> -----Original Message----- > From: Kevin Graeme [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 8:47 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: New Office UI Presentation > > I absolutely HATE the UI in WMP10 hiding the File, Edit, etc menus and > it looks like they've decided hiding menus is the next big thing for > Office too. Fuckers.
Well - I hate that too (which is I why I turned off the "feature") but I wouldn't lump the two in together. In WMP is idea was a misguided attempt to "clean" the interface. It didn't - it made it harder since they were hiding things you needed all the time - they hide (by default) some of the most commonly used controls! To be fair they DO expose many of them in other ways by those ways are rarely clear. (This is why I liked the comments made in the video about how difficult it is to work with a large iconography: when soooo many features are identified with tiny icons it's impossible to remember.) That's a good example of a bad contextual UI: the context of your use wasn't honored, just an arbitrary context invented by the application. In Office the hiding (so far at least) seems nicely contextual. Things are hidden not to "clean things up" but because you can't use them any more (you're not touching a picture so you can't use the image tool for example). I think it's an important difference - one that potentially makes the feature insanely useful instead of insanely frustrating. It may be a cluster-f*ck (I'm going by the same information as you and they still can screw it up) but so far I really like it. At the very least it does show a concerted effort to evolve the UI in the right way (according to actual usability principles instead of visual effects). This might be a failure, but we'll learn a lot from the attempt. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:202014 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
