Complaining about the Ribbon

[FH]

It depends on who those 5% are - are they IT heads, Excel monkeys, and so
forth, that have to use the program everyday, and make/influence buying
decisions for a company? Or are they merely reluctant normal users? In my
case, it would be the former, and I have a hunch that the *relative*
percentage of tech-savvy people are higher in complaining group than in the
happy/indifferent group. For instance, many people I know who work in
financial institutions have refused to upgrade because of Excel ribbon
issues, even though Excel 2007 has some much wanted features (larger # of
rows, for example).

Note - I don't intend to argue these points, only to note how, even though
only a minority may dislike the ribbon, that minority could be influential.
The best way of "arguing" is likely to be with the pocketbook. However,
'meaningless' was definitely used incorrectly here and makes no sense in
context.

 

[FH]

I understand the considerations, but I had to ask. But even a generic one
will do. I don't know if I got through to Jensen Harris.

There's no one here who will give you an email address. Even if we knew some
Softies' addresses, only a fool would post them on a public newsgroup
without their direct consent.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"

I'm looking for this: an email address that I can use to make suggestions
about office. Not a request for technical help.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi F.H.,

On the right hand side of http://support.microsoft.com/ph/8753 click on the
Send Us Feedback=>Help us improve Office 2007 link.

It is somewhat generic, allows only brief feedback content and has no provision for attachments, but there is at least some
possibility for being heard on specifics.

Additionally, the 'Did this information help' links on the bottom of each of the pages in Office help and at
http://office.microsoft.com are, as I understand it, also monitored. What impact any of these channels might have on future Office
products is unknown, many of the decisions are driven by Microsoft's chosen business model as Harlan mentioned earlier, but every
little 'nudge' helps

You may also wish to use http://connect.microsoft.com for signing up for an Office 14 Beta when that opportunity becomes available,
although that wouldn't be until at least sometime in 2009, to be able to provide feedback during the tuning cycle for that version.

'Hints' are starting to be 'dropped' <g> about what some of the focus of the next version might be, ('cloud' vs desktop, etc) such
as this from the recent Microsoft Prof. Dev Conference
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/PDCNews/First-Look-Office-14-for-Web
to begin to get developers 'on board' (prepared for?) what may come next.

=============
I'm looking for this: an email address that I can use to make suggestions
about office. Not a request for technical help. <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Harlan Grove]

People who hate the Ribbon say that a lot, and yet they still spend week
after week, month after month here in this newsgroup complaining about
the Ribbon.

Instead of over in the OpenOffice newsgroups complaining about why
OpenOffice Calc doesn't cleanly open all of their Excel files.  

....

Aside from some screwiness with some chart types and some of the more
obscure Word Art, I haven't seen anything commonly found in Excel
workbooks that recent versions of OpenOffice Calc (or Gnumeric, FWIW)
can't handle.

Aside from that, there'sore traffic in Office newsgroups, possible
because there are more Office users, but also possibly because Office
users have more problems with Office. Whatever, I follow some
newsgroups because of the frequency of misinformation desperately
needing correction.

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Did you take the time to view the presentation by Jensen?

I would be interested to hear your review.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, FH asked:

| Telstar, you are hopeless. You have no idea of what you are talking
| about. You have some deep inherent confusion that I won't take the
| trouble to tear out, but that is clearly borne out by your
| contradictory, incoherent rambles. Every time you post, you dig your
| own hole (of unreason) deeper. Either you are a troll, or just a very
| confused individual (or both). In any case, as I stated previously, I
| have no intention of arguing with people like you, so I'll let you
| get back under your bridge.
|
| "Telstar" wrote:
|
||
|| ||| You really must speak for yourself, Telstar, because you proved my
||| point exactly.
||
|| No.
||
||| First you erroneously say a feeling is meaningless, as if the term
||| could even be applied like that.
||
|| Absolutely. This is science, not feelings. Do you think they did
|| not consumer test this?
||
||| What you of course meant to say is that the
||| effort is futile, but you obviously could not properly phrase it
||| due to some
||| limitation on your part. Basically, you offered a "get over it"
||| response. How
||| is that useful? It's not. Just like you - useless.
||
||
|| Resistance is futile. Yes.

 

[FH]

Thanks alot Bob. Just what I needed.

 

[FH]

I haven't forgotten about this. I find the talk fascinating in regard to
considerations that were made in UI development, but some claims are
unsubstantiated or anecdotal, and some do not follow from the evidence he
displays. I'll write more on this in the coming days when I finally finish
the video, but a lot of time I am left asking,"So you have identified so and
so problem - but how does the ribbon fix it?"

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video. I think that the conclusions
are the best that are available right now. However, with all generation 1
iterations, there is certainly room for improvement.

However, going backwards is not a step that I would consider progress. YMMV
and has. I look forward to discussions about how or what should be the
Ribbon or Ribbon alternative.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, FH asked:

| I haven't forgotten about this. I find the talk fascinating in
| regard to considerations that were made in UI development, but some
| claims are unsubstantiated or anecdotal, and some do not follow from
| the evidence he displays. I'll write more on this in the coming days
| when I finally finish the video, but a lot of time I am left
| asking,"So you have identified so and so problem - but how does the
| ribbon fix it?"
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]" wrote:
|
|| Did you take the time to view the presentation by Jensen?
||
|| I would be interested to hear your review.
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
|| How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375
||
||
|| After furious head scratching, FH asked:
||
||| Telstar, you are hopeless. You have no idea of what you are talking
||| about. You have some deep inherent confusion that I won't take the
||| trouble to tear out, but that is clearly borne out by your
||| contradictory, incoherent rambles. Every time you post, you dig your
||| own hole (of unreason) deeper. Either you are a troll, or just a
||| very confused individual (or both). In any case, as I stated
||| previously, I have no intention of arguing with people like you, so
||| I'll let you get back under your bridge.
|||
||| "Telstar" wrote:
|||
||||
|||| ||||| You really must speak for yourself, Telstar, because you proved my
||||| point exactly.
||||
|||| No.
||||
||||| First you erroneously say a feeling is meaningless, as if the term
||||| could even be applied like that.
||||
|||| Absolutely. This is science, not feelings. Do you think they did
|||| not consumer test this?
||||
||||| What you of course meant to say is that the
||||| effort is futile, but you obviously could not properly phrase it
||||| due to some
||||| limitation on your part. Basically, you offered a "get over it"
||||| response. How
||||| is that useful? It's not. Just like you - useless.
||||
||||
|||| Resistance is futile. Yes.

 

[Sean Hatfield]

People who hate the Ribbon say that a lot, and yet they still spend week
after week, month after month here in this newsgroup complaining about
the Ribbon.

Instead of over in the OpenOffice newsgroups complaining about why
OpenOffice Calc doesn't cleanly open all of their Excel files.


-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[Sean Hatfield]

There are three camps on the ribbon. Those who like, those who have to like
it, and those who hate it.

Those who like it:
-Inexperienced users
-Microsoft UI design team members
-people who like change for the sake of change

Those who have to like it:
-Microsoft employees
-Microsoft MVPs
-Microsoft Partners

Those who hate it:
-Experienced users
-Everyone not covered by any of the above catagories

I personally know 1 person who honestly likes the ribbon.

There was a small outbreak of office2007 in my organization, and for a
moment it looked like we might lose containment. So I installed it on my
primary machine and used it for 6 months so I could support it if I had to.
I watched Jensen's presentation on what they where thinking. I went through
all of the online training on using the new ribbon. I used to flash widget to
track down where all of the commands went on the new system, and gave it much
more time and effort than a simple UI change should ever consume. After all,
I may someday have to support some poor user on a o07 machine.

While the MVPs and Microsoft people kept claiming it would get easier over
time, it only got more aggravating. There was one command in particular that
put me over the edge: In excel, Insert->Row. Its a simple command, I use it
a lot maintaining lists of things like IP addresses, hardware components,
budgets, action items, etc. The problem? The insert commands are not on the
Insert ribbon. They are spread all over the place. The one I need is
actually on the home ribbon. In theory, it should be easier to find because
most of the time the home ribbon is the active ribbon. But muscle memory
is a hard thing to overcome, and every single time I went to insert a row I
found it missing on the Insert ribbon. In the end, I found it so frustrating
to use I formatted the machine.

Office2007 is a no go in our organization. We simply do not have the
resources to retrain 2000 users on a new office interface. Even if Microsoft
decided to fund the retraining, the ribbon isn't even the primary factor
preventing its deployment. Its just the one I personally found the most
irritating.

 

[Bob I]

Actually there are 4, but who's counting. And as to the Insert( row or
column), I've always used the right-hand mouse button as it is faster,
and intuitive. But you are certainly welcome to your opinion.

 

[JoAnn Paules]

MVPs do not *have* to like it.

 

[Gordon]

There are three camps on the ribbon. Those who like, those who have to
like
it, and those who hate it.

Those who like it:
-Inexperienced users
-Microsoft UI design team members
-people who like change for the sake of change

Those who have to like it:
-Microsoft employees
-Microsoft MVPs
-Microsoft Partners

Those who hate it:
-Experienced users

Hmm I'm an "experienced" user, and I like it. (Experienced as in started
with MultiMate on Win 3.1, through Lotus 123, Office 95, 97, 2000, 2002,
2003, and now 2007....)

 

[Sean Hatfield]

Actually there are 4, but who's counting.

I did omit "Those who don't care", but I didn't think any of them would mind.

 

[Harlan Grove]

Hmm I'm an "experienced" user, and I like it. (Experienced as in started
with MultiMate on Win 3.1, through Lotus 123, Office 95, 97, 2000, 2002,
2003, and now 2007....)

Neither MultiMate nor 123 were Microsoft products. How are they
relevant to experience using Microsoft Office? Or do you mean any old
'productivity' software? This may demonstrate that you may have used
this sort of software for years, but it doesn't prove you either used
it intensively or gained any expertise using it.

 

[zberryman]

Personally, I just don't use the ribbon and I haven't had any problems not
using it. If you can't do something one way, try something else.

 

[Ribbon H8r]

I've been switching back and forth from using the ribbon at home to the old
menus at work for about 9 months now. My evaluation is that the ribbon is
one of the worst developments coming out of Microsoft in ages.

It seems clear that Microsoft knowingly sacrificed usability so they could
more esily display new features. Yes, the ribbon makes it easier to discover
new features. It does that because you spend useless hours wandering amongst
the icons trying to figure out where that *%$# command went.

I have been a 100% user of Microsoft Office products for 2 decades. I'm so
angry that Microsoft decided that the power-user's experience was
unimportant, I've been hounding my corporate IT staff not to "upgrade" to the
next version of Office. Now that my switching costs are very low (in terms
of productivity) I may switch to Apple's office suite.

Terrible, terrible, terrible corporate decision. How hard would it have
been to offer an alternate menu?

 

[Beth Melton]

I felt the same way when I first started using Office 2007 and urged all of
my clients to not upgrade. I've since recanted. <grin> If you find you do
end up using Office 2007 here are some resources and tips that may help ease
the transition:
http://bethmelton.com/default.aspx

Initially it can be quite a shock, especially if you have the old UI
ingrained. Like you, I've been using Office apps for over 20 years, starting
with Excel on a Mac back in 1986. If you take a few minutes to setup your
Quick Access Toolbar (described on the web page) you'll likely find it's not
too bad afterwards. As noted, I had mine setup similar to the old Standard
and Formatting toolbars and minimized the ribbon. It was only after that I
felt I could function in the applications. Now it doesn’t matter how the
Quick Access Toolbar is set, I found it didn't take too long to acclimate to
the new UI.

Another helpful add-in is Search Commands. After you use it to locate a
command you are looking for you can add it to the Quick Access Toolbar as
well.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

 

[Bill]

Question: Why when you found it (insert row) did you not put it on the
Quick Access Bar?
Why don't you use ctrl-F1 and turn the Ribbon into a tabbed menu bar?

Just wondering...
PS: I am in the last group personally, but my company is forcing me to be
in the second...

 

[macropod]

Hi Bill,

All false, of course.