5 ms·

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
        I don’t think they intended to negatively affect power users. They convinced themselves that the new keyboard scheme is just as adequate.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        I guess that explains why I've grown to dislike MS Word so much.
orbital-decay 3y ago
Then why they made vimperator-like controls for the ribbon? Press Alt to display the tags, then enter the corresponding tag. Works in Windows Explorer too. It's a pretty useful feature, clearly aimed at power users. It makes the ribbon both discoverable and productive, in contrast to most other controls, which are typically either or. They also clearly made large steps towards keyboard-only controls. In Windows 8 and contemporary Office versions, they bound most settings (previously only accessible through GUI) to PowerShell objects. In modern Windows/Office builds, you can control practically everything from the console or keyboard, or script it - something that was traditionally missing in the Windows ecosystem. And of course they vastly expanded the PowerToys. I just don't see them ignoring power users - they made great improvements for the advanced Windows and Office usage.
- layer8 3y ago
  The ribbon keyboard navigation is significantly slower to use though than the classic menus, because you need to release the Alt key first, and also many sequences are longer. With the classic menus, many commands were like Alt+B+C where you could press those keys almost simultaneously like a chord, in a fraction of a second. The new keyboard shortcuts always feel clumsy and awkward to press in contrast, and they don’t build muscle memory well for that reason.
  - orbital-decay 3y ago
    You don't need to release the Alt key. Not sure I understand any other points either, as "clumsy and awkward" sounds really opinionated. Ribbon tags are just ordinary vi-style modal shortcuts that were proven to work well before Microsoft even existed - you memorize mnemonics/syllables, and utilize your touch typing skill with them. Unlike Win32-style menu navigation shortcuts, they're mostly on the home row, and/or represent a mnemonic. For the speed, you should really use the traditional non-modal shortcuts (which never went away), not Win32 menu navigation. However this question is discussed to death in vim vs emacs debates - the minuscule speed difference is irrelevant for one-time actions, what matters is the cognitive load and muscle memory. The valid use case for non-modal shortcuts (as opposed to combinations) is manually repeating the same command multiple times over and over, but in text editors this is the strong anti-pattern, and in Word you can use F4 for that, which is much more convenient and can be done just by holding the key.

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
      I don’t think they intended to negatively affect power users. They convinced themselves that the new keyboard scheme is just as adequate.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      I guess that explains why I've grown to dislike MS Word so much.

orbital-decay 3y ago

Then why they made vimperator-like controls for the ribbon? Press Alt to display the tags, then enter the corresponding tag. Works in Windows Explorer too. It's a pretty useful feature, clearly aimed at power users. It makes the ribbon both discoverable and productive, in contrast to most other controls, which are typically either or. They also clearly made large steps towards keyboard-only controls. In Windows 8 and contemporary Office versions, they bound most settings (previously only accessible through GUI) to PowerShell objects. In modern Windows/Office builds, you can control practically everything from the console or keyboard, or script it - something that was traditionally missing in the Windows ecosystem. And of course they vastly expanded the PowerToys. I just don't see them ignoring power users - they made great improvements for the advanced Windows and Office usage.

layer8 3y ago
The ribbon keyboard navigation is significantly slower to use though than the classic menus, because you need to release the Alt key first, and also many sequences are longer. With the classic menus, many commands were like Alt+B+C where you could press those keys almost simultaneously like a chord, in a fraction of a second. The new keyboard shortcuts always feel clumsy and awkward to press in contrast, and they don’t build muscle memory well for that reason.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  You don't need to release the Alt key. Not sure I understand any other points either, as "clumsy and awkward" sounds really opinionated. Ribbon tags are just ordinary vi-style modal shortcuts that were proven to work well before Microsoft even existed - you memorize mnemonics/syllables, and utilize your touch typing skill with them. Unlike Win32-style menu navigation shortcuts, they're mostly on the home row, and/or represent a mnemonic. For the speed, you should really use the traditional non-modal shortcuts (which never went away), not Win32 menu navigation. However this question is discussed to death in vim vs emacs debates - the minuscule speed difference is irrelevant for one-time actions, what matters is the cognitive load and muscle memory. The valid use case for non-modal shortcuts (as opposed to combinations) is manually repeating the same command multiple times over and over, but in text editors this is the strong anti-pattern, and in Word you can use F4 for that, which is much more convenient and can be done just by holding the key.