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> Microsoft has solid data showing that Ribbon improved the user experience do they also have data filtered to show powerusers? just because metrics go up does

> Microsoft has solid data showing that Ribbon improved the user experience do they also have data filtered to show powerusers? just because metrics go up doesn't really mean it got better. I'm pretty sure google also has metrics "showing" that it got better at finding stuff, which I really can't agree with. my ms-office literacy was much higher pre ribbon, and it never cought up

pavlov 3y ago
It’s a trade-off. The Ribbon demonstrably enabled average users to discover and access functionality that they never knew about or understood before. The numbers were very significant. (I think I read about it in Steven Sinofsky’s newsletter called Hardcore Software. He was in charge of Office back then.) Power users by definition tend to invest in learning the software. They’ll be initially annoyed at changes, then adapt. And in the era of continuously delivered web apps, there really isn’t any UI stability left for a lot of the widely used software (sadly).
- andirk 3y ago
  Does the confirm or cancel go on the left or the right? How is that not even accidentally standard at this point?
  - dgellow 3y ago
    Because it is specific to a given platform and culture. For example: https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/1077 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/1077 There isn’t one standard set of guidelines. Platforms evolve, new ones come, guidelines will always be contradicting each others in weird ways (like this button positioning).
    - drcongo 3y ago
      I've seen Windows "wizards" that manage to swap them between steps.
      - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
        The only justification in my mind that makes sense for having it one way and then the next screen is the opposite is in the case of destructive actions (e.g. formatting a drive). It can help prevent users on autopilot from nuking things. The only example of this that comes to mind is factory resetting a Nintendo Switch, but I'm sure there are much more.
        hgsgm 3y ago
        If you're worried about autopilot, The button should move around so that auto pilot clicks have no effect, not change meaning. Or, require text input to confirm an action.
      - Zanfa 3y ago
        I have a HP wide format printer where after loading in a roll of paper, it presents a "Paper loaded successfully" dialog, with an "Ok" button to dismiss the message. The fun part is that the dialog also dismisses automatically in a couple of seconds and the UI underneath has the "Unroll paper" button in the exact same position where "Ok" used to be. I must have accidentally unrolled the paper immediately after loading it in dozens of times by now.
        drcongo 3y ago
        That is just plain evil.
  - phkahler 3y ago
    Confirm goes on the right, cancel goes on the left. Similar to next and previous. Anyone doing it the other way, I'm curious what the reasoning is for that.
    - chrismorgan 3y ago
      Different operating systems have different conventions. Windows centre- or end-aligns all these buttons (depending on the context), with Cancel last (generally mapping to having the primary action first). That has been its convention since at least the start of Win32 era. If you’re targeting Windows, this is probably what you should do. Another platform end-aligns all these buttons, with the primary action last. Still another platform stretches buttons, with the primary action last. Others have cause to split things, start-aligning any cancel/negative button, and end-aligning others. If you’re targeting a particular platform, you should generally aim to match its conventions unless you have very good reason not to. One piece of related reading (and you can easily find others): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ok-cancel-or-cancel-ok/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ok-cancel-or-cancel-ok/
      - hgsgm 3y ago
        And so because a Windows person was carless 40 years ago, we still have poor pattern today.
        phkahler 3y ago
        Not sure. When I wrote it the other way I was thinking windows did it the way I said (I only use windows at work). Turns out they do it how I think is backwards, but looking at it I don't think it's a big deal.
        chrismorgan 3y ago
        With the way Windows has always laid things out and designed its buttons, its ordering is, I think, objectively at least mildly superior, following reading order and with no major stylistic difference between the buttons. Platforms that have switched to doing things other ways have normally (and more recently I think it’s consistently) been laying things out differently and/or designing their buttons differently. On mobile devices especially with their right-hander bias, limited maximum width and screen-based navigation, primary action to the right is objectively superior, for tactile and UI flow reasons.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    OS X had OK to the right, Windows had OK to the left. Now Apple has removed OK buttons in favour of writing the action on the button, which makes much more sense. Inspired by BeOS maybe? So instead of "Do you want to save before you quit?" "OK / Cancel" it is now "Do you want to save changes?" "Cancel / Save"
    - systoll 3y ago
      The original Mac’s layout was (Yes) (No) (Cancel) They switched from that to (Don't Save) ----- (Cancel) (Save) with System 7.0 in 1991. From the outset, Apple’s HIG recommended using more descriptive words rather than 'OK'.
  - harlanji 3y ago
    Thinking back to a link posted here a few months back [1], the call to action goes on the outside edge because it's visually the heaviest element. So if the buttons are on the right of the dialog, "OK" / "Save" would go on the right; and opposite if they're on the left side of the dialog. I'm far from a designer but I read through this a few times and think it's pretty good. [1]: <https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/saferules/ https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/saferules/> "Visual design rules you can safely follow every time"
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > They’ll be initially annoyed at changes, then adapt. I tried to adapt, but never really could. Instead, I stopped using software that forced me to use a ribbon.
cjblomqvist 3y ago
Haven't seen the data, but I assume that not all users got it better (that's kind of impossible in most scenarios?) but that on average it got better? Me personally like the ribbon concept and feel like it was a good improvement (because I could see the long term benefits) even if it meant I had to re-learn significantly.
- chrisandchris 3y ago
  That data may be very interesting to differ between average, mean and median. If most of the people are not pro-users, the average may increase significantly, while the mean may not.
rco8786 3y ago
Doubtful, because that wasn’t their target. They want MS Word to be approachable to the masses. “Make the easy things easy and the hard things possible”
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  > “Make the easy things easy and the hard things possible” Unfortunately, that's not the principle in action. Modern UI/UX philosophy is more of "make the easys thing easy, and make the hard things out of scope of the product".
  - rco8786 3y ago
    I was referring specifically to the MS Word toolbar transformation. Everything you could do previously was still possible, but the most common things got a lot more obvious.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Oh, I see, sorry for misreading. You're right, that era obeyed the principle you stated, but that was still the Golden Era of UI.
    - layer8 3y ago
      Unfortunately, keyboard usage became harder, to the detriment of power users. Personally I also find the classic menus much easier to scan visually than the ribbon icons which have varying sizes and are laid out in two dimensions (no clear scanning path).
      - rco8786 3y ago
        > to the detriment of power users Yes this is my whole point. They made it easier for casual users at the expense of power users. It was a purposeful decision.
        layer8 3y ago
drcongo 3y ago
Around the time they released that I happened to attend a talk from someone on the team that came up with it, presenting their "solid data". It's so long ago that I can't remember the details but I definitely wasn't the only person in the room thinking they were doing some extreme cherry-picking to make that case.

pavlov 3y ago

It’s a trade-off. The Ribbon demonstrably enabled average users to discover and access functionality that they never knew about or understood before. The numbers were very significant. (I think I read about it in Steven Sinofsky’s newsletter called Hardcore Software. He was in charge of Office back then.) Power users by definition tend to invest in learning the software. They’ll be initially annoyed at changes, then adapt. And in the era of continuously delivered web apps, there really isn’t any UI stability left for a lot of the widely used software (sadly).

andirk 3y ago
Does the confirm or cancel go on the left or the right? How is that not even accidentally standard at this point?
- dgellow 3y ago
  Because it is specific to a given platform and culture. For example: https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/1077 https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/1077 There isn’t one standard set of guidelines. Platforms evolve, new ones come, guidelines will always be contradicting each others in weird ways (like this button positioning).
  - drcongo 3y ago
    I've seen Windows "wizards" that manage to swap them between steps.
    - AndroidKitKat 3y ago
      The only justification in my mind that makes sense for having it one way and then the next screen is the opposite is in the case of destructive actions (e.g. formatting a drive). It can help prevent users on autopilot from nuking things. The only example of this that comes to mind is factory resetting a Nintendo Switch, but I'm sure there are much more.
      - hgsgm 3y ago
        If you're worried about autopilot, The button should move around so that auto pilot clicks have no effect, not change meaning. Or, require text input to confirm an action.
    - Zanfa 3y ago
      I have a HP wide format printer where after loading in a roll of paper, it presents a "Paper loaded successfully" dialog, with an "Ok" button to dismiss the message. The fun part is that the dialog also dismisses automatically in a couple of seconds and the UI underneath has the "Unroll paper" button in the exact same position where "Ok" used to be. I must have accidentally unrolled the paper immediately after loading it in dozens of times by now.
      - drcongo 3y ago
        That is just plain evil.
- phkahler 3y ago
  Confirm goes on the right, cancel goes on the left. Similar to next and previous. Anyone doing it the other way, I'm curious what the reasoning is for that.
  - chrismorgan 3y ago
    Different operating systems have different conventions. Windows centre- or end-aligns all these buttons (depending on the context), with Cancel last (generally mapping to having the primary action first). That has been its convention since at least the start of Win32 era. If you’re targeting Windows, this is probably what you should do. Another platform end-aligns all these buttons, with the primary action last. Still another platform stretches buttons, with the primary action last. Others have cause to split things, start-aligning any cancel/negative button, and end-aligning others. If you’re targeting a particular platform, you should generally aim to match its conventions unless you have very good reason not to. One piece of related reading (and you can easily find others): https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ok-cancel-or-cancel-ok/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ok-cancel-or-cancel-ok/
    - hgsgm 3y ago
      And so because a Windows person was carless 40 years ago, we still have poor pattern today.
      - phkahler 3y ago
        Not sure. When I wrote it the other way I was thinking windows did it the way I said (I only use windows at work). Turns out they do it how I think is backwards, but looking at it I don't think it's a big deal.
      - chrismorgan 3y ago
        With the way Windows has always laid things out and designed its buttons, its ordering is, I think, objectively at least mildly superior, following reading order and with no major stylistic difference between the buttons. Platforms that have switched to doing things other ways have normally (and more recently I think it’s consistently) been laying things out differently and/or designing their buttons differently. On mobile devices especially with their right-hander bias, limited maximum width and screen-based navigation, primary action to the right is objectively superior, for tactile and UI flow reasons.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  OS X had OK to the right, Windows had OK to the left. Now Apple has removed OK buttons in favour of writing the action on the button, which makes much more sense. Inspired by BeOS maybe? So instead of "Do you want to save before you quit?" "OK / Cancel" it is now "Do you want to save changes?" "Cancel / Save"
  - systoll 3y ago
    The original Mac’s layout was (Yes) (No) (Cancel) They switched from that to (Don't Save) ----- (Cancel) (Save) with System 7.0 in 1991. From the outset, Apple’s HIG recommended using more descriptive words rather than 'OK'.
- harlanji 3y ago
  Thinking back to a link posted here a few months back [1], the call to action goes on the outside edge because it's visually the heaviest element. So if the buttons are on the right of the dialog, "OK" / "Save" would go on the right; and opposite if they're on the left side of the dialog. I'm far from a designer but I read through this a few times and think it's pretty good. [1]: <https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/saferules/ https://anthonyhobday.com/sideprojects/saferules/> "Visual design rules you can safely follow every time"
JohnFen 3y ago
> They’ll be initially annoyed at changes, then adapt. I tried to adapt, but never really could. Instead, I stopped using software that forced me to use a ribbon.

cjblomqvist 3y ago

Haven't seen the data, but I assume that not all users got it better (that's kind of impossible in most scenarios?) but that on average it got better? Me personally like the ribbon concept and feel like it was a good improvement (because I could see the long term benefits) even if it meant I had to re-learn significantly.

chrisandchris 3y ago
That data may be very interesting to differ between average, mean and median. If most of the people are not pro-users, the average may increase significantly, while the mean may not.

rco8786 3y ago

Doubtful, because that wasn’t their target. They want MS Word to be approachable to the masses. “Make the easy things easy and the hard things possible”

TeMPOraL 3y ago
> “Make the easy things easy and the hard things possible” Unfortunately, that's not the principle in action. Modern UI/UX philosophy is more of "make the easys thing easy, and make the hard things out of scope of the product".
- rco8786 3y ago
  I was referring specifically to the MS Word toolbar transformation. Everything you could do previously was still possible, but the most common things got a lot more obvious.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Oh, I see, sorry for misreading. You're right, that era obeyed the principle you stated, but that was still the Golden Era of UI.
  - layer8 3y ago
    Unfortunately, keyboard usage became harder, to the detriment of power users. Personally I also find the classic menus much easier to scan visually than the ribbon icons which have varying sizes and are laid out in two dimensions (no clear scanning path).
    - rco8786 3y ago
      > to the detriment of power users Yes this is my whole point. They made it easier for casual users at the expense of power users. It was a purposeful decision.
      - layer8 3y ago

drcongo 3y ago

Around the time they released that I happened to attend a talk from someone on the team that came up with it, presenting their "solid data". It's so long ago that I can't remember the details but I definitely wasn't the only person in the room thinking they were doing some extreme cherry-picking to make that case.