Anyone interested in this at all, or desktop UI design in general, should really read Jensen Harris' fascinating series of blog posts that were written during t

Anyone interested in this at all, or desktop UI design in general, should really read Jensen Harris' fascinating series of blog posts that were written during the development of the Office 2007 UI: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/tags/Why+the+New+UI_3F00_/default.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/tags/Why+the+New+UI_3F... They've got loads of detail on the thinking behind the new designs and give tons of examples of the work in progress - and go into the reasons for all the design decisions that went into the new ribbon UI. Well worth a read if you haven't done so before.