3 ms·

> Larson-Green is best known as a driving force behind the new Windows 8 UI and, prior to that, the Office ribbon bar. How can I dislike this woman so strongly

by debacle 14y ago

> Larson-Green is best known as a driving force behind the new Windows 8 UI and, prior to that, the Office ribbon bar. How can I dislike this woman so strongly when I've never met her?

MichaelGG 14y ago
You might try watching the "Story of the Ribbon" presentation, or just read the articles on Jensen Harris's blog. The amount of research, data, and care that went into designing the Ribbon is astounding. I'm not sure what other approaches work, when you need to present thousands of commands to end users. I wasn't a fan of the Ribbon on first sight, but when reading how they came up with it, it's clear this wasn't just some arbitrary cosmetic adjustment. Contrast that to the Office 2013 design, with it's random all-caps on items in no apparent pattern. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story...
- debacle 14y ago
  This is one area where I side with Jobs. No amount of research can compete with smart designers.
  - kvb 14y ago
    Surely the combination of research and smart designers is better than either in isolation, though, right? Do you have evidence that the designers of the ribbon were not "smart"? Are you aware of a better design for surfacing hundreds of features? Clearly, standard menu bars weren't working. The combination of the ribbon plus the quick access toolbar seems quite elegant to me...
    - debacle 14y ago
      Outlook is probably one of the most complicated non-admin pieces of software that Windows users use, and I find it completely impossible to do real things in 2010 - in fact, it took me way longer than it should have to even figure out that I was running Outlook 2010. There are conventions to any interface. In Windows, Help -> About will tell you what version of a piece of software you're using most of the time, but for some reason Outlook feels that I need to go to File -> Help -> Additional Version and Copyright Information. Disregarding decades of convention because a handful of wankers with a whiteboard say so is a recipe for failure. I find LibreOffice far easier to use than newer versions of Microsoft Office precisely because their navigation isn't a convoluted wad of deuce. There is a reason that Visual Studio, Visio, and Project don't have the ribbon interface - it's not better for anyone who actually knows how to use a computer. The ribbon interface was designed for a mythical group of people that hadn't ever used Windows-style context menus in 2005. Maybe as an emergent, intuitive interface for people who've never sent an email, the ribbon is great, but it's different than any other piece of software out there, and I've never met anyone who actually prefers it.
      - MichaelGG 14y ago
        Did you bother to read the presentation I linked to? They had all sorts of tests, had many millions of users's usage data. They even ran eye tracking studies to see how people actually used menus versus the Ribbon and on and on. I'm unsure if, after reading the information how you could dismiss it as a "handful of wankers with a whiteboard" just "saying so". P.S. Clicking the help icon opens a window with "Outlook 2010" in the first line of content. Searching for "what version" also provides an article explaining how to find this. My guess would be that "checking the version number" didn't show up as a commonly used feature, enough to warrant higher visibility or reworking the help system.
        debacle 14y ago
        The only difference between a handful of wankers with a whiteboard and the scenario you describe is budget.
- woobar 14y ago
  > I'm not sure what other approaches work, when you need to present thousands of commands to end users. Drop-down and context menues worked fine. In fact even current ribbon works like drop down menu with pictograms instead of text (Mac Word's Home tab has 19 drop-downs out of 35 items).

by debacle 14y ago

> Larson-Green is best known as a driving force behind the new Windows 8 UI and, prior to that, the Office ribbon bar. How can I dislike this woman so strongly when I've never met her?

MichaelGG 14y ago

You might try watching the "Story of the Ribbon" presentation, or just read the articles on Jensen Harris's blog. The amount of research, data, and care that went into designing the Ribbon is astounding. I'm not sure what other approaches work, when you need to present thousands of commands to end users. I wasn't a fan of the Ribbon on first sight, but when reading how they came up with it, it's clear this wasn't just some arbitrary cosmetic adjustment. Contrast that to the Office 2013 design, with it's random all-caps on items in no apparent pattern. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story...

debacle 14y ago
This is one area where I side with Jobs. No amount of research can compete with smart designers.
- kvb 14y ago
  Surely the combination of research and smart designers is better than either in isolation, though, right? Do you have evidence that the designers of the ribbon were not "smart"? Are you aware of a better design for surfacing hundreds of features? Clearly, standard menu bars weren't working. The combination of the ribbon plus the quick access toolbar seems quite elegant to me...
  - debacle 14y ago
    Outlook is probably one of the most complicated non-admin pieces of software that Windows users use, and I find it completely impossible to do real things in 2010 - in fact, it took me way longer than it should have to even figure out that I was running Outlook 2010. There are conventions to any interface. In Windows, Help -> About will tell you what version of a piece of software you're using most of the time, but for some reason Outlook feels that I need to go to File -> Help -> Additional Version and Copyright Information. Disregarding decades of convention because a handful of wankers with a whiteboard say so is a recipe for failure. I find LibreOffice far easier to use than newer versions of Microsoft Office precisely because their navigation isn't a convoluted wad of deuce. There is a reason that Visual Studio, Visio, and Project don't have the ribbon interface - it's not better for anyone who actually knows how to use a computer. The ribbon interface was designed for a mythical group of people that hadn't ever used Windows-style context menus in 2005. Maybe as an emergent, intuitive interface for people who've never sent an email, the ribbon is great, but it's different than any other piece of software out there, and I've never met anyone who actually prefers it.
    - MichaelGG 14y ago
      Did you bother to read the presentation I linked to? They had all sorts of tests, had many millions of users's usage data. They even ran eye tracking studies to see how people actually used menus versus the Ribbon and on and on. I'm unsure if, after reading the information how you could dismiss it as a "handful of wankers with a whiteboard" just "saying so". P.S. Clicking the help icon opens a window with "Outlook 2010" in the first line of content. Searching for "what version" also provides an article explaining how to find this. My guess would be that "checking the version number" didn't show up as a commonly used feature, enough to warrant higher visibility or reworking the help system.
      - debacle 14y ago
        The only difference between a handful of wankers with a whiteboard and the scenario you describe is budget.
woobar 14y ago
> I'm not sure what other approaches work, when you need to present thousands of commands to end users. Drop-down and context menues worked fine. In fact even current ribbon works like drop down menu with pictograms instead of text (Mac Word's Home tab has 19 drop-downs out of 35 items).