger, and my reaction was similar when I red the original post on msdn. Having been absent from microsoft office (or any office like application for that mater) for many years, I recently got to use recent versions of microsoft products such as Word, Outlook, etc. The ribbons were a big facepalm, I didn't know such bad things exist, a few co-workers of mine said that they find them practical. I spent an average of 20-40 seconds each time I needed to click one of those buttons, even after many months of usage. The buttons are jammed together in a rectangular area in ridiculous amounts. Some ribbons have close to 20 buttons, this will never be intuitive, it's just not visually easy to identify the buttons. Also, often a button is on the other site, all the away across the window in a far far away ribbon. I never managed to use any microsoft OS after XP. Did the users really need other MS OS after XP? Quite frankly, I cannot find sinigle advantage of using vista or seven. PS: The screenshots have something of a 1998 charm, I think it's that overlayed info. mspaint?

Maascamp 15y ago
That's because, as you stated in your post, you haven't used them. On a side note, the quality of comments has gone down while the know-it-all undertones have sky rocketed.

marze 15y ago

They entered that realm long ago.

martingordon 15y ago

Everyone I know loves managing their files, so it's great that Microsoft is finally improving Windows Explorer! WRONG! For the hundreds of nerds complaining that they don't have access to the file system on their iPads, there are millions of normal people who are delighted by a computer that they can use rather than manage. How much longer can Microsoft keep making a 20th century operating system? What's going to be the great innovation of Windows 9? Yet another reshuffled toolbar driven by all of their wonderful data?

sid0 15y ago
How do you copy a bunch of documents and pictures from and to a USB drive without a filesystem?
- adriand 15y ago
  Well, the iOS way would be that documents would end up in a place that is shown when you open a word processor, and that pictures would end up in a place that is shown when you open up an image navigator.
  - sid0 15y ago
    You still haven't answered my question. I have a set of documents, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. I also have a set of pictures, a subset of which I'd like to copy onto my USB drive. My USB drive already has a set of documents and a set of pictures, and I'd like to get a subset of the documents and a subset of the pictures onto internal storage so that I can plug out my USB drive afterwards and still access them. Can you come up with a way of doing all that that doesn't involve a filesystem or a poor imitation of it?
    - sunchild 15y ago
      I'm not sure what type of "documents" you're referring to, but the images could be handled as with any other media import upon attaching the drive – i.e., within the image browsing app. As for moving images to the USB drive, that's an export from the image browsing app.

anigbrowl 15y ago

The writer of this blog uses a picture of the Golden Gate bridge as the background image on the page. As someone who lives near the bridge, I can affirm that at any given time, more than 50% of the bridge is empty; that is, less than half of the bridge's surface is covered by cars or pedestrians. Clearly this is a complete waste of resources, and we should just get rid of the empty half. Also, what is up with those suspension towers and all those cables? Does anyone actually cross the bridge at those great heights? I say cut them up and stick them underneath as support piers, so that they're not obstructing the view or (more likely) sticking out of a fog bank and creating a hazard to passing aircraft.

chetan51 15y ago
Civil engineering is very different from UI design.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  Well, i wouldn't want you to overthink it...but they're not so far apart. Games have the best UI; ideally a game will only show you the bare minimum of information required, and make the play experience as smooth and intuitive as possible. But games also have very narrowly defined win/loss conditions, and even in sandbox games (like Grand Theft Auto) success means that that players in the middle of the normal distribution are able to complete the game and interested enough to spend time doing so. For creative or productivity software, the definition of success is open-ended, because while designers can anticipate the kind of tasks/problems users will want to perform/solve, the end product of their labors is fundamentally unknowable, rather than waiting within the software to be discovered by the diligent user (player). Sure, Michaelangelo used to say that the statue already existed within the block of marble and his job was simply to reveal it, but you should probably see that as an early example of successful branding rather than a design document. A game is like a theme park ride insofar as the riders may change but their interaction with the ride is highly constrained. An application is more like a civil engineering task insofar as it has to bear a substantial amount of traffic, but its job is to facilitate rather than fulfill. You want those things available on the toolbar, even though many of them may not see regular use, because it's the easiest way to signal the availability of such functionality. The relative utility distribution of toolbar buttons or menu items follows Benford's law just like everything else.

krschultz 15y ago

The concept of the ribbon - tabs with buttons grouped by function - has a lot of advantages in theory. Obviously you can have bigger buttons which is always a good thing, and you allow each button to have sub-buttons which actually works out really well. I personally think Microsoft is on the right track from a high level perspective. The problem comes in the implementation. The graphic design is just horrible. Where is the grid? Where is the white space? What the hell is that round button that replaces the file menu? The title bar just looks awful. If they could clean it up graphically I really think it could be just as nice as anything on Mac OS X. Ask yourself this, if Apple had come out with the buttons on tabs in the exact same groupings but done it in a gorgeous way, who would be complaining about it? We'd all be heralding it.

kaishin 15y ago
I think the ribbon concept is inherently flawed because no human brain can remember such an overwhelming amount of information (what command in which function group in which tab).
- whatusername 15y ago
  And your suggestion is? How is the ribbon any different to a hierarchial menu bar? (See the Gnome drop-down menu or the iOS Settings Menu).
  - revscat 15y ago
    Limit the need for Explorer/Finder/etc. altogether. For those cases where it is needed limit top level UI elements to the most commonly used items. Move the rest to either a toolbar or a contextual menu. You know, I just checked Finder and realized that not only does it not have the things showed in this mockup, but that I have never missed them. Strange.
    - cytzol 15y ago
      Did you consider that you haven't missed these things because you aren't used to using them?

psychotik 15y ago

The best way to 'fix' Windows Explorer is to focus on improving usability of the OS such that Windows Explorer isn't something average users needs to use. Focusing on improving it is focusing on the wrong problem, IMO. Having said that, I think the author of the post seems to ignore the fact that Microsoft's research shows that not many use the menu bar currently (because currently, the menu bar is hidden by default). By adding the ribbon, I assume their goal is to improve that statistic, and in turn make it easier for users.

alanfalcon 15y ago

Reminds me of this video, which I was told was actually created by Microsoft as a self-parody, though I don't have any supporting evidence. "Microsoft Designs the iPod Package:" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9HfdSp2E2A

jdp23 15y ago
Yes, this video was done by an internal group at Microsoft.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  How do you know?
  - jdp23 15y ago
    I knew one of the people behind it.
huhtenberg 15y ago
iPodObserver site appears to be the only place that was emailed by "Microsoft spokesman Tom Pilla" to say that this was a Microsoft-produced video. Everyone else simply quoted them. So the authenticity of [1] looks highly implausible. [1] http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_it_Originated_iPod_Box_Parody_Video/ http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/Microsoft_Confirms_i...

kirillzubovsky 15y ago

Maybe this is an ingenius plan by Microsoft employees to revamp the company from inside out (or outside in?). But seriously, the kool-aid drinking types are probably really flustered by your post, as they think the ginormous waste of screen space is the best thing ever invented. sad

georgieporgie 15y ago

With regards to Microsoft's usage statistics, and the counter-argument, I can't help but think of this: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-world http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/09/counterintuitive-w... Simple usage statistics aren't especially valuable if you don't look at the overall picture as to why features are used (e.g. who would cut and paste if they understood how to move?). I'm not sure if either side is properly analyzing the available information.

mirkules 15y ago
Actually, copy/paste makes a lot of sense. Having to frequently copy or move files from one place to another, I got used to ctrl-c or -x a file, then go to a different directory, and ctrl-v. The appeal, I think, is that I don't have to use the mouse (which employs a time-costly drag operation). Dragging files into directories is also cognitively expensive - e.g. you have to make certain that you are dragging exactly into the right folder which can be about 15 pixels high, depending on what view you're using. It requires hand-eye coordination which becomes unnecessary with simple copy/paste operations. BUT, for beginner users, I agree: users have a hard time grasping the concept of a copy/paste buffer anyway, and with files it gets abstracted one more level. For more advanced users, they use keyboard shortcuts, so the buttons don't really need to be there.

mmuro 15y ago

_They use this to show that “the commands that make up 84% of what users do in Explorer are now in one tab”. But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research._ This hits the nail on the head when discussing the UI decisions made. If Microsoft had included the top 10 commands in an organized manner, plus a few more from their data, it'd probably be fine.

elehack 15y ago
There's a huge difference between have never used and will never use. Microsoft's data is about past usage; the article makes an unjustified extrapolation from that to future message. This extrapolation is particularly relevant when discussing a feature that largely serves to improve discoverability - if the features make sense together, putting them together and making them visible may help users get more out of the software. It would be interesting to find out how many people say "I never knew the file manager could do that" when they fire up Windows 8, even when the feature has been there since NT4.

jasongullickson 15y ago

Usability of this (and anything, really) would improve dramatically if in each system there were one correct way (based on selection by scientific usability testing) to initiate each task. The "helpfulness" of providing "n" ways of doing the same thing is an illusion and only undermines the ability for users to establish a shared context which can be used to make user actions more automatic for the experienced and easier to teach to the inexperienced.

voxmatt 15y ago

This post didn't even need words, just that progression of screenshots. Windows 7 feels almost like a nice breeze and them, wham, that Windows 8 monstrosity. Functional, data-driven arguments will never convince me that a user's first reaction to that window will be anything other than confusion.

devth 15y ago

This prototype is a failure of both design and usability. It's an offense and a joke against anyone who expects to be able to interact with a machine in an efficient and intelligent manner. - It's ugly as hell - A beginner is bombarded with way too many things to click on - An expert is annoyed by useless buttons and waste of space Sure, you can turn it off, but who wants to configure and reconfigure UI preferences for the rest of their lives (sidenote: reminds me of eclipse)? Sensible defaults, please. Contrast this with Apple, whose designs often define what good design and usability means. In their apps: - The appearance is simple, well-designed, elegant - The only actions present are those deemed most necessary to the user - Tons of functionality is hidden under shortcut keys, modifier clicks and context menus for expert users (after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance as a result of their zealous attention to detail)

aik 15y ago
Just one question: Are these two statements different or restating the same thing with a different perception: >> after years on OS X, I still discover hidden elegance and something like: "It takes me years to find some features because they're so well hidden, and perhaps unintuitive."
- devth 15y ago
  Not at all. The things discovered are unessential to getting things done. It's usually just a nicer way or more of a "wow, I can't believe they thought of this crazy edge case". A few examples: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-x-hidden-features-or-nice-tips-tricks http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/400/got-any-mac-os-...

pointyhat 15y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a Windows and Mac OS X "power user" and I'm going to be rather critical of Apple who are seen as at the forefront of UI design. I'm probably going to get voted down for this. I'm a proponent of the Ribbon UI and I fucking hate toolbars in OS X. I use Outlook, Word, Excel and Windows Live Mail extensively. All of which have the ribbon UI. It turns out that for the sake of actually getting stuff done, this is incredibly useful. I genuiely hardly ever need to use the context menu because what I need is there "in my face" and "obvious". While this fits newbie usage patterns perfectly, it also helps us power users who don't always switch back to the keyboard shortcuts (mouse already in hand) and don't want to jump through several hoops (like faffing with context menus) to get stuff done. On the other hand, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell the toolbar buttons do when I'm using Finder or Mail on OS-X (Snow Leopard and Lion). The icons are crap, there are no visual cues and I always end up dropping to a terminal to get stuff done because I simply can't be arsed to figure it out or piss around with right clicking or the awful keyboard shortcut system on OS X. I don't think people usually get that far with OS X without getting "shiny I paid $2000 so it must be good Apple mental block" as I call it. I'm fed up of so-called self-proclaimed experts chucking out blog posts criticising user interfaces while masturbating over Apple's efforts. Microsoft's UI allows you to get shit done and get it done quickly. So it might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but it works and works well for those of us with shit in our eyes. Also, Microsoft research what you want rather than tell you what you're having (like Apple do).

revscat 15y ago
Two questions: 1) Why the anger? 2) What specific tasks are difficult for you to accomplish in Finder or Mail? The default icon set in Mail (seen here: http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png http://i.imgur.com/zYmaw.png) do not seem to be difficult to parse. Ditto the Finder icons.
- pointyhat 15y ago
  1) 2 days with Lion and ten years of Apple fanboys whinging in my ear like angry wasps. 2) Just about everything from the awful toolbar icons (the labels are turned off by default on my MacBook) to the fact that it makes an awful mess of the messages and it's impossible to stick an image attachment in it without it trying to rape you in the eye socket with iPhoto.

code_duck 15y ago

There's really no question... the screenshot he has provided is heinous. Talk about being out of ideas 20 years ago...

leeoniya 15y ago

explorer is progressively getting bloated and nasty; there's no 'power user' version and now way to bring back useful features which have existed before. i've been using Classic Shell to keep my sanity on W7 and the 'Super Bar' is big step back in productivity for me. my search for seamless Explorer replacements continues...

icarus_drowning 15y ago

I'm not sure why, but I've never really gotten used to the ribbon. Especially in Office 2010 , I find it incredibly difficult to navigate and, frankly, hugely annoying. To see it brought to something like explorer is horrifying, especially considering the large amount of vertical space it takes up. Shouldn't there be more intuitive ways of doing these things? Why is there a need for a move button or copy (one or the other) when you have drag and drop? I know it is very much in vogue to abstract the file system away from the user, and it strikes me that this is exactly the opposite, and just might be just a little over engineered.

DevX101 15y ago

Before power users criticize the UI, keep in mind the recent study that 90% of computer users didn't know to use CTRL-F to search a document. Things that may be intuitive to you, may not be so to most other users. Maybe MS did extensive usability testing, maybe they didn't. But that CTRL-F study was so surprising to me that I don't trust my instinct when it comes to judging the effectiveness of a user interface for hundreds of millions of people

siromega 15y ago

The simple answer is that MS had to add all those buttons in the ribbon to make the UI more touch friendly. You cant right click on a tablet with your finger.

lucisferre 15y ago
The problem here is really the ribbon itself. It is ugly awkward and hard to scan quickly due to it's inconsistent layout. I almost never find what I'm looking for without looking two or three times and I'm a regular user. Yes tablets need buttons to touch, what they don't need is a cluttered ugly ribbon.
wisty 15y ago
I can't believe this wasn't upvoted more. Moving to this design is a step in the right direction. They need to do more - like ax the filesystem altogether (rendering this step meaningless), but that's another story.
danssig 15y ago
If they want to go touch they should be getting rid of the file system, not making it easier to manage. Touch devices are appliances. The reason I left windows in the first place was because I was sick of managing it. I'm certainly not going to pay money for the joy of managing an appliance.
r00fus 15y ago
There are more elegant ways to add touch-usable capabilities than gobbling up real-estate (iOS implements the "context menu" as a long-click meta-mode). You could also use persistent buttons like PalmOS/Android. Discoverability is a prime way to keep things elegant (ie, don't push it in a user's face - let them find it easily). Of course, if Microsoft wants to address BOTH touch and desktop, then I wish them well... that's a herculean task and I don't think any solution work well for either.
saratogacx 15y ago
Press and hold is right click. Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Tablet versions of windows for at least vista and 7 all use this.

strmpnk 15y ago

While I haven't used this UI and I think it's bulky and ugly, there is one important thing to note that I think people miss on first pass. Typical use based on their research has used the context menu. On Windows that is typically a right click (IIRC). Now Windows 8 has claimed to moving towards more touch capable user interface. I'd imagine anything that is directly touchable with common controls being larger targets is a huge improvement from right-click simulation. These controls, while ugly, I could see as an improvement to usability in those scenarios. Additionally, I haven't seen any effective file management interfaces for touch devices yet. Most of them shun the filesystem in favor of flattened document collections, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out on upcoming tablet devices. Personally, I was looking forward to stepping away from filesystems and lessening their role in my regular interactions, but time will tell where valuable experiences will be spent, so I'd say we wait and see for this one.

contextfree 15y ago

Between this and the last post about the copy dialogs with their graphs etc., I wonder if they are making a conscious decision to focus the traditional desktop UI more on "power use cases" (not necessarily "power users"). It's telling that the PM prominently talks up Copy as Path and batch file scripting in the video. It makes a certain amount of sense - for casual use there's the relatively minimalist, design-y immersive UI, so the people working on the desktop UI feel free to focus on the remaining use cases and move in the opposite direction.

abhimishra 15y ago

This post seems to miss the point - obviously some of the commands that were less-visible or non-existent earlier would not show up on the telemetry data, but can still be important to surface in a redesign of the UI. The newly-added buttons on the ribbon are there to address the most-requested features (by actual customers) as well as some of the missing features users most-often go to third-party plug-ins for, per the actual blog post from the Windows 8 Engineering Blog. As for whether the UI is stream-lined or not - while simplification has its place, it is not always a good thing. The OSX Finder is surprisingly devoid of things even basic users can find useful - in many cases it isn't easy to find the appropriate menu option or shortcut to perform these actions - personally I think it goes too far by way of simplification. It is good to make computers easy-to-understand - but by attempting to remove the learning curve COMPLETELY you can also damage the productivity a computer can provide. The sweetspot, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

crenshaw 15y ago

This is an odd article, because Microsoft addresses exactly the point this person is arguing against. MS says, "Only 2 of the top 10 commands customers invoke in Explorer are available in the Command bar, the main UI element for invoking commands." And have this picture, http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-29-43-metablogapi/8400.Figure-7-_2D00_-Command-use-with-Command-bar_5F00_2.png http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/communit... The takeaway from the data isn't that you should focus on people using context menus, because all commands haven't been available in other places. But they used their data and said, "there are the most common desired actions" coupled with their own design sense that said, "if we moved them to the ribbon they'd be easier to use". To me that makes a great deal of sense. I feel like this person, Seldo, who wrote this blog post attacked MS without either reading the full MS post or not understanding it. Statements like, "But the more important thing is that the remaining 50% of the bar is taken up by buttons that nobody will ever use, ever, even according to Microsoft’s own research" (which she bolded) simply aren't in the data MS presented. It's as if she misunderstood the distinction between location and action. And later she says, "Again, this is Microsoft’s own research, cited in the same post: nobody — almost literally 0% of users — uses the menu bar, and only 10% of users use the command bar." Again she seems to not understand that the most common actions were only available from the context menus.

fmavituna 15y ago

Article is ignoring a big thing, features such as "Copy Path" is almost hidden in Win 7/Vista unless you know where they are. In 7 you have to "Shift + Right Click" to see "Copy as Path" in the context menu. Now how many users (even power users) actually know about this? So many of my friends were really pleased to find this out when I showed them. There are lots of other features such as you can actually copy a file and when you try to paste it to a "File Open Dialog" 7 will automatically paste the path of the file, so that's why "Copy Path" was quite hidden, because for common usage it's just easier to do copy & paste. We have to understand that just like everyone know what is Ctrl + C all power users eventually gets rid of menu bars and just uses hotkeys. New Ribbon interface (with hide/customise features) provides a nice infrastructure for that while not punishing the normal users.

zobzu 15y ago

I'm probably the only one to think that it's good that MS keeps buttons that are less used. Cause you see less used does not mean NOT used. Sure cut&paste is going to be like 80% of the use, but when you make a new dir you're going to have that working and in front of you. Here's the key sentence,take note: It's not how OFTEN you use it that matters most but how USEFUL it is. Browser makers, please take note when you remove 99% of the UI. Thanks. Beside I know most "noobs" look for these functions in menus and will love the buttons. Even on OSX many just don't know how to move/copy. They can do it in iPhoto or iMovie, but when it comes to the finder they're lost.

VaedaStrike 15y ago

Oh the myopic mind has no bound. Well...except where it has to have bounds to be considered myopic... Do you expect an UI designed for someone that's never heard of HN and who is unaware that you can copy and paste pieces of text SHOULD seem attractive to a technohipster blogger? So many times HN seems like the next incarnation of the Library of Alexandria and then posts like this make it seem like a bunch of silly stupid cyber bullies stuck in myspace and high school WHILE guffawing at the teacher's assignment for the day. Microsoft is often times silly, stupid, evil, whacked out. But don't go projecting myopic mamby-pamby "critique" like you knew something. Love them or hate them or think they're falling off of the face of the earth Microsoft gets enough right to still pull in the pennies, a tad bit more than I think this poor chap manages with his blog.

lhnn 15y ago

Yes, let's get rid of advanced features, because a lot of people don't use them.

mkramlich 15y ago

I felt they entered that realm a while back. One of the reasons I switched to Mac.

blackrabbit 15y ago

The concept might be to increase their usage...

eliben 15y ago

Although I'm (very very) far from being a MS fan-boy, I find an inherent flaw in such reviews written by programmers/hackers/power users. What they all miss is the real target audience for Windows - i.e. my Grandpa.

danssig 15y ago
What is your Grandpa doing with a desktop? Get him an iPad, it's all he'll ever need.
- eliben 15y ago
  Well, he has it since before the iPad. And isn't iPad kinda hard on old people? (shaky hands, etc.)
  - danssig 15y ago
    Actually I keep hearing that their great for the same reasons kids like them: easy concepts to grasp, unlike a mouse for example.

frou_dh 15y ago

It's the stuff at the top left of the screenshot that puts it over the edge. They couldn't resist having just one more menu, so there it is partially crammed in to the title bar.

antonyme 15y ago

While the Ribbon UI was intended to simplify complex UI, these screenshots suggest it may not. Take for example the "Explorer in Windows 8" image. The visual hierarchy is very confusing. The ribbon appears to have 5 pages - but File is bold and special for some reason (it invokes a huge popup menu?). But the focus of the entire app is on Files - so what conceptually would not go under File, except for Folder operations? Furthermore, above this special File menu there are three super special (and somewhat inscrutable) icons. But aren't these just shortcuts for File operations? Why don't they just live under File menu? For that matter, why have toolbar buttons been hoisted into the title bar itself? The current tab appears to be the Home tab, based on the highlight. But this has nothing to do with your "Home" directory - it is merely the "default" page for the most common operations. These operations are used to manage your files - the names of two other tabs in this hierarchy. What would the user expect to find there? The layout of the Home tab is visually confusing. There is no grid or use of whitespace to guide the eye, and it presents a non-uniform 2-dimensional array of controls of different sizes. At least the old toolbars being 1-dimensional meant the user could easily remember approximately how far along the toolbar to look for the icon - now the user must scan a far more complex terrain to find what they're looking for. There are two different sizes and layouts for action icons. So Copy and Paste are large icons with text below, while Cut is a small icon with text to the right. Why? Presumably it is less frequently used, but the inconsistency is visually jarring and non-obvious to the user. While some buttons cause immediate actions, others have a small down-arrow next to them, suggesting they will probably pop up a menu instead. This introduces another variation to the two button types, giving a third type. But some have a default action when clicking on the button itself (a fourth type), and only reveal a menu when clicking on the arrow - yet there is no visual indication of which behaviour a button has. (This is apparent in IE and Office also.) A user may wonder what is the difference between clicking on the dark blue File toolbar tab, versus clicking on the menu button in the very top of the titlebar, versus pressing Alt to reveal the hitherto hidden menubar? While the Manage ribbon tab appears at the same hierarchy level as Home, Share and View, it has a brightly coloured tab _above_ it labelled "Library Tools". Vertical lines suggest it is superior to the Manage item; yet presumably it is also higher than Home, given its placement and urgent red/orange background? What is the difference between pressing Manage and selecting Library Tools? A user not trained in the intricacies of the Office Ribbon UI will IMHO be utterly baffled by the complexity exposed in this UI and the inconsistencies therein. While it is laudable that Microsoft is attempting to refresh the design of this venerable component of Windows, this work seems to be little more than a reshuffling of features and shortcuts, rather than a rethinking of file management.

pinaceae 15y ago

The ribbon discussion reminds a lot of the iPad one - all the IT "geniuses" simply don't get it. Hate the ribbon. Hate the iPad. But for the majority of users, those are massive improvements in UI. Right-Click, Double-Click, ... arcane commands only people like and love that are good at memorizing actions. And if those memorized actions are gone, the rage begins. You need to be anal to love the old Office UI or the command line. Do you remember the hate the old Office UI got in the past from the very people who now praise it? Personally, I think the ribbon UI was the ballsiest move that MS did in a decade. It showed real guts, real vision. In Office 2010, they improved upon it, making Excel, Powerpoint and Word actually more usable. Exposing new functions and teaching me about them, from within the UI.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

krig 15y ago

I don't understand how there can be so many posts here defending this UI. Is this a concerted effort by Microsoft to flood hacker news with their viewpoint? I just don't see how this is a defensible UI, at all. Seriously, it's overwhelming. The UI is constantly shouting commands at the user, regardless of what the user is trying to do. UIs like these are exactly where the problem my parents have with computers come from. They go in with an idea of what they want to do, let's say they want to find a note they wrote previously. As soon as they open the window, they are bombarded with commands. Move! Copy! Save as! Select! Select all! It's a cacophony of nonsense to them. Copy? Copy what, where? Nothing in there helps them find their note. Really. "Easy access." What does that button do? I have no idea what might happen when that's pressed. It sounds a bit dirty, but accepting that it's probably accessibility related and not an invitation to intimacy, I still can't figure out what it might do. Ridiculous.

atomicdog 15y ago
All I see in this new UI is a bunch of interface designers trying to justify their jobs... >What? Most users are familiar with CTRL+C, CTRL+V these days? LALALA NOT LISTENING!! ADD MORE RIBBONS!!
DanElectrode 15y ago
The new Windows 8 tile-based interface will be the default way to interact with your files and applications, Explorer will be only for when you need to do some advanced file management. Your parents will most likely never have to use it.
- krig 15y ago
  No one should have to use it.

epaga 15y ago

This makes me wonder how often I fall into the same trap when designing UIs. "Not enough people are using this feature" can lead you to think "Let's make that feature's UI more prominent" instead of what it (normally) should: "Let's scrap that feature". Simplicity, minimalism, and elegance seem to be completely elusive to Microsoft, even with their brand new developments.

Ironballs 15y ago

What people often miss in Ribbon UIs is that they are in fact very much for the power user. Here are a couple of reasons why: Every button or command on the Ribbon can be accessed via polymorphic hotkeys. Every command can be accessed as a chain of key presses. There is zero need for mouse usage -- even in PowerPoint. This is huge. This was not doable in previous versions of Office! There were some commands you could not access via anything else than the menu, and to those of us that are vim users, you know how bad that can be! I do a lot of PowerPoint presentations and besides designing arrows or shapes I have no need for a mouse. And PowerPoint is a WYSIWYG editor! The other reason is that you can hide the Ribbon. See the screenshots? That chevron symbol (^) means that you can essentially auto-hide the Ribbon and bring it back, while still retaining its usability via hotkeys. I'm by no means an all-guns-blazing MSFT fanboy, but I need Office at work, and instead of jumping on the silly bandwagon of bashing all that is Ribbon, I found my inner vim user and learnt to god damn power use the hell out of it. To those that actually need Office daily, I recommend opening it and pressing Alt. Let the funny stuff unfold.

mariusmg 15y ago

If you're not using keyboard shortcuts for file operations, you're doing it very wrong. Hide the ribon UI and problem solved.

agilemanic 15y ago

haha this made me laugh. would like to hear an official statement from the MS Design department

greendot 15y ago

I have to help "stupid users" in both the PC and the Mac world. There are "stupid users" everywhere and not more on one side or the other. I look forward to this new Windows Explorer. You would be amazed at the things regular people just do not know. MS is putting that all up front, in their face. They see it, they know where and what the commands are. It matches what their version of Office looks like. They will probably be able to figure it out instead of calling me to go show them how to do something, that as a nerd, deem "easy". Plus, I agree with the other users. Our viewpoint is skewed. We are top tier users. We're not the ones that need disclaimers on the side of our hair-dryer that says, "Do not user while bathing."

hackermom 15y ago

Someone should open a can of Apple HID on their asses.

jhawk28 15y ago

Most people I work with detest the ribbon interface.

runjake 15y ago

Seems like I've been defending Windows Phone on here so much lately, maybe it's time to balance it out. I think this is hideous crap UI design. Fortunately, it can be shut off (at least in the leaked betas). I'm not aware of anything good that's come out of Microsoft and usability tests. Apple didn't seem to use them and it turned out well for them. Microsoft, go with the Windows Phone paradigm, full force. It is your (successful) future.

rradu 15y ago

On a related and more positive note: Microsoft also released a preview of changes they're making to the actual copy/paste process. And it's kind of cool. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-win8-windows-8,13287.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows8-file-copy-win8-win...

BonsaiDen 15y ago

Dunno... but I get the feeling that everyone thinks that computers should be easier, and nobody should have to learn anything in order to use the. Uh, what? We're living in a world where digital technology more and more becomes the dominant driving force of our society. We already lost the ability to change hardware to a - relatively small - group of people (yes, considering the amount of people using the stuff, the group is tiny). So what now? Make sure there's only an elitist circle of high paid, influential "technology gods" left? While I definitely consider my self as a geek, I would not like such a society at all. It can be the target of humanity that ordinary people get even "dumber" than they're now. Sorry, but I think people should strife for new knowledge, they should keep their spirit of discovery. By simplyfing the whole world around them, at least in my eyes, it becomes harder and harder for kids to figure out all these things on their own. And once all the knowledge is locked away from them, the elitist will choose who gets insight into the then "magical" workings of the world. Yeah, maybe my picture of the future has a little bit of a dark taint, but well that's what you get when even your colleagues, which are the same age as yourself, are light years behind in terms of thirst for knowledge.