4 ms·
A better title would be "20 years of UI convention stuck in the back of my head and getting used to the ribbon takes time". The piece contains nothing but subj
by trezor 17y ago
A better title would be "20 years of UI convention stuck in the back of my head and getting used to the ribbon takes time".
The piece contains nothing but subjective opinions and does in no way justify a conclusion that the Ribbon sucks. Yes, it is different. Yes, it took some time getting used to. Yes, I am more productive now.
The author (despite saying the opposite in the comments) clearly just wants things to remain the way they have always been and if the new Office 2007 UI is really that hard getting used to, why not just stick to Office 2003?
There are even free plugins from Microsoft to deal with the new Office fileformats.
- j_baker 17y agoIn fairness, I think a case can be made that it's not a good idea to make too many radical changes to a UI design all at once. I'm not necessarily saying I agree with the author, but I can see where he's coming from. With that said, I personally tend to think that the way of thinking above is the smart way to do things. On the other hand, you can't really innovate without being willing to try something stupid.
- rbanffy 17y agoYou can try stupid ideas. You should just avoid trying them with your cash-cow products. There is also the insight that focus groups and user behavior research can only go that far. I was reading a very old article on the Acme editor/IDE/shell and one remark in it is very profound: When people become aware of the user interface, it's because it's distracting from the task. Ideally, users should not even be aware the UI is there.