DITCH THE RIBBON!

J

John Jay Smith

hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the truth!!!


Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too big

Reader post by: bobby_brady
Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the ribbon bar is
too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?

Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too big, we
should make it smaller, eh boss"?

http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
 
R

rocky

Read the following articles and be enlightened!

The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is about the
same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous versions of
Office:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx

The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the size of
buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have increased:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx

The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and how only
2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of Office:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
 
J

John Jay Smith

I know all these "excuses" for a very bad design....

just because the previous way was horrible does not justify ANOTHER MORE
HORRIBLE way!

They needed a solution to the previous way.. and what did they do? They made
the ribbon?

All I can say that it was an idea from an idiot that somehow caught on and
MS developed it.
 
J

John Jay Smith

You should be enlightened and get some better taste....

as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead and make
giant toolbars...
rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that better fits
you and your screen.

BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and WMP11!
 
R

rocky

Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was horrible and
the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that scales to
the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
 
J

John Jay Smith

The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the toolbars
changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on how to do
stuff....
Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.

I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology of 2006-7
for crying out loud!

First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
taskbar...
second it should be completely configurable in icon size, placements and
movement.
The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having increments
of 100% and not
only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control and mouse
wheel.
Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the settings back or
go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been around for years..
look
at corel draw for workspaces.
You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.

I can think of a million ways to do it better than this monstrosity.. if you
lack imagination and eat what is
given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly receive a
check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....

There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said they will
stick to 2003... its not only me.

I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only question is
if Microsoft will understand this blundering
mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to fix this
in the next version, probably 2009?
If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert back to
office 2003 interface with SP1.
 
M

Milly Staples - MVP Outlook

So, do us all a favor and stick with what you like.

Oh, and as for the problem with wandering toolbars, it is not Microsoft that
does this but third party programmers who don't know how to program an
add-in properly to persist in its toolbar placement. Thought you would know
that since you know so much about how things "should" be done.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
| how to do stuff....
| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|
| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology of
| 2006-7 for crying out loud!
|
| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
| taskbar...
| second it should be completely configurable in icon size, placements
| and movement.
| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
| increments of 100% and not
| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control and
| mouse wheel.
| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the settings
| back or go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been
| around for years.. look
| at corel draw for workspaces.
| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|
| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this monstrosity..
| if you lack imagination and eat what is
| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|
| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said they
| will stick to 2003... its not only me.
|
| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
| question is if Microsoft will understand this blundering
| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
| fix this in the next version, probably 2009?
| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
| back to office 2003 interface with SP1.
|
| || Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|| horrible and
|| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|| scales to
|| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||
|| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||
||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||
||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||| and make
||| giant toolbars...
||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||| better fits
||| you and your screen.
|||
||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||| WMP11!
|||
|||
||| |||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||
|||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||| about the
|||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||| versions
|||| of
|||| Office:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||
|||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||| size of
|||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||| increased:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||
|||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and
|||| how only
|||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of Office:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||| truth!!!
|||||
|||||
||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too big
|||||
||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||| ribbon bar
||||| is
||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||
||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||| big, we
||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||
|||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||| |||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon is...
|||||| at least
|||||| some very
|||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||| intrusive........
||||||
||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||
|||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an "option"
|||||| or remove
|||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
 
P

Patrick Schmid

I am impressed by your knowledge. I suggest you read all of Jensen
Harris UI blog and my own blog, and then come back here to enlighten us
more.

Patrick Schmid
 
B

Beth Melton

You might be surprised at how the Office 2007 UI accommodates a lot of
what you listed. As Patrick suggested, read Jensen's blog. He shares a
lot of insight on the new UI and the "why" behind it.

FWIW, I was singing a similar tune about a year or so ago. Now I think
it was due to lack of knowledge. I *knew" the old UI with my eyes
closed and felt like complete newbies trying to use Office 2007. All
my years of learning the Office applications, I started using Excel
around 1985, was now worthless. It felt like I was learning to walk
all over again and actually, I completely understand your whining
because I was right there with you not too long ago.

I started using Office 2007 more and more because I love some of the
new features, document themes which give you the ability to not only
change the format and overall look of an Office document in seconds
but to also include formatting for content you haven't even added yet,
such as pasting data from Excel in Word and have it formatted to match
my other tables in about two clicks: one for paste and one for
applying the format. I ability to just adding data and not spending a
bunch of time reformatting the darn thing is a good thing for me.
(This allows me more time to search for some of the commands I can't
seem to find. lol)

The new graphic effects and SmartArt are fantastic, insert an image
and experiment with some of the picture styles - those are pretty
awesome. And the galleries with the live preview - I like being able
to preview a format quickly and not repeatedly apply different
formatting over and over until I find what I'm looking for. Some of my
favorite new features are in Outlook, the new ability to overlay
multiple calendars and the instant search is *very* cool!

But if I want the new functionality I also need to adapt to the new UI
so I'm slowly making the compromise. I know this sounds like a sales
pitch, but believe me and there are others who will attest to this, I
was one of the first on the "this bites" band wagon and I'm pretty
sure there a few folks who are surprised to actually hear me singing
praises for once. <grin>

I still have my moments and want my old 'familiar' UI back but like I
said before, is it worth trading the new functionality? So the more I
use it the more I adjust.

What I recommend to those who hate the new UI, is to play around with
it for awhile and check out the new features and do a little reading
to get a better understanding for why they changed the UI. Jensen
Harris has a great series on this topic (if you only want to read one
the second link has a the best explanation):
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/26/473950.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/03/476412.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/10/479123.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/17/481809.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/24/484131.aspx

You can find more information on the Office preview site and the
Communities link has links to other blogs and articles:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/articles.mspx

Then, if the new functionally doesn't encourage you want to learn
Office 2007 then by all means, uninstall the beta and go back to your
old version.

Oh, and you may be happy to know Clippy, and all of his buddies, are
dead. ;-)

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Office 2007 Preview Site:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx

TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
 
J

John Jay Smith

no I wont do you any favor.

no I am not talking about add-ins im talking about office vanilla.

I have trained hundreds of people.. I know the problems and I know what they
would like... and the ribbon stinks!

you are lucky you mvp you, because outlook will not have the ribbon,
so you will be spared the ranting from users who are in disgust.


Milly Staples - MVP Outlook said:
So, do us all a favor and stick with what you like.

Oh, and as for the problem with wandering toolbars, it is not Microsoft
that
does this but third party programmers who don't know how to program an
add-in properly to persist in its toolbar placement. Thought you would
know
that since you know so much about how things "should" be done.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
| how to do stuff....
| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|
| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology of
| 2006-7 for crying out loud!
|
| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
| taskbar...
| second it should be completely configurable in icon size, placements
| and movement.
| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
| increments of 100% and not
| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control and
| mouse wheel.
| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the settings
| back or go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been
| around for years.. look
| at corel draw for workspaces.
| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|
| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this monstrosity..
| if you lack imagination and eat what is
| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|
| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said they
| will stick to 2003... its not only me.
|
| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
| question is if Microsoft will understand this blundering
| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
| fix this in the next version, probably 2009?
| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
| back to office 2003 interface with SP1.
|
| || Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|| horrible and
|| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|| scales to
|| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||
|| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||
||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||
||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||| and make
||| giant toolbars...
||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||| better fits
||| you and your screen.
|||
||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||| WMP11!
|||
|||
||| |||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||
|||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||| about the
|||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||| versions
|||| of
|||| Office:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||
|||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||| size of
|||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||| increased:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||
|||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and
|||| how only
|||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of Office:
|||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||| truth!!!
|||||
|||||
||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too big
|||||
||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||| ribbon bar
||||| is
||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||
||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||| big, we
||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||
|||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||| |||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon is...
|||||| at least
|||||| some very
|||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||| intrusive........
||||||
||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||
|||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an "option"
|||||| or remove
|||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
Click to expand...
 
J

John Jay Smith

I will read... but this wont change the fact that used office 2007 beta
and was horrified and uninstalled the retched thing.

It seems that MS has fired or the people who knew how to design good UIs
left!
Vista has so many problems people are laughing at it (the people who know
what they are talking about - see Chris pirillo, IE7 and WMP11 are
2 other very badly designed applications... ( I am talking about the UI)

I suggest you take some classes in design. logic,and how to make interfaces,
then come back and tell me I was right!
 
J

John Jay Smith

you do not understand. I am a person who welcomes change...
once I see something new that is better, I have no problem
thowing out the old ways and habits and using the new.
I welcome and am looking for new things.

But they have to be better. The office UI is not better, its worse.
And a trillion times worse than it could have been.
 
J

John Jay Smith

I will read.. but are you welcome to read every point I make showing
that you have no idea what you are talking about?

Ok ill go read.. but be prepared....
 
J

John Jay Smith

oug.. the design is sooo bad.. I don't even have the energy it takes to tell
you all the
problems... this thing is unthinkable.... you cant fix this..
this needs redesign from scratch...but don't take my word for it...

open your ears to all the people who will disregard this UI as trash...
 
J

John Jay Smith

this post here is totally misleading...

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx

who wrote this? This uses out of the box screenshots and not real life
screenshots...

I should make an answer page with other screenshots and graphics
explaining to you why this stupid blog post is wrong in what it defends.

clearly this person defends the ribbon because of ignorance.. or
he has a paycheck from microsoft
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Chris Pirillo - oh please, he is as much a laughing stock that his picture
shows next to the definition in any reputable encyclopedia!

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| I will read... but this wont change the fact that used office 2007
| beta
| and was horrified and uninstalled the retched thing.
|
| It seems that MS has fired or the people who knew how to design good
| UIs left!
| Vista has so many problems people are laughing at it (the people who
| know what they are talking about - see Chris pirillo, IE7 and WMP11
| are 2 other very badly designed applications... ( I am talking about
| the UI)
|
| I suggest you take some classes in design. logic,and how to make
| interfaces, then come back and tell me I was right!
|
|
| || I am impressed by your knowledge. I suggest you read all of Jensen
|| Harris UI blog and my own blog, and then come back here to enlighten
|| us more.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
|| ||
||| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
||| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
||| how to do stuff....
||| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|||
||| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology
||| of 2006-7
||| for crying out loud!
|||
||| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
||| taskbar...
||| second it should be completely configurable in icon size,
||| placements and movement.
||| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
||| increments
||| of 100% and not
||| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control
||| and mouse
||| wheel.
||| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the
||| settings back or
||| go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been around for
||| years..
||| look
||| at corel draw for workspaces.
||| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
||| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
||| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
||| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|||
||| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this
||| monstrosity.. if you
||| lack imagination and eat what is
||| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
||| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
||| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|||
||| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said
||| they will
||| stick to 2003... its not only me.
|||
||| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
||| question is
||| if Microsoft will understand this blundering
||| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
||| fix this
||| in the next version, probably 2009?
||| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
||| back to
||| office 2003 interface with SP1.
|||
||| |||| Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|||| horrible
|||| and
|||| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|||| scales
|||| to
|||| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||||
||||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||||| and make
||||| giant toolbars...
||||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||||| better
||||| fits
||||| you and your screen.
|||||
||||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||||| WMP11!
|||||
|||||
||||| |||||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||||| about
|||||| the
|||||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||||| versions
|||||| of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||||| size
|||||| of
|||||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||||| increased:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and
|||||| how
|||||| only
|||||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||||
|||||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||||
||||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||||| truth!!!
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too
||||||| big
|||||||
||||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||||| ribbon
||||||| bar
||||||| is
||||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||||
||||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||||| big,
||||||| we
||||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||||
|||||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||||| |||||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon is...
|||||||| at
|||||||| least
|||||||| some very
|||||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||||| intrusive........
||||||||
||||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||||
|||||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an "option"
|||||||| or
|||||||| remove
|||||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

I am afraid you are .... spitting... into the wind. There are thousands if
not hundreds of thousands of contrary opinions - why yours should matter
more than the rest is beyond me.

As for MVPs not using the same software and interface, where in the heck did
you ever get that idea - oh, never mind, I forgot your rant and the numerous
incorrect points in it, so I guess I should not be surprised.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| you do not understand. I am a person who welcomes change...
| once I see something new that is better, I have no problem
| thowing out the old ways and habits and using the new.
| I welcome and am looking for new things.
|
| But they have to be better. The office UI is not better, its worse.
| And a trillion times worse than it could have been.
|
| || You might be surprised at how the Office 2007 UI accommodates a lot
|| of what you listed. As Patrick suggested, read Jensen's blog. He
|| shares a lot of insight on the new UI and the "why" behind it.
||
|| FWIW, I was singing a similar tune about a year or so ago. Now I
|| think it was due to lack of knowledge. I *knew" the old UI with my
|| eyes closed and felt like complete newbies trying to use Office
|| 2007. All my years of learning the Office applications, I started
|| using Excel around 1985, was now worthless. It felt like I was
|| learning to walk all over again and actually, I completely
|| understand your whining because I was right there with you not too
|| long ago.
||
|| I started using Office 2007 more and more because I love some of
|| the new features, document themes which give you the ability to not
|| only change the format and overall look of an Office document in
|| seconds but to also include formatting for content you haven't even
|| added yet, such as pasting data from Excel in Word and have it
|| formatted to match my other tables in about two clicks: one for
|| paste and one for applying the format. I ability to just adding data
|| and not spending a bunch of time reformatting the darn thing is a
|| good thing for me. (This allows me more time to search for some of
|| the commands I can't seem to find. lol)
||
|| The new graphic effects and SmartArt are fantastic, insert an image
|| and experiment with some of the picture styles - those are pretty
|| awesome. And the galleries with the live preview - I like being able
|| to preview a format quickly and not repeatedly apply different
|| formatting over and over until I find what I'm looking for. Some of
|| my favorite new features are in Outlook, the new ability to overlay
|| multiple calendars and the instant search is *very* cool!
||
|| But if I want the new functionality I also need to adapt to the new
|| UI so I'm slowly making the compromise. I know this sounds like a
|| sales pitch, but believe me and there are others who will attest to
|| this, I was one of the first on the "this bites" band wagon and I'm
|| pretty sure there a few folks who are surprised to actually hear me
|| singing praises for once. <grin>
||
|| I still have my moments and want my old 'familiar' UI back but like
|| I said before, is it worth trading the new functionality? So the
|| more I use it the more I adjust.
||
|| What I recommend to those who hate the new UI, is to play around
|| with it for awhile and check out the new features and do a little
|| reading to get a better understanding for why they changed the UI.
|| Jensen Harris has a great series on this topic (if you only want to
|| read one the second link has a the best explanation):
|| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/26/473950.aspx
|| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/03/476412.aspx
|| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/10/479123.aspx
|| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/17/481809.aspx
|| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/24/484131.aspx
||
|| You can find more information on the Office preview site and the
|| Communities link has links to other blogs and articles:
|| http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/articles.mspx
||
|| Then, if the new functionally doesn't encourage you want to learn
|| Office 2007 then by all means, uninstall the beta and go back to
|| your old version.
||
|| Oh, and you may be happy to know Clippy, and all of his buddies, are
|| dead. ;-)
||
|| Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
|| assistance by email can not be acknowledged.
||
|| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|| Beth Melton
|| Microsoft Office MVP
||
|| Office 2007 Preview Site:
|| http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx
|| Office 2007 Community Articles/Tutorials:
|| http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/community/article_archive.mspx
||
|| TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
|| MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/
||
|| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
|| ||| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
||| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
||| how to do stuff....
||| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|||
||| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology
||| of 2006-7 for crying out loud!
|||
||| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
||| taskbar...
||| second it should be completely configurable in icon size,
||| placements and movement.
||| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
||| increments of 100% and not
||| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control
||| and mouse wheel.
||| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the
||| settings back or
||| go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been around for
||| years.. look
||| at corel draw for workspaces.
||| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
||| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
||| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
||| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|||
||| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this
||| monstrosity.. if you lack imagination and eat what is
||| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
||| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
||| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|||
||| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said
||| they will stick to 2003... its not only me.
|||
||| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
||| question is if Microsoft will understand this blundering
||| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
||| fix this in the next version, probably 2009?
||| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
||| back to office 2003 interface with SP1.
|||
||| |||| Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|||| horrible and
|||| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|||| scales to
|||| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||||
||||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||||| and make
||||| giant toolbars...
||||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||||| better fits
||||| you and your screen.
|||||
||||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||||| WMP11!
|||||
|||||
||||| |||||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||||| about the
|||||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||||| versions
|||||| of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||||| size of
|||||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||||| increased:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon
|||||| and how only
|||||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||||
|||||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||||
||||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||||| truth!!!
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too
||||||| big
|||||||
||||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||||| ribbon bar
||||||| is
||||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||||
||||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||||| big, we
||||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||||
|||||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||||| |||||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon
|||||||| is... at least
|||||||| some very
|||||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||||| intrusive........
||||||||
||||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||||
|||||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an
|||||||| "option" or remove
|||||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
 
J

John Jay Smith

he is geekier tha you will ever be! you keep dreaming!



"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
Chris Pirillo - oh please, he is as much a laughing stock that his picture
shows next to the definition in any reputable encyclopedia!

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| I will read... but this wont change the fact that used office 2007
| beta
| and was horrified and uninstalled the retched thing.
|
| It seems that MS has fired or the people who knew how to design good
| UIs left!
| Vista has so many problems people are laughing at it (the people who
| know what they are talking about - see Chris pirillo, IE7 and WMP11
| are 2 other very badly designed applications... ( I am talking about
| the UI)
|
| I suggest you take some classes in design. logic,and how to make
| interfaces, then come back and tell me I was right!
|
|
| || I am impressed by your knowledge. I suggest you read all of Jensen
|| Harris UI blog and my own blog, and then come back here to enlighten
|| us more.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
|| ||
||| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
||| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
||| how to do stuff....
||| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|||
||| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology
||| of 2006-7
||| for crying out loud!
|||
||| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
||| taskbar...
||| second it should be completely configurable in icon size,
||| placements and movement.
||| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
||| increments
||| of 100% and not
||| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control
||| and mouse
||| wheel.
||| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the
||| settings back or
||| go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been around for
||| years..
||| look
||| at corel draw for workspaces.
||| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
||| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
||| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
||| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|||
||| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this
||| monstrosity.. if you
||| lack imagination and eat what is
||| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
||| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
||| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|||
||| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said
||| they will
||| stick to 2003... its not only me.
|||
||| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
||| question is
||| if Microsoft will understand this blundering
||| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
||| fix this
||| in the next version, probably 2009?
||| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
||| back to
||| office 2003 interface with SP1.
|||
||| |||| Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|||| horrible
|||| and
|||| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|||| scales
|||| to
|||| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||||
||||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||||| and make
||||| giant toolbars...
||||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||||| better
||||| fits
||||| you and your screen.
|||||
||||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||||| WMP11!
|||||
|||||
||||| |||||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||||| about
|||||| the
|||||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||||| versions
|||||| of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||||| size
|||||| of
|||||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||||| increased:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and
|||||| how
|||||| only
|||||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||||
|||||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||||
||||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||||| truth!!!
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too
||||||| big
|||||||
||||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||||| ribbon
||||||| bar
||||||| is
||||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||||
||||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||||| big,
||||||| we
||||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||||
|||||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||||| |||||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon is...
|||||||| at
|||||||| least
|||||||| some very
|||||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||||| intrusive........
||||||||
||||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||||
|||||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an "option"
|||||||| or
|||||||| remove
|||||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
Click to expand...
 
J

John Jay Smith

read HIS vista blog... and see how easy he spots out vista blunders...

im sure he is ranting worse about office *cough* 2007
http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/05/24/windows-vista-feedback/

the problem with ms is that they want debugging feedback.

I don't want to debug horrible designs... I want them redesigned!




"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
Chris Pirillo - oh please, he is as much a laughing stock that his picture
shows next to the definition in any reputable encyclopedia!

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, John Jay Smith asked:

| I will read... but this wont change the fact that used office 2007
| beta
| and was horrified and uninstalled the retched thing.
|
| It seems that MS has fired or the people who knew how to design good
| UIs left!
| Vista has so many problems people are laughing at it (the people who
| know what they are talking about - see Chris pirillo, IE7 and WMP11
| are 2 other very badly designed applications... ( I am talking about
| the UI)
|
| I suggest you take some classes in design. logic,and how to make
| interfaces, then come back and tell me I was right!
|
|
| || I am impressed by your knowledge. I suggest you read all of Jensen
|| Harris UI blog and my own blog, and then come back here to enlighten
|| us more.
||
|| Patrick Schmid
|| --------------
|| http://pschmid.net
||
|| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
|| ||
||| The old way was horrible because nothing could be locked.. the
||| toolbars changed all the time, and there was not enough guidance on
||| how to do stuff....
||| Of course I am ignoring clippy who should be resting in peace.
|||
||| I am sure I could find a better way to do this... using technology
||| of 2006-7
||| for crying out loud!
|||
||| First of all the interface should be able to lock down, like the XP
||| taskbar...
||| second it should be completely configurable in icon size,
||| placements and movement.
||| The size of these should be SCALABLE like in ZOOM action. Having
||| increments
||| of 100% and not
||| only small - large etc. This should be done with a slider control
||| and mouse
||| wheel.
||| Also you should be able to save workspaces and retrieve the
||| settings back or
||| go back to default. Oh come on this technology has been around for
||| years..
||| look
||| at corel draw for workspaces.
||| You should be able to tear off the toolbars into ONE
||| window (the toolbars should stick with each other in a group)
||| so you can place it to another monitor for multimonitor users..
||| so you can have the first monitor full screen to write on.
|||
||| I can think of a million ways to do it better than this
||| monstrosity.. if you
||| lack imagination and eat what is
||| given to you by Microsoft.. you are in trouble! I would gladly
||| receive a check from MS if they wanted some ideas,
||| because they seem to lack all logic and ingenuity....
|||
||| There are so many people who have seen office 2007 and have said
||| they will
||| stick to 2003... its not only me.
|||
||| I am right about this. There is no question about it. The only
||| question is
||| if Microsoft will understand this blundering
||| mistake before they release office 2007 final, or they will have to
||| fix this
||| in the next version, probably 2009?
||| If they get the message loud enough they will give a way to revert
||| back to
||| office 2003 interface with SP1.
|||
||| |||| Please enlighten us. If you believe that the old interface was
|||| horrible
|||| and
|||| the new interface is even more horrible, show us your design that
|||| scales
|||| to
|||| the size of the resolution and that is not "horrible".
||||
|||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||
||||| You should be enlightened and get some better taste....
|||||
||||| as for blog 2, when you have higher resolutions you dont go ahead
||||| and make
||||| giant toolbars...
||||| rather you make the gui so it can be customized to the size that
||||| better
||||| fits
||||| you and your screen.
|||||
||||| BAD DESIGN! And vista is the same crappy design.... and IE7 and
||||| WMP11!
|||||
|||||
||||| |||||| Read the following articles and be enlightened!
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about how the size of the ribbon is
|||||| about
|||||| the
|||||| same as the size of the combined size of the toolbars in previous
|||||| versions
|||||| of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about Fitts' Law and explains how the
|||||| size
|||||| of
|||||| buttons needs to be increased because screen resolutions have
|||||| increased:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/08/22/711808.aspx
||||||
|||||| The following article talks about the customisation of ribbon and
|||||| how
|||||| only
|||||| 2% of users customised the toolbars in previous versions of
|||||| Office:
|||||| http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/06/27/648269.aspx
||||||
|||||| "John Jay Smith" wrote:
||||||
||||||| hularious comments from the cnet site... humour reveals the
||||||| truth!!!
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| Billion dollar company can't figure out if a ribbon bar is too
||||||| big
|||||||
||||||| Reader post by: bobby_brady
||||||| Posted on: August 25, 2006, 10:27 AM PDT
||||||| Story: Microsoft rolls up Office ribbon
||||||| Man, it really took beta testers to complain to them that the
||||||| ribbon
||||||| bar
||||||| is
||||||| too big? Doesn't Microsoft actually use their own products?
|||||||
||||||| Can't they say something like "geez boss, this ribbon bar is too
||||||| big,
||||||| we
||||||| should make it smaller, eh boss"?
|||||||
|||||||
http://news.com.com/5208-1012-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=20550&messageID=177937&start=-1
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
|||||||
||||||| "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message
||||||| |||||||| again and again I have criticized how horrible the ribbon is...
|||||||| at
|||||||| least
|||||||| some very
|||||||| small steps are being made but Microsoft to make it less
|||||||| intrusive........
||||||||
||||||||
http://news.com.com/Microsoft+rolls+up+Office+ribbon/2100-1012_3-6109590.html?tag=nefd.top
||||||||
|||||||| Dont worry... they will have to improve it, make it an "option"
|||||||| or
|||||||| remove
|||||||| the damn monstrosity
|||||||| after they see the sales of office 2007 slump....
Click to expand...
 

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