On 4/7/07, André Wyrwa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Both articles kinda say that the new MSO UI is rather unusual and hence requires training. But we knew that already with the mere notion of that they'd have a new interface. If you change the way something works, you have to relearn how it works. Merely logical. Doesn't say anything about if it's more/less usable or not. Or did i miss some dots, eventually?
You didn't miss any dots. You pretty much nailed it. And you did so using logic and facts, something missing from some parts of this thread. Well then, how confident are we about discussing both OOo and MSO
honestly? Confident enough to openly discuss the issues both have? One of them being that the OOo UI sucks just as (well almost as) much as any former MSO UI, because we made the decision to make it as close as possible?
There are problems with the UI, no doubt, for both MSO and OOo. And that includes the latest versions of each. The new ribbon thing that MSO 2007 has may be an improvement - it may not. I haven't done any usability studies myself (I don't even have a Windows machine to test it on), nor have I read any. But since we have no control over the usablity of MS Office, then we might want to take an honest look at the UI of OOo, and try to find ways to improve it. Not with a ribbon, per se, (unless that proves to be the best way to do it), but there are improvements that can be made. Funnily - and this is just one of many contradictions in these defensive
(non-confident) OOo vs. MS "discussions" - a decision that obviously was based (as in inherently motivated) on MSO market share, not on considerations of technical superiority. For what otherwise were the reasons for making OOo2's interface as close as possible to MSOs?
+1 See the point? Market share is irrelevant because OpenDocument is
superior? But somehow market share is relevant for UI, because a superior UI wouldn't be superior?
There are lots of contradictions in the fanatical base. *PRE-2.0 "We don't need a database program! It's useless bloat that takes away choice from the end user!" *POST 2.0 "The latest addition of our new Database program is far superior to the *ahem* other guy. It makes our free, open source, cross-platform office suite more complete!" *PRE-2006 "The X11 windowing environment is *far superior* to doing anything in the Aqua system. It makes it more compatible with other ports in other operating systems." *NOW "We *always* looked at the X11 'solution' as a stop-gap measure. It was never intended to be used forever. We're working on a native Mac port - not like some hack 'neo' Java based edition!" We're even in the midst of a contradiction shift as we speak. Check out the PIM discussion in the "[discuss] Regarding OpenOffice Suite" thread. One side (that apparently hasn't read the latest memo) says "We don't need the useless, choice-limiting bloat of a PIM! Use Thunderbird or some other program. We don't need to reinvent the wheel!" The other side (who wrote the latest memo) says "We always intended to return the functionality of a PIM to the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org line. It was removed at 5.2 because of resources and technology limitations, but we are in the process of putting it back in. Check out these links...." The pattern is: 1) (When functionality X is absent.) "The way it is now is PERFECT. Its limitations are purposeful choices, and the best of all possible worlds. You should learn to live within the confines that we offer, or otherwise you are a trool M$-shill." 2a) Something changes, something is added or improved... "We *ALWAYS* planned on doing X. We just didn't have the resources." 2b) The truly devoted, those not even wishing to admit any potential problems with the open source way of doing things. "We *ALWAYS* planned on doing X. We just wanted to make sure it could be done to our high standards, so it took a while." -- - Chad Smith http://www.chadwsmith.com/
