Work Menu - Word:mac 2008

[John McGhie]

Hi Again:

But does this mean that nobody at MS with any
influence on the software design ever reads or takes notice of software
reviews, forums etc?

Yes.

To be technically correct, while they may "read" them (some of them, some of
the time...) they are not ALLOWED to 'take any notice of them' in terms of
influencing the design of the application.

This must also mean that the very
principles of good software design are decided solely by users¹ feedback
channeled through Marketing. OK, but wow!

The principles of good software design are applied AFTER Marketing says what
is to go in the product. Marketing reads the database (and conducts
useability studies with selected user groups). So "Yes" one way or another
it all comes directly from users, in a quantified manner, or it doesn't get
into the software.

So if there¹s a really duff feature that¹s tucked away
deep in the entrails but relied on by just a few people, it¹s hardly going to
turn up much in the responses is it?

No

So my one vote isn¹t ever going to get my president elected. Not after all
this time anyway.

Right. But you would really kick yourself if this feature was subject to a
hanging chad, and your one vote might just have pushed it over the line, but
you decided it was hopeless so you didn't vote. Now wouldn't you!

When it came to
the detail of the 2008 design, it must have gone like this: ŒOK guys, what do
we think about the Work Menu. Did we do alright? Do we need to change it?
Never mind the reviews and the know-it-all MVPs. Does it turn up in the
users¹ feedback? Not much. Right then it must be OK. We did good so it
stays. OK, so what about the Help Menu?...¹

More like "Guys, we have 1,600 commands in the user interface of this damn
product. NO user can remember them all. 80 per cent of the users can't
even FIND the ones they WANT, let alone the 90 per cent they never use.

We are SICK TO DEATH of getting Feature Requests for functions that are
ALREADY IN THE DAMN PRODUCT!!

So WE ARE GOING TO CUT SOME COMMANDS.

Now, where's that database from Marketing of the commands the users are
actually using... Let's sort it by Frequency of Use. Right... Everything
below this line {Scrape!!} is OUT. No arguments, guys and girls, it's OUT!!

That is very close to the way it "really" happened

I could name three or four I know of that were NOT removed by this process,
simply because removing them proved to be too much work, or when they tried,
something else crashed. They got a reprieve. For now...

ŒListen up aliquis. You really haven¹t got a clue about menus. The whole
point about menus is that they are the setting within which you do your
day-to-day work.

Oh, I'll argue with you Always try to please

The whole point about "Menus" is that they are "Yesterday's technology".
Nasty, inflexible, modal things that interrupt the user's flow of pearls of
wisdom. We would rather not have ANY menus. But the Apple guidelines
require use to have at least three. And there are some parts of our user
interface we haven't fixed yet that require a few more, otherwise we can't
drive the software. But they are on notice! They better make retirement
plans, because NEXT version...

So if you¹re dumb enough to put a letter to your Aunty Betty on your
Work Menu then don¹t cry if you can¹t get it off. Menus are menus ­ they¹re
not scratchpads.¹

Nah! That was a screw-up. Given the choice between a conspiracy and a
SNAFU, take the SNAFU every time

1 Is the Work Menu operation a poor piece of software design and does it need
changing? (I think so, but I could be persuaded otherwise.)

It was a great piece of software design: it has lasted all these years. But
most folks would suggest that there are better ways of achieving the result
in modern Applications/Operating Systems.

2 Is the answer to this question entirely one to be decided by popular
acclaim? (Is Madonna better music than Mozart? - I guess Mozart might lose
on the popular vote.)

Good heavens no! Bribery, corruption, inducements, intoxicants, thuggery
and stand-over tactics are equally effective methods of influencing software
design.

3 How does MS decide what¹s going to feature in its next release? Principles
of good design or vox pops? Or maybe they¹re the same thing to MS. I don¹t
know.

This isn't a "design" issue. It's a "Feature Specification" issue. Current
software development methodologies dictate that the software will be
designed to implement the specified features. In software companies that
want to be around to produce Version Next, "Marketing" decides the feature
list, and the budget.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to use the words "good"
and "Marketing" in the same sentence without causing laughter-based injury
to the entire group.

Hey John, perhaps you could mention the Work Menu to the Architect next time
you meet him. I know he¹ll probably tell you to use your feedback button, but
it might be worth a shot.

No way. I am compiling a lengthy list of other items I wish to "have a
little chat" about. With Marketing Saying that kind of stuff to the
Software Architect would simply result in "You get Marketing's sign-off to
spend the money on that yet?"

Asking the same thing of Marketing will result in "Based on your survey of
what percentage of the potential customers for our next release?" I will
lie, bribe, cajole, offer personal services... Whatever it takes... I'm a
results-oriented kinda guy...

BTW ­ I did send my feedback after all as you suggested. I may be obstinate
but I¹m not totally stubborn.

Now, all you have to do is persuade all like-minded individuals to do
likewise. If I get to Redmond in April, I will look to see if you made it
onto the "Top Ten List" You have three months

Ever thought of politics as a career?

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones]

Now we get to try to figure out "who" that was I think I recognise the
style: My guess is ... Nope, I won't give it away.

The challenge for today, ladies and gentlemen, is to figure out WHICH
Microsoft Mac BU staff member that was

{Giggle}

Yeah, they're in here reading right at the moment. But if you think they're
going to "remember" our vapid ramblings when they sit down to prioritize
their feature list for the next version, then don't forget to leave a
stocking beside the fireplace for Santa Claus next Christmas

Cheers

Aw Come on now John You just spoiled it for me. I thought there was a
Santa Claus. ;-)

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[aliquis]

Please understand that as a lay person I was using ‘design’ in too loose a sense and I understand your distinction between ‘design’ and ‘features’. Let me put it this way then – allowing for the proposition that Marketing dictates that there should be a set of features for adding project ‘bookmarks’ as semi-permanent but user-modifiable items somewhere in the software, then there could be several different ways of doing it. If you’ve got menu-driven software, then a Work Menu seems as good as way as any of delivering this feature. But then there are still ‘design’ decisions to be made. And by ‘design’ I don’t just mean whether it looks pretty. What I mean is: how do you design (i.e. engineer) the Work Menu to deliver the features that are supposed to be on offer? Again, within a Menu environment this will basically mean having a menu item to add something to a menu and a menu item to remove something from a menu. But the way that has been delivered seems to me to be flawed.

The design (in my sense) is flawed in several respects. First the user default menu presents an ‘Add’ item, but no ‘Remove’ item, so you have a basic visual and practical asymmetry. Secondly, when the user adds the menu item to remove things from the Work Menu the asymmetry remains because the Add item adds document links to the Work Menu, while the Remove item removes anything from any menu. Thirdly, the default set up in 2004 (I think I’m right about this) was a menu item for adding, but a keystroke for removal (another asymmetry), but still underpinned already by the underlying asymmetry of function. Overall the thing is a mess and I was very surprised that this hadn’t been sorted in 2008. In fact it was compounded because the default keystroke was taken out. Even at the level of a quick fix it should not be too much of a struggle to add a command that removes document links (and only document links) from the Work Menu.

My point all along has been that it shouldn’t take endless direct user feedback to trigger a realisation that this feature is a real dog’s breakfast in the way it’s delivered. The SNAFU is multi-layered and built in. The question is: why? Well surely the difficulty comes from the fact that the feature is wrongly conceived at the outset. What goes on menus are basically commands. What goes on the Work Menu are not (as far as the user is concerned) commands but documents. That’s why you have to add a dedicated Add command for this. You can’t use the generic ‘Add to Menu’ mechanism because the currency for this mechanism is solely generic commands. You have to have an Add command that specify a document to make into a menu item, but once you’ve got a menu item the generic command for removing menu items will do. (In fact even here there is an asymmetry because you can’t use one of the generic mechanisms, which is dragging it off the menu toolbar.)

Now let’s come back to your user-driven development model. Having been persuaded to press the feedback button I’ve been working overtime on this sending back a couple of hundred votes each night. By the end of the week I should have got the Work Menu issue above the notice-me threshold. So when it comes to Word 2012, the Acting Associate Deputy Chief Assistant Word Programmer (Work Menu) should be given his (or her) brief as follows: ‘Right, Marketing says we’ve had over 1400 feedbacks saying that they want a Remove from Work Menu item putting up. Funny nobody’s ever wanted this before, but all these feedbacks are in red block caps so I guess they think it’s important. So that’s your job for the week.’

But what should really happen is this: ‘OK Marketing says we’ve had 1400 feedbacks wanting the Work Menu adjusted. But I’ve got this one feedback from this guy who says that the whole Work Menu idea is fundamentally flawed and should be scrapped. He says we could either pin the Recent items like in Word 2007 or not have anything like it at all, because when you’re using a Mac there are half a dozen other places you can lodge a document icon. They don’t have it in Pages; why should we need it in Word? So I say: screw the 1400. We’re not going to give them what they want. We’re going with the one guy.’

What I’m saying is that user feedback is only ever going to be a rough indicator of the direction software should develop. This is for the simple reason that most users might identify what they think is problem, but the solution to that problem may not at all be what they think it is. You can get thousands of people all demanding a new menu item and half the time (as you say) it will already be there and the rest of the time it won’t be practical to add it. Particularly if a major decision as already been taken to do away with menu–driven software - and you can bet your life that that decision didn’t come from direct user feedback. My bet is that there is very little direct feedback that raises issues that the developers don’t know about or haven’t thought about. I'd be surprised if there's less than 99% dross.

Now I’m pretty sure that that’s not just the way that user-feedback should be limited, I’m also pretty sure that in any half-decent software company that’s the way that it IS limited. Software developers (in the aggregate) do read reviews, they do listen to MVPs, they do develop their own ideas and try to lead the market, not just follow the feedback. And sometimes this means taking decisions that will initially upset a lot of their regular client base, but in the interests of broadening that client base even further. And sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don’t. (And sometimes they might be constrained and hampered by their short-sighted Marketing Department.)

I realise of course that the one thing that threatens my whole position here is the crappy Work Menu design. I’m sure everybody in the Word Department knows it’s screwy, just as everybody whose ever written anything to help people use it knows its screwy. Probably people who use Word just live with it and the half dozen menu items they can’t get rid of, like they live with a crack in the wall. It’s hardly going to be a deal-breaker for buying the next version. But the question remains, which puzzles me no end. How did this crappy Menu survive from 2004 to 2008?

But I’d better stop there. I’ve got another 100 feedbacks to do before tonight.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I like you, Aliquis ;-)! I hope you stick around this neck of the woods.

P.S. I suspect MSFT has a means for weeding out multiple feedback requests
from the same source . You should probably find a better way to spend
your time!

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[aliquis]

Thanks for you nice comment Beth. I suppose it's about time I branched out to explore another menu.

As for the multiple feedbacks, don't worry - I thought of that. I'm using different wordings so they'll never spot it. Though I did discover by the time I'd done 120 that the number of different ways you can say 'Give us a command to remove items from the Work Menu' is quite possibly finite.

But just 20 more today and that's me done till tomorrow.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

But are you using different email addresses for each post ??

Beth

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Oops! Never mind that last comment. I forgot that the Send Feedback
feature was anonymous .

Beth

 

[John McGhie]

Doesn't he work for the IRS?

Aw Come on now John You just spoiled it for me. I thought there was a
Santa Claus. ;-)

-------------------------snip-------------------------

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Late, but me too!

I like you, Aliquis ;-)! I hope you stick around this neck of the woods.

P.S. I suspect MSFT has a means for weeding out multiple feedback
requests from the same source . You should probably find a better
way to spend your time!

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>




On 1/22/08 10:12 AM, in article (e-mail address removed)9absDaxw,
"aliquis" <aliquis> wrote:

Please understand that as a lay person I was using ‘design’ in too
loose a sense and I understand your distinction between ‘design’
and ‘features’. Let me put it this way then – allowing for the
proposition that Marketing dictates that there should be a set of
features for adding project ‘bookmarks’ as semi-permanent but
user-modifiable items somewhere in the software, then there could
be several different ways of doing it. If you’ve got menu-driven
software, then a Work Menu seems as good as way as any of
delivering this feature. But then there are still ‘design’
decisions to be made. And by ‘design’ I don’t just mean whether
it looks pretty. What I mean is: how do you design (i.e.
engineer) the Work Menu to deliver the features that are supposed
to be on offer? Again, within a Menu environment this will
basically mean having a menu item to add something to a menu and a
menu item to remove something from a menu. But the way that has
been delivered seems to me to be flawed..

The design (in my sense) is flawed in several respects. First the
user default menu presents an ‘Add’ item, but no ‘Remove’ item, so
you have a basic visual and practical asymmetry. Secondly, when
the user adds the menu item to remove things from the Work Menu
the asymmetry remains because the Add item adds document links to
the Work Menu, while the Remove item removes anything from any
menu. Thirdly, the default set up in 2004 (I think I’m right
about this) was a menu item for adding, but a keystroke for
removal (another asymmetry), but still underpinned already by the
underlying asymmetry of function. Overall the thing is a mess and
I was very surprised that this hadn’t been sorted in 2008. In
fact it was compounded because the default keystroke was taken
out. Even at the level of a quick fix it should not be too much
of a struggle to add a command that removes document links (and
only document links) from the Work Menu.

My point all along has been that it shouldn’t take endless direct
user feedback to trigger a realisation that this feature is a real
dog’s breakfast in the way it’s delivered. The SNAFU is
multi-layered and built in. The question is: why? Well surely
the difficulty comes from the fact that the feature is wrongly
conceived at the outset. What goes on menus are basically
commands. What goes on the Work Menu are not (as far as the user
is concerned) commands but documents. That’s why you have to add
a dedicated Add command for this. You can’t use the generic ‘Add
to Menu’ mechanism because the currency for this mechanism is
solely generic commands. You have to have an Add command that
specify a document to make into a menu item, but once you’ve got a
menu item the generic command for removing menu items will do.
(In fact even here there is an asymmetry because you can’t use
one of the generic mechanisms, which is dragging it off the menu
toolbar.)

Now let’s come back to your user-driven development model. Having
been persuaded to press the feedback button I’ve been working
overtime on this sending back a couple of hundred votes each
night. By the end of the week I should have got the Work Menu
issue above the notice-me threshold. So when it comes to Word
2012, the Acting Associate Deputy Chief Assistant Word Programmer
(Work Menu) should be given his (or her) brief as follows: ‘Right,
Marketing says we’ve had over 1400 feedbacks saying that they want
a Remove from Work Menu item putting up. Funny nobody’s ever
wanted this before, but all these feedbacks are in red block caps
so I guess they think it’s important. So that’s your job for the
week.’

But what should really happen is this: ‘OK Marketing says we’ve
had 1400 feedbacks wanting the Work Menu adjusted. But I’ve got
this one feedback from this guy who says that the whole Work Menu
idea is fundamentally flawed and should be scrapped. He says we
could either pin the Recent items like in Word 2007 or not have
anything like it at all, because when you’re using a Mac there are
half a dozen other places you can lodge a document icon. They
don’t have it in Pages; why should we need it in Word? So I say:
screw the 1400. We’re not going to give them what they want.
We’re going with the one guy..’

What I’m saying is that user feedback is only ever going to be a
rough indicator of the direction software should develop. This is
for the simple reason that most users might identify what they
think is problem, but the solution to that problem may not at all
be what they think it is. You can get thousands of people all
demanding a new menu item and half the time (as you say) it will
already be there and the rest of the time it won’t be practical to
add it. Particularly if a major decision as already been taken to
do away with menu–driven software - and you can bet your life that
that decision didn’t come from direct user feedback. My bet is
that there is very little direct feedback that raises issues that
the developers don’t know about or haven’t thought about. I'd be
surprised if there's less than 99% dross.

Now I’m pretty sure that that’s not just the way that
user-feedback should be limited, I’m also pretty sure that in any
half-decent software company that’s the way that it IS limited.
Software developers (in the aggregate) do read reviews, they do
listen to MVPs, they do develop their own ideas and try to lead
the market, not just follow the feedback. And sometimes this
means taking decisions that will initially upset a lot of their
regular client base, but in the interests of broadening that
client base even further. And sometimes they get it right and
sometimes they don’t. (And sometimes they might be constrained
and hampered by their short-sighted Marketing Department.)

I realise of course that the one thing that threatens my whole
position here is the crappy Work Menu design. I’m sure everybody
in the Word Department knows it’s screwy, just as everybody whose
ever written anything to help people use it knows its screwy.
Probably people who use Word just live with it and the half dozen
menu items they can’t get rid of, like they live with a crack in
the wall. It’s hardly going to be a deal-breaker for buying the
next version. But the question remains, which puzzles me no end.
How did this crappy Menu survive from 2004 to 2008?

But I’d better stop there. I’ve got another 100 feedbacks to do
before tonight.

 

[ouoiiuio]

 

[melisofao]

Here is an applescript that works for me with Word 2008. It removes selected
Work Menu entries. Hope it helps. I keep it in the applescript menu of word.
tc

-- this script deletes items from Word Work Menu items
set work_list to {}
tell application "Microsoft Word"

set works to (count of work menu items)
if works = 0 then return
repeat with i from 1 to works
set work_list to work_list & name of work menu item i
end repeat

choose from list work_list with title "Work Docs" with prompt "Select
Document(s) to Delete from Work Menu:" OK button name "Delete" with multiple
selections allowed
set delete_doc to result
if delete_doc is false then return
repeat with i from 1 to (count items in delete_doc)
delete work menu item (item i of delete_doc)
end repeat
end tell

 

[melisofao]

An applescript that easily removes selected items from work menu. I put it
into the applescript menu of Word 2008.

-- this script deletes items from Word Work Menu items
set work_list to {}
tell application "Microsoft Word"

set works to (count of work menu items)
if works = 0 then return
repeat with i from 1 to works
set work_list to work_list & name of work menu item i
end repeat

choose from list work_list with title "Work Docs" with prompt "Select
Document(s) to Delete from Work Menu:" OK button name "Delete" with multiple
selections allowed
set delete_doc to result
if delete_doc is false then return
repeat with i from 1 to (count items in delete_doc)
delete work menu item (item i of delete_doc)
end repeat
end tell

tc

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks very much for sharing this resource, melisofao! I've linked the
thread from the MVP Word site.
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DeleteFromWorkMenu.html

Have you also posted it at scriptbuilders.net?

If anyone is not sure how to make this script work, the instructions
here on installing an AppleScript should help.
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/InstallApplescript.html

I had to fix a line break at "selections allowed", as copy and paste
from the web is not 100% accurate.

 

[Daiya]

Melisfao, I repackaged your script for ease of use and published it here, with full attribution:
<http://word.mvps.org/Mac/deleteFromWorkMenu.html>

Please post if you have a problem with that. I'd be happy to link to your site instead.

 

[lin]

 

[RD]

Beth, I'll try to help with those feedbacks !!! Up to 20 by now.

 

[aliquis]

"What I’m saying is that user feedback is only ever going to be a rough indicator of the direction software should develop. This is for the simple reason that most users might identify what they think is problem, but the solution to that problem may not at all be what they think it is."

I know I shouldn't really comment on my own previous post, but I just saw this in Steve Jobs's Fortune interview:

"We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do. So you can't go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse."'"

Thank you Mr Jobs - very well put. I think I'll stop sending all the feedbacks now. If MS really feel they've got to ask about software design then they ain't ever gonna know.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Aliquis

There's a great quote by Henry Ford,
right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would
have told me "A faster horse."'"

Thank you Mr Jobs - very well put. I think I'll stop sending all the feedbacks
now. If MS really feel they've got to ask about software design then they
ain't ever gonna know.

No, they are not asking about software design, they're asking you what YOU
want to do.

Microsoft taught Jobs the software game, and they're very good at it

Tel them what YOU want to do, not what THEY should do. That way, you will
get what you want. Otherwise, you will just get a pile of horse....

Cheers

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[aliquis]

But if I say to MS: 'I want a Work menu that's got a proper Remove item', that's like saying 'I want a horse that isn't lame.'

A) they ought to know it's lame without being told and B) asking for a horse that isn't lame isn't ever going to produce a car.

 

[John McGhie]

Well, I am sorry, but that's telling Microsoft what to do.

Tell them what YOU want to do, and you might get it

If you make enough of a fuss about the Work menu, they will probably just
delete it, so that you can't complain about it any more

My Work menu has a Remove item: I put it there. Just the way we told you
that you could do it.

So Microsoft has to decide whether to spend scarce resources on a problem
most people don't even know about; and of those who do, most don't care; and
of those who do, most can fix it themselves. If you decided to spend money
on that while working for most corporations, I think you would have a pretty
short career.

But if you tell them why you want it, and what you want to do with it, they
may give you something better.

See the difference?

Of course, you don't have to believe me. I might be wrong. I am not
Microsoft, and I don't work there

Cheers

But if I say to MS: 'I want a Work menu that's got a proper Remove item',
that's like saying 'I want a horse that isn't lame.'

A) they ought to know it's lame without being told and B) asking for a horse
that isn't lame isn't ever going to produce a car.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]