5 ms·

It looks great using Plasma. If the comparison and "problem" is the lack of a "ribbon" menu, etc., then you are missing the whole point of Office alternatives:

It looks great using Plasma. If the comparison and "problem" is the lack of a "ribbon" menu, etc., then you are missing the whole point of Office alternatives: they are free, open source, but most importantly, they are usable. That is, they do not eschew usability and function for the sake of change, pure aesthetics, or a company's latest foray into some new gimmick. Ultimately, the "classic" approach taken is because many users feel that the classic style is more usable and makes them more productive irrespective of their learned habits of the past 20-30 years.

mft_ 7mo ago
It looks awful and undiscoverable on a standard Mint/Cinnamon install. Anyway, the point is surely that if LibreOffice really wants to attract users from Microsoft Office, then it should do everything possible to optimise that transition? Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. Honestly, at this stage, thinking of Gimp, FreeCAD, LibreOffice, and Blender, it’s as though there’s a weird group psychology deliberately against offering even decent (let along best-in-class) UIs in the open source world. These are all apps with excellent fundamental underlying engines/tech which are handicapped hugely by their UI/UX. (Yes I know some of these have improved in recent years, but only after far longer without improvements.)
- jamesnorden 7mo ago
  >Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. It's already there. It really feels like such criticisms are from people who haven't used it in 10+ years.
  - mft_ 7mo ago
    Well, if that's the case, I take (that part of) it back and I'll fire up Mint later to explore. Thanks. It wasn't an obvious option when I tried LibreOffice a few weeks ago, but maybe I should have explored further.
  - AnonymousPlanet 7mo ago
    My experience is less than two years old. I have the impression that those who defend it have a UI taste that is stuck in the 2000s. The same people who also point at UIs that are barely usable and ugly from a modern perspective like Windows 2000 and say "this was the pinnacle of UI".
    - roryirvine 7mo ago
      The "Notebookbar" ribbon interface has been there since 2017, and was available even in Debian Stable since 2019. It's not quite identical to MSOffice due to Microsoft's patents, but is pretty close. Perhaps you just didn't spot it in the UI preferences?
    - isicjsjcu 7mo ago
      [dead]
    - abanana 7mo ago
      > UI taste that is stuck in the 2000s > UIs that are barely usable... like Windows 2000 Words fail me. Perhaps it's that well-known psychological effect where people self-report higher productivity when using an interface they find more visually appealing, whereas studying them proves the opposite is true.
      - AnonymousPlanet 7mo ago
        Just a few examples of what makes Windows 2000 barely usable for me (and pretty much anyone who grew up with later UIs): No central place to search for software, files, or settings. You have to dig through layers of menu trees like an idiot. No visual preview to find the right open window. You have to alt-tab through a list of windows like an idiot. No way of separating windows into work spaces / desktops (whatever you might call them). You have to either constantly kill windows or work your way through layers of them. The point above doesn't help with that. This one has less to do with Windows 2000 but was part of the state of the art of the time for software: Walls of icons and buttons and not even a way to group them. Sometimes the entire window is just one wall of tiles sometimes there's the tool bar of doom at the top. On top of lacking usability, Windows 2000 is ugly. Mostly because all main UI elements like buttons are visually thrust into your face by faux 3d elevation. This had it's place at the time when most of your users would not have had experience with computer UIs in the first place. With those users UI designers back then felt they needed to overemphasize visual cues from the real world. Nowadays you can show the user just a box or something that looks like a link (because people are used to browsers now). Maybe give a cue by changing the emphasis on hover. The other reason that comes to mind why Windows 2000 is so ugly is colors. Again, this is due to its time and the capabilities of graphics cards back then that mostly didn't allow more subtle color differences. I'm just using Windows 2000 as pars pro toto here. Pretty much all graphical UIs back then were lacking modern usability features and UI sensibilities, regardless of OS. > Perhaps it's that well-known psychological effect where people self-report higher productivity when using an interface they find more visually appealing, whereas studying them proves the opposite is true. You have your slightly condescending explanation for why we disagree and I have mine. Let me give you a hint quoting Douglas Adams: "I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
keyringlight 7mo ago
LibreOffice also has a ribbon toolbars mode, it's 5 seconds to switch if you prefer it under View > User interface.
gzread 7mo ago
Microsoft did usability studies on real people to determine the ribbon interface is better. This is back in the days when software companies cared about objectively verifiable results.
- loloquwowndueo 7mo ago
  Only no, it’s not and everyone reviled it when it came out but we’ve been stuck with it ever since. MS may have done usability studies earlier (say, when they cared about dethroning Lotus 123 and WordPerfect) but that war was long won when the ribbon UI came out, by then they only cared about milking the cash cow.
- abanana 7mo ago
  No, they did not (or if they did, they didn't publish it). If I'm wrong, please give me some links because I'd genuinely love to see it. Microsoft did those usability studies on the versions of Office that were current before the ribbon. The ribbon followed those studies as their attempt at a solution. A few times over the years I've tried to search for usability studies of the ribbon interface because I've never got on with it myself. I find plenty of others asking the same thing online, and everybody points them to those same earlier studies from before the ribbon, while wrongly telling them it's a study of the ribbon. Those studies are unable to tell us whether or not MS's attempt at a solution actually fixed the problems. I believe the ribbon was a downgrade in usability terms (but people expect it in office suites, purely because it's seen as looking more modern). And I'd love to see real intensive research to tell me whether my belief is right or wrong.
  - oblio 7mo ago
    The studies I can't point you to, but there were lots of blogs by the lead Office UX person at the time, Jensen Harris. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ Unfortunately those blog entries have been destroyed because the images are no longer there. I read all of them, they were at least 6-7 and quite detailed and I remember thinking that the thought process behind the ribbon was very solid. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/the-why-of-the-new-ui-part-1 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/the-... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ye-olde-museum-of-office-past-why-the-ui-part-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ye-o... etc - you can find all of them there plus many other related blog entries.

mft_ 7mo ago

It looks awful and undiscoverable on a standard Mint/Cinnamon install. Anyway, the point is surely that if LibreOffice really wants to attract users from Microsoft Office, then it should do everything possible to optimise that transition? Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. Honestly, at this stage, thinking of Gimp, FreeCAD, LibreOffice, and Blender, it’s as though there’s a weird group psychology deliberately against offering even decent (let along best-in-class) UIs in the open source world. These are all apps with excellent fundamental underlying engines/tech which are handicapped hugely by their UI/UX. (Yes I know some of these have improved in recent years, but only after far longer without improvements.)

jamesnorden 7mo ago
>Offering the option of a UI mimicking the familiar MS Office layout is not a difficult engineering problem. And if it makes users significantly more likely to switch, it should be a high priority to implement. It's already there. It really feels like such criticisms are from people who haven't used it in 10+ years.
- mft_ 7mo ago
  Well, if that's the case, I take (that part of) it back and I'll fire up Mint later to explore. Thanks. It wasn't an obvious option when I tried LibreOffice a few weeks ago, but maybe I should have explored further.
- AnonymousPlanet 7mo ago
  My experience is less than two years old. I have the impression that those who defend it have a UI taste that is stuck in the 2000s. The same people who also point at UIs that are barely usable and ugly from a modern perspective like Windows 2000 and say "this was the pinnacle of UI".
  - roryirvine 7mo ago
    The "Notebookbar" ribbon interface has been there since 2017, and was available even in Debian Stable since 2019. It's not quite identical to MSOffice due to Microsoft's patents, but is pretty close. Perhaps you just didn't spot it in the UI preferences?
  - isicjsjcu 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - abanana 7mo ago
    > UI taste that is stuck in the 2000s > UIs that are barely usable... like Windows 2000 Words fail me. Perhaps it's that well-known psychological effect where people self-report higher productivity when using an interface they find more visually appealing, whereas studying them proves the opposite is true.
    - AnonymousPlanet 7mo ago
      Just a few examples of what makes Windows 2000 barely usable for me (and pretty much anyone who grew up with later UIs): No central place to search for software, files, or settings. You have to dig through layers of menu trees like an idiot. No visual preview to find the right open window. You have to alt-tab through a list of windows like an idiot. No way of separating windows into work spaces / desktops (whatever you might call them). You have to either constantly kill windows or work your way through layers of them. The point above doesn't help with that. This one has less to do with Windows 2000 but was part of the state of the art of the time for software: Walls of icons and buttons and not even a way to group them. Sometimes the entire window is just one wall of tiles sometimes there's the tool bar of doom at the top. On top of lacking usability, Windows 2000 is ugly. Mostly because all main UI elements like buttons are visually thrust into your face by faux 3d elevation. This had it's place at the time when most of your users would not have had experience with computer UIs in the first place. With those users UI designers back then felt they needed to overemphasize visual cues from the real world. Nowadays you can show the user just a box or something that looks like a link (because people are used to browsers now). Maybe give a cue by changing the emphasis on hover. The other reason that comes to mind why Windows 2000 is so ugly is colors. Again, this is due to its time and the capabilities of graphics cards back then that mostly didn't allow more subtle color differences. I'm just using Windows 2000 as pars pro toto here. Pretty much all graphical UIs back then were lacking modern usability features and UI sensibilities, regardless of OS. > Perhaps it's that well-known psychological effect where people self-report higher productivity when using an interface they find more visually appealing, whereas studying them proves the opposite is true. You have your slightly condescending explanation for why we disagree and I have mine. Let me give you a hint quoting Douglas Adams: "I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

keyringlight 7mo ago

LibreOffice also has a ribbon toolbars mode, it's 5 seconds to switch if you prefer it under View > User interface.

gzread 7mo ago

Microsoft did usability studies on real people to determine the ribbon interface is better. This is back in the days when software companies cared about objectively verifiable results.

loloquwowndueo 7mo ago
Only no, it’s not and everyone reviled it when it came out but we’ve been stuck with it ever since. MS may have done usability studies earlier (say, when they cared about dethroning Lotus 123 and WordPerfect) but that war was long won when the ribbon UI came out, by then they only cared about milking the cash cow.
abanana 7mo ago
No, they did not (or if they did, they didn't publish it). If I'm wrong, please give me some links because I'd genuinely love to see it. Microsoft did those usability studies on the versions of Office that were current before the ribbon. The ribbon followed those studies as their attempt at a solution. A few times over the years I've tried to search for usability studies of the ribbon interface because I've never got on with it myself. I find plenty of others asking the same thing online, and everybody points them to those same earlier studies from before the ribbon, while wrongly telling them it's a study of the ribbon. Those studies are unable to tell us whether or not MS's attempt at a solution actually fixed the problems. I believe the ribbon was a downgrade in usability terms (but people expect it in office suites, purely because it's seen as looking more modern). And I'd love to see real intensive research to tell me whether my belief is right or wrong.
- oblio 7mo ago
  The studies I can't point you to, but there were lots of blogs by the lead Office UX person at the time, Jensen Harris. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ Unfortunately those blog entries have been destroyed because the images are no longer there. I read all of them, they were at least 6-7 and quite detailed and I remember thinking that the thought process behind the ribbon was very solid. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/the-why-of-the-new-ui-part-1 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/the-... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ye-olde-museum-of-office-past-why-the-ui-part-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/jensenh/ye-o... etc - you can find all of them there plus many other related blog entries.