On Wed, 4 Apr 2007, Andr� Wyrwa wrote:
Both links are far away from being usability reviews.
You won't find any true usability reviews. Nor is it likely that you will
find any reviews, period. The days of a real product shootout are over a
decade past. Recall that MS started a policy of prohibiting criticims in
its licenses starting around the time it started pushing FrontPage.
Nor do they "place it well below OpenOffice.org".
Connect the dots.
In fact, i would very much like to see a real usability review on the
ribbon. All i can read from OOo advocates is praising conservatism just
because it turns out to be MSO 2007s weekest point.
It is a weak point to be sure, but it is not MSO 2007's weakest point.
Lack of multiple platform support is by far the worst. Though the file
formats and server ties probably hurt those willing to put up with the
lack of platform choice. The last Macintosh version of MS Office I saw,
was slow as hell, crashed a lot, had rendering problems, and could no
longer do simple things like mail merge with FileMaker. OOo was
hands-down better.
And what i could find from MS advocates or magazines was pretty thin as
well.
Like I said, you're not likely to find any reviews, let alone real
usability studies (heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, etc.),
especially if it is less than favorable.
So if anyone had any real pointers...
If you have the time and the money and the extra computers, then you could
do one. Myself, I'd be just as interested in finding out what the
restrictions are on making and publishing an evaluation as in the
evaluation itself, if you do set one up.
My experience, anecdotal as it is, is that most novice users find OOo
easier to use than MSO, even the older versions, though many probably
could not tell you at the time whether they are using AppleWorks, MS
Office, or OpenOffice.org. A few notice, because in all seriousness they
find MSO harder to use.
-Lars
Lars Noodén ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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