8 ms·

"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Every large company is made up of thousands o

"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Every large company is made up of thousands of individual people, many of which really care about making a good product and making customers happy. The whole question in managing a big company is how to get out of the way of that natural process, while still coordinating all the disparate groups so that the final product works.

seanewest 12y ago
What natural process?
Tloewald 12y ago
Actually MS has always listened. The problem has been (a) whom they listened to (the user has usually not been their customer) and (b) lack of "taste". MS Office is, for good and ill, exactly what you get when you give users what they ask for and have no taste.
- balls187 12y ago
  Office 2013, specifically Excel and Word are fantastic.
  - rthomas6 12y ago
    Except for my use case, which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures. The thing grinds to a halt and has all sorts of problems. Yes, I know that MS Word is not the best choice for documents that big, but it's not up to me.
    - nightpool 12y ago
      Honest question, why can't you split the document and work on individual chapters?
    - tallanvor 12y ago
      Have you tried the 64-bit version? People still normally install the 32-bit version (mainly for add-on supportability), but if you're working with very large documents, the 64-bit version should work better for you.
    - oatmeal_coffee 12y ago
      A document that large must have some kind of a structure that you and your team can use to break it apart into smaller, more manageable chunks. One thing to consider is to place the content into a content management system of kind (a wiki comes to mind) to allow the content to more easily be maintained and grow without the limitations Word creates. The decision may not have been up to you to keep it all in one Word document but making the case to either break apart the document or find a better system in which to maintain it ought to be easy in the face of the usability issues you mention.
      - rthomas6 12y ago
        We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
    - taude 12y ago
      That's weird you can't break it down into smaller parts? I worked on a big book, about that size with several people and the major, mainstream publishing company wanted it in individual documents mapping to individual chapters.
      - rthomas6 12y ago
        We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
    - pmelendez 12y ago
      "which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures" This is like saying that SQLite is not a good product because you are using it on a Terabyte database having 1,000,000 hits at the same time... It might work but it would have problems because wasn't designed for that scenario. I sympathize with you though... since it is not your decision :/
  - jzwinck 12y ago
    I like Excel as much as the next guy, but even in 2013 when you open a delimited text file it makes you manually tell it what the delimiters are. A computer should be able to guess whether a large text file is CSV, TSV, etc. This is an example of something Apple would get right, but Microsoft does not, even after more than a decade with this heavily-used feature. A tasteful implementer would make it do something reasonable by default, rather than making thousands of users click "Next" repeatedly and get presented with nonsensical defaults.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      You might be vastly overestimating the correctness of files being imported. Some coworkers of mine have to deal with CSV/TSV imports from enterprise customers, and the amount of clearly broken scripts is pretty bad. That excel import preview dialog helps non-programmers try to fix these issues beforehand. If that wasn't there, it'd likely be impossible for these people to know where to begin trying to fix the import.
      - ajanuary 12y ago
        The preview dialog is useful, but the default option for the delimiter could be guessed and the preview dialog used to confirm it.
    - balls187 12y ago
      When I open a CSV file in Excel 2013, it correctly delimits the file. You may have non-standard CSV files (or at least delimited files that are not properly escaped)
      - gcanyon 12y ago
        It's important to point out that there is no standard for CSV files, only conventions.
        ajanuary 12y ago
        There is RFC4180, but that came way after people were using it in lots or ways incompatible with the spec, so it isn't a huge help when paraing arbitrary files. I'd recommend following it if you're generating files though.
  - jacobolus 12y ago
    Deleting my long rant here. It’s not really on topic for this thread. Suffice to say, I think MS Word is a pile of junk. For the curious: http://pastie.org/9297613 http://pastie.org/9297613
    - balls187 12y ago
      > I could go on and on. In about 2005, I decided I’d never again use Word unless I absolutely had to. So you're saying you haven't really used Word 2013 then?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - Retric 12y ago
        I used Office 2010 for a while and it was crashing 4+ times a day, so I tried 2013 and easily recreated some of those crashes. I have not used it extensively but it does not take long to discover it's still trash. PS: Office 2013 still has bugs from word 97, which is what happens when there is zero competition.
    - hyperliner 12y ago
      "There’s no good way to collaborate with multiple authors without hellish document synchronization effort." Based on just that, I don't think you have used Office in a really long time.
      - jacobolus 12y ago
        [Sorry that this is all quite off topic for a conversation about surface.] So imagine you have 4 authors: person A writes a document, and person B makes one set of changes, while person C makes a different set of changes, with person D working off of C’s version. Now person A wants to accept some but not all of C’s changes, and some but not all of B’s changes, and person D wants to “rebase” his document to add the changes that A approved from B and C, but not the changes that A did not approve... How do you handle it? You’re saying MS word now has a solution for this that avoids conflicts? I guess I’m not enough of a power user to know about it. Okay, now imagine that you want to both want to open and type on the same document at the same time, real-time-collaboration style. You’re saying Word has a solution for this one too?
- quink 12y ago
  Whatever are you complaining about? Little as I am a fan of the WYSIWYG philosophy, Office is a genuinely spectacular product.
  - jmspring 12y ago
    Office, like Excel, was mostly complete years ago. The iterations on file format and ribbon bar? Not so useful for most users.
    - vertex-four 12y ago
      As a casual user of the various Office apps, the ribbon bar is what made it usable. Before that, I'd make every attempt to keep out of Office. Those who use it with any regularity likely know the keyboard shortcuts for things they use regularly, and the ribbon should work for finding the less common things in the same way it helps me as a casual user find everything.
      - jimmaswell 12y ago
        The ribbon bar made it more usable? I just found it annoying. Word 2003 still seems like the best form factor to me.
        vertex-four 12y ago
        It did. I couldn't find anything before the ribbon bar, frankly, and using tools took significantly more time because I had to search for them in overly long menus, or even submenus. Now they're mostly laid out directly in front of me, logically and visually ordered. I don't feel that menus are a good UI to anything. It would seem that most UX people now agree with me, as traditional menu bars have been de-emphasised across nearly all the apps I use. Word was the only app which required me to delve into the menus in common use. Why do you think the ribbon bar has a worse UX than a menu bar?
        quink 12y ago
- reallysure 12y ago
  "Actually MS has always listened." Really? http://www.jax184.com/projects/filenames/filenames.html http://www.jax184.com/projects/filenames/filenames.html
  - jodrellblank 12y ago
    Your one link to demonstrate Microsoft "don't listen" is where the person refuses to report it through the proper channels, gets it reported via an unofficial channel then after Microsoft have listened, doesn't like their answer therefore pretends it didn't happen? Convincing.
    - BrandonLive 12y ago
      Indeed. Also, I thought for sure that 8.3 file name creation was off by default starting in either Win8 or Win7. Maybe it depends on whether you upgraded from an older version or which SKU you install?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Marazan 12y ago
"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Yeah it's easy to get listened to by Microsoft, just go create the most popular web-comic in the world and they'll get in touch. Anyone can do it.
paulrov 12y ago
The most important and influential Surface user comments on product Microsoft changes product to please important and influential user who's reviews are the most popular review of the product on the internet "Microsoft is listening guys!!"

seanewest 12y ago

What natural process?

Tloewald 12y ago

Actually MS has always listened. The problem has been (a) whom they listened to (the user has usually not been their customer) and (b) lack of "taste". MS Office is, for good and ill, exactly what you get when you give users what they ask for and have no taste.

balls187 12y ago
Office 2013, specifically Excel and Word are fantastic.
- rthomas6 12y ago
  Except for my use case, which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures. The thing grinds to a halt and has all sorts of problems. Yes, I know that MS Word is not the best choice for documents that big, but it's not up to me.
  - nightpool 12y ago
    Honest question, why can't you split the document and work on individual chapters?
  - tallanvor 12y ago
    Have you tried the 64-bit version? People still normally install the 32-bit version (mainly for add-on supportability), but if you're working with very large documents, the 64-bit version should work better for you.
  - oatmeal_coffee 12y ago
    A document that large must have some kind of a structure that you and your team can use to break it apart into smaller, more manageable chunks. One thing to consider is to place the content into a content management system of kind (a wiki comes to mind) to allow the content to more easily be maintained and grow without the limitations Word creates. The decision may not have been up to you to keep it all in one Word document but making the case to either break apart the document or find a better system in which to maintain it ought to be easy in the face of the usability issues you mention.
    - rthomas6 12y ago
      We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
  - taude 12y ago
    That's weird you can't break it down into smaller parts? I worked on a big book, about that size with several people and the major, mainstream publishing company wanted it in individual documents mapping to individual chapters.
    - rthomas6 12y ago
      We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
  - pmelendez 12y ago
    "which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures" This is like saying that SQLite is not a good product because you are using it on a Terabyte database having 1,000,000 hits at the same time... It might work but it would have problems because wasn't designed for that scenario. I sympathize with you though... since it is not your decision :/
- jzwinck 12y ago
  I like Excel as much as the next guy, but even in 2013 when you open a delimited text file it makes you manually tell it what the delimiters are. A computer should be able to guess whether a large text file is CSV, TSV, etc. This is an example of something Apple would get right, but Microsoft does not, even after more than a decade with this heavily-used feature. A tasteful implementer would make it do something reasonable by default, rather than making thousands of users click "Next" repeatedly and get presented with nonsensical defaults.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    You might be vastly overestimating the correctness of files being imported. Some coworkers of mine have to deal with CSV/TSV imports from enterprise customers, and the amount of clearly broken scripts is pretty bad. That excel import preview dialog helps non-programmers try to fix these issues beforehand. If that wasn't there, it'd likely be impossible for these people to know where to begin trying to fix the import.
    - ajanuary 12y ago
      The preview dialog is useful, but the default option for the delimiter could be guessed and the preview dialog used to confirm it.
  - balls187 12y ago
    When I open a CSV file in Excel 2013, it correctly delimits the file. You may have non-standard CSV files (or at least delimited files that are not properly escaped)
    - gcanyon 12y ago
      It's important to point out that there is no standard for CSV files, only conventions.
      - ajanuary 12y ago
        There is RFC4180, but that came way after people were using it in lots or ways incompatible with the spec, so it isn't a huge help when paraing arbitrary files. I'd recommend following it if you're generating files though.
- jacobolus 12y ago
  Deleting my long rant here. It’s not really on topic for this thread. Suffice to say, I think MS Word is a pile of junk. For the curious: http://pastie.org/9297613 http://pastie.org/9297613
  - balls187 12y ago
    > I could go on and on. In about 2005, I decided I’d never again use Word unless I absolutely had to. So you're saying you haven't really used Word 2013 then?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 12y ago
      I used Office 2010 for a while and it was crashing 4+ times a day, so I tried 2013 and easily recreated some of those crashes. I have not used it extensively but it does not take long to discover it's still trash. PS: Office 2013 still has bugs from word 97, which is what happens when there is zero competition.
  - hyperliner 12y ago
    "There’s no good way to collaborate with multiple authors without hellish document synchronization effort." Based on just that, I don't think you have used Office in a really long time.
    - jacobolus 12y ago
      [Sorry that this is all quite off topic for a conversation about surface.] So imagine you have 4 authors: person A writes a document, and person B makes one set of changes, while person C makes a different set of changes, with person D working off of C’s version. Now person A wants to accept some but not all of C’s changes, and some but not all of B’s changes, and person D wants to “rebase” his document to add the changes that A approved from B and C, but not the changes that A did not approve... How do you handle it? You’re saying MS word now has a solution for this that avoids conflicts? I guess I’m not enough of a power user to know about it. Okay, now imagine that you want to both want to open and type on the same document at the same time, real-time-collaboration style. You’re saying Word has a solution for this one too?
quink 12y ago
Whatever are you complaining about? Little as I am a fan of the WYSIWYG philosophy, Office is a genuinely spectacular product.
- jmspring 12y ago
  Office, like Excel, was mostly complete years ago. The iterations on file format and ribbon bar? Not so useful for most users.
  - vertex-four 12y ago
    As a casual user of the various Office apps, the ribbon bar is what made it usable. Before that, I'd make every attempt to keep out of Office. Those who use it with any regularity likely know the keyboard shortcuts for things they use regularly, and the ribbon should work for finding the less common things in the same way it helps me as a casual user find everything.
    - jimmaswell 12y ago
      The ribbon bar made it more usable? I just found it annoying. Word 2003 still seems like the best form factor to me.
      - vertex-four 12y ago
        It did. I couldn't find anything before the ribbon bar, frankly, and using tools took significantly more time because I had to search for them in overly long menus, or even submenus. Now they're mostly laid out directly in front of me, logically and visually ordered. I don't feel that menus are a good UI to anything. It would seem that most UX people now agree with me, as traditional menu bars have been de-emphasised across nearly all the apps I use. Word was the only app which required me to delve into the menus in common use. Why do you think the ribbon bar has a worse UX than a menu bar?
        quink 12y ago
reallysure 12y ago
"Actually MS has always listened." Really? http://www.jax184.com/projects/filenames/filenames.html http://www.jax184.com/projects/filenames/filenames.html
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  Your one link to demonstrate Microsoft "don't listen" is where the person refuses to report it through the proper channels, gets it reported via an unofficial channel then after Microsoft have listened, doesn't like their answer therefore pretends it didn't happen? Convincing.
  - BrandonLive 12y ago
    Indeed. Also, I thought for sure that 8.3 file name creation was off by default starting in either Win8 or Win7. Maybe it depends on whether you upgraded from an older version or which SKU you install?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Marazan 12y ago

"You hear a lot about MS being this massive company that doesn’t listen but that’s really not fair in this case." Yeah it's easy to get listened to by Microsoft, just go create the most popular web-comic in the world and they'll get in touch. Anyone can do it.

paulrov 12y ago

The most important and influential Surface user comments on product Microsoft changes product to please important and influential user who's reviews are the most popular review of the product on the internet "Microsoft is listening guys!!"