> > The Renaissance project is shaping up really well. We need to get as many > > people as possible to test it, to provide feedback, and to look into more > > things we could do with the UI to make it more intuitive. > Ah - the look like Office 2007 team.
I don't want to sound negative, but... the ribbon is a bad idea, imho. There are far too many inconsistencies in the ribbon interface. Things move, depending on what you are doing, for no obvious reason. Sometimes buttons are large, sometimes they are small. Sometimes they have an icon - sometimes the same button does not. Back in my day, 'Consistency' was drummed into you when you learnt UI design. I've been teaching MSO for several years. Office 2007 has just caused headaches - to students who use a machine set up with different resolution, who find the layout of MSO changes on each machine. At least Office 2003 tried to keep all the buttons stuck in one place. I feel like an idiot when someone in a class asks a question and I cannot easily answer, because I find the MSO 07 interface so counter-intuitive. I'm used to the file/edit/etc way of working. Finding years' worth of teaching materials suddenly become obsolete because Microsoft have decided they will does not make you want to stay with the product. At least handouts prepared for Word 97 could be used with Word 2003, with minimal editing. What do we say to organisations who have invested in training and manuals for OOo3.x if 4.x looks weird - "oh, sorry, buy more stuff for the 'free' software"? The OOo interface might benefit from a bit of sprucing up (they could do a lot worse than Symphony IMO), but copying MSO will cause far more annoyances than it fixes. If an interface overhaul is deemed appropriate, either give the user a choice of new or old interface (a-la Winzip), or make sure a fork can continue to support the old interface with any new features. Those are my own thoughts anyway! Clarke --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
