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Pardon me that I'm somewhat off-topic but it seems tangentially related, the rant I'm about to go on -- When looking particularly at the evolution of MS Office

by pen2l 3y ago

Pardon me that I'm somewhat off-topic but it seems tangentially related, the rant I'm about to go on -- When looking particularly at the evolution of MS Office, I often land on the view that UI peaked around 2010 and promptly shot down in ruins with the advent of flat design. It's flat design which went away from gradient textures on buttons which for preceding years familiarized us with the impression of button states, importance information, and a handful of other subtle things. The stated reason was simple and understandable, the designs had needed to remain sensibly consistent when switching from small form factors to large ones, when resizing (or rotating e.g. when a tablet goes from horiz. to vertical, etc. But I'm not satisfied with this defense: it seems lazy, the gradient textures could have been retained. It would have required a lot more work by Microsoft/Google UI designers, but they chose not to step up to the plate by just giving it all up to go the easy road. At least Apple has had the courage to not take the easy way out.

deleted 3y ago
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bee_rider 3y ago
The ribbon design apparently came out in 2007, which fits my memory—it was terrible, Office was already well into decline by 2010. Although, really, it is just what some of the other comments mention here. Re-learning UI is just a pain in the butt. So, I guess the first version of office that we all hate is the first one that came out after we were kids and learning new UI was fun.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > I guess the first version of office that we all hate is the first one that came out after we were kids and learning new UI was fun. It's not (just) that. It's that the "ribbon" didn't simplify things, it just lowered the number of clicks to get to some things. But one of the reasons you organize things in submenus is to organize things. It's easier and faster to find a particular thing hiding within a few dozen labelled boxes, each filled with another few dozen labeled boxes, than to find something when all of the contents of all of those boxes are dumped out onto the floor. Even more, within a hierarchy it's easier to find other, closely related things to the thing that you were looking for, if the thing you were looking for turns out not to do the job.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    Office on macOS still has a menubar. I think some of the options are only in the ribbon, but it's there.

by pen2l 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bee_rider 3y ago

The ribbon design apparently came out in 2007, which fits my memory—it was terrible, Office was already well into decline by 2010. Although, really, it is just what some of the other comments mention here. Re-learning UI is just a pain in the butt. So, I guess the first version of office that we all hate is the first one that came out after we were kids and learning new UI was fun.

pessimizer 3y ago
> I guess the first version of office that we all hate is the first one that came out after we were kids and learning new UI was fun. It's not (just) that. It's that the "ribbon" didn't simplify things, it just lowered the number of clicks to get to some things. But one of the reasons you organize things in submenus is to organize things. It's easier and faster to find a particular thing hiding within a few dozen labelled boxes, each filled with another few dozen labeled boxes, than to find something when all of the contents of all of those boxes are dumped out onto the floor. Even more, within a hierarchy it's easier to find other, closely related things to the thing that you were looking for, if the thing you were looking for turns out not to do the job.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  Office on macOS still has a menubar. I think some of the options are only in the ribbon, but it's there.