There's been a lot of talk in UI circles ever since MS started releasing screen shots of their new Office UI. In an apparent attempt to mitigate confusion MS has produced a high quality video demonstration of many of the new features (the video is a little more than 13 minutes):
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/asx/OfficeUIIntro.asx Some bullet points: +) The entire line of products is adopting a "results" mentality: you will now look for the result you want (a chart, a table, formatting, etc) and choose that (often from a predefined list of options) rather than combine features. For example to position an image you can select from a gallary of common styles instead of setting indivual wrap and location parameters. +) The toolbar has been replaced by the "Ribbon" - a richer, feature dense, contextual tool box. The ribbon is context sensitive: selecting an image will bring forth all of the image-related ribbon elements. +) Nearly everything in Office will feature "Live Preview" - as you mouse over options (font sizes, styles, etc) they will automatically preview themselves in your document. The idea is to eliminate the "try and undo" cycle common to editing applications of all types. +) Context sensitive menus (which appear as you approach the elements and fade as you leave it) will now be displayed for many actions. For example selecting text will result in a context-sensitive menu with items like "copy", "paste", "bold", etc. Essentially this seems to be a kind of "automatic right click". Overall I'm very impressed so far. I've been promoting contextual design for years and many of these features epitomize that. I'm also hopeful that the context sensitivity along with the auto preview and gallery options will mitigate the huge problem of needed features that you can't find. My concerns are simply that many of the galleries strike me as the "samples" or "macros" that we've seen before: easy to use (if you like one of the samples) but impossible to modify or customize. Also, a minor point, but it's very clear that these new features (especially the auto preview) will require a lot more CPU than we've come to expect Office needing - I don't see that as being a problem personally but I'm sure it will have an impact on general adoption. The biggest concern I have has to do with contextual interfaces in general: how good is the system in determining your context? For example If the only way to surface a tool is to make the system believe that's what you want how do you start? Yes, clicking on an image bring up images tools, but how to add an image? In any case, very neat stuff. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:201978 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
