Might be better to classify Office's old icon toolbars as intermediate aids, since experts I have observed (admin assistants, typists, etc) have most of the common toolbar action keystrokes memorized, and only use the toolbar and text menu for items that don't have an shortcut key, or whose key isn't obvious.
At any rate, your statement is still true, but perhaps the above (if you provide shortcut keys) will mitigate the loss from switching to ribbons. I just got Office 2007 myself, and appreciate the improved information architecture, although I think displaying 15 different cell-box styles right there in the ribbon makes Excel 2007 seem more feature-rich than it really is (I rarely use pre-built styles, but have begun using theirs more, which I guess is a win for Microsoft =]). Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jeff Axup Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 6:10 PM To: Jerome Ryckborst Cc: discuss@lists.interactiondesigners.com Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] FW: Office or Vista - That is the Question The toolbars were an advanced user feature, which supported very rapid activation - IF you could remember what the icon meant, and you could click the small button, and the function you wanted was there to begin with. I've often spend long periods of time (in old menu-style apps) trying to find features in menus that I knew must be there, but with several levels of embedding, and no graphical cues they can be very hard to find and remember the location of. ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
