On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:27:03 -0700, Gemini wrote:

> Chris, I (amongst many other users), don't see the need for the
> Ribbon at all. The menus were just fine.

Would you say the same if there were twice as many menu items? After
a while the sheer number of items, which have to be searched one by
one with little visual help, makes the menu system unworkable.

Maybe you'd be happier with Abiword? MS-Word is getting too complex
for its own good.

Chris Game <chrisg> wrote...
....
>No. No supplier tries to alienate their customers. I think you'll
>find that customers loose their way in the long menus rather more
>than in the ribbon.
....

Suppliers of pens, paper, computer hardware maybe. Suppliers in
effective monopoly positions are in rather a different position.

Let's consider the number of nested menus. Call the items in Excel's
menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) level 1, and the entries that appear
when you click on any of them level 2, and if any of those have
triangles on the right side that indicate further submenus, the
entries in those submenus would be level 3. So how many level 2 menu
entries have level 3 submenus?

File > Permission, Print Area, Send To

Edit > Fill, Clear

View > Toolbars

Insert > Name, Picture

Format > Row, Column, Sheet

Tools > Speach, Track Changes, Protection, Online Collaboration,
Formula Auditing, Macro

Data > Filter, Group and Outline, Import External Data, List, XML

22 level 3 submenus.


Now consider the ribbon. Call every ribbon tab level 1. Yes, if you
don't autocollapse the ribbon, there'll always be one tab's contents
visible, but if you need a command in a different tab, accessing that
tab is no different than clicking on a level 1 menu entry in the
classic UI. Call everything appearing in a ribbon tab level 2. Some of
the level 2 entries have downward pointing triangles to access what
are effectively submenus. Call the entries in those submenu entries
level 3. There are more level 3 submenus in Excel 2007's ribbon than
there were in Excel 2003's menu. Further, there are a lot of entries
in the ribbon with only a small icon and no text. Maybe some users
would consider the icons obvious, but others wouldn't.

Chris Game <chrisg> wrote...
>Would you say the same if there were twice as many menu items? After
>a while the sheer number of items, which have to be searched one by
>one with little visual help, makes the menu system unworkable.

Take a look at Office 2008 for Macs. No ribbon in sight. Other than
VBA, where are the commands provided by Office 2007 in the ribbon with
no counterpart in the Office 2008 menu? Claims that it's just not
possible to provide the functionality without the ribbon are simply
wrong and display a lack of critical thought.

Microsoft did what it did on the platform they control to try to lock
in their customers. They did something different on Apple's platform
because they couldn't get away with the same thing. And maybe, just
maybe, the Apple OS X simply makes abominations like the ribbon
impossible.

Chris, that' pretty much the claim Jensen Harris made. However, when asked
for data, he didn't respond at all. Based on JH's description of the data
collection, it rather looks like experienced users were NOT well represented
in the data sample. It is also very doubtful whether users behind corporate
firewalls were properly represented.

All in all, there's no data to prove that menus were harder to use than the
Ribbon. As a matter of fact, posts from long time users on several boards
indicate quite the opposite.

As far as suppliers not alienating their customers is concerned, you're
largely correct. However, in this case, MS has been quite arrogant. For one,
they did not provide an alternative to the Ribbon. Secondly, despite the tons
of requests they've received, typically from long time users, they've refused
to provide an alternative the Ribbon. I'm not the only long term MS customer
who is now looking into other (non-MS) alternatives.

In business, one provides whatever the customer wants. Failure to do that is
an invitation for the customers to start looking elsewhere. That's happening
with Office apps now.

MS would be VERY SMART to come out with a "classic" UI alternative to the
Ribbon, for those who do not want to mess with it. That'll clearly signal
that MS is indeed listening to the customer's voice.

--Gemini
"Chris Game" wrote:
[..]

I hope you have taken your medications before the authorities finds it
out. Mental people like you should be in an institution!



John Smith wrote:
[..]

Randy, there's no need for personal comments. Let's confine the discussion to
the topic of the thread.

--Gemini

"Randy" wrote:
[..]

I have no idea what Abi-Word is. Unless it's along the OpenOffice or Zoho, I
don't want to expend the resources to learn that either.

-- Gemini

"Chris Game" wrote:
[..]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:26:51 -0700 (PDT), Harlan Grove wrote:

> Let's consider the number of nested menus.

Word in Office 2003: 250 menu items, 31 toolbars, 19 task panes
(PC-Pro article). It had out grown the menu system, something more
usable was necessary.

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:40:02 -0700, Gemini wrote:

> All in all, there's no data to prove that menus were harder to use
> than the Ribbon. As a matter of fact, posts from long time users
> on several boards indicate quite the opposite.

These are people who learned over time to find the menu items they
used (generally each user uses only a small fraction of the total
available). New users found it hard to identify the items they
wanted, even long-time users found it hard to find items they didn't
use very often. Most people know they have spent far too long
scanning menus to find something that might relate to what they want
to do (usually calling up the help assistant to identify they names
of the function items that MSFT use!)

Harder vs. Easier to use is going to be pretty subjective. The reality
is that 4 of the top 10 feature requests from Word 2003 were for things
that were ALREADY in the product. The menu system had grown unwieldy
and users didn't know how to find things.

A friend at Microsoft tells me he gets compliments all the time on a
"Great new feature!" in Office 2007 and often those features are things
that have been in Office for years. Again, users couldn't find it.

Not everybody loves the Ribbon. You're not going to design a UI that
400 million people universally love. But the intent was to make the
features more discoverable to the end users and it appears to me that it
has accomplished that.

Power users can argue about whether it saves clicks or not if they want
to - they constitute a tiny percentage of the total Office User Base.
Corporate desktop support people are glad they don't have to field as
many calls from users who want to know how to add a Watermark to their
documents.

Ben, I agree that Harder v/s Easier is quite subjective. However, facts
contradict several of your assertions. I personally know people who have been
forced to use Office 2007 because their employer bought it. They hate the
Ribbon but don't have a choice. I've also read of several cos. that went back
to Office 2003 because there were too many complaints and the help desk
people were swamped.

As regards power users being a small %age of the users, where's the data?
Posts on various different boards indicate that power/long term users dislike
the Ribbon and despite repeated requests, MS has refused to provide a classic
UI alternative.

"But the intent was to make the features more discoverable to the end users
and it appears to me that it has accomplished that."
I respectfully disagree. There's zero data to back up your statement. As
I've said before, Jensen Harris claimed 85% "acceptance" of the Ribbon.
However, despite repeated requests from several posters on his blog, didn't
respond about how that number was calculated.

Going by the posts I've seen here and elsewhere, the Ribbon is anything but
a success, despite the claims by MS, since they have not provided any data
to back up their claims. MS has also chosen to ignore the requests of long
term users. Thanks to the Ribbon, there are quite a few long term users such
as myself who have started looking into non-MS alternatives. If that was the
goal, then the Ribbon is indeed successful. If not, it's a flat out failure.

Think about it. If the Ribbon was so much better than the menus, there would
have been no call for third party add-ons to replace the Ribbon w/ a classic
menu system.

-- Gemini

"Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)" wrote:
[..]

We can trade anecdotes all day, Gemini. :-) I personally know people
who like the Ribbon a lot. That doesn't disprove your claims any more
than your personal knowledge of people who don't like it contradicts
mine. I never said everybody liked it - in fact, quite to the contrary
I said quite plainly that you can't please everybody and a certain
percentage of users aren't going to like whatever you do. There were a
percentage of users who didn't like the old system too.

As regards power users being a small percentage of the users it seems
fairly self-evident honestly. Most users are not power users. Are you
seriously claiming that most Office users are power users? I'm out in
the field every day and I can assure you that much fewer than 10% of my
clients would be what I'd classify as "power users." Your following
sentence is also self-evident - power users are the ones who are most
likely to dislike the Ribbon. (They're also the ones most likely to
visit ExcelUsers.com and answer a survey about it).

But at the end of the day the UI is designed to accommodate the
majority; and the majority are not power users. They don't need to make
product features more discoverable for power users anyhow - power users
have already know all the keyboard shortcuts and have often written
their own macros/scripts to automate tasks in the product anyhow. It's
the secretary who is trying to do a mail merge for the first time who
needs help with the UI.

How discoverable features are has very little to do with "acceptance" of
the Ribbon. The proof the features are more discoverable is in the SQM
data which shows an increased use of features that in previous versions
were buried deep in the menus and often not found by novices.

The existence or desire for third-party alternatives again proves
nothing other than a certain segment of the population wants something
else. Heck, by that measure Christianity and the internal combustion
engine are abject failures. :-)

You're focused on the "popularity" of the Ribbon among power users. I
daresay that is not the only measure of whether or not it succeeded.

"Designing Microsoft Office is like ordering pizza for 400 million
people." -Steven Sinofsky-

Best wishes and aloha,

Ben, it appears that you have missed some of the points in my post.

I do fully understand no GUI pleases all users. I've designed quite a few in
my time. I know that first hand.

I didn't merely refer to power users, I mentioned power/longterm users.
That's a big group. When MS, in all their "wisdom", decided they would NOT
provide a classic UI alternative, they either didn't realize they would
irritate longtime customers or they didn't care. I am quite sure longterm
users make up the majority of users. Are you claiming that newer users make
up the bulk of Office users?

I have NEVER claimed majority of the Excel users are power users. Can you
point out where I have so claimed?

"The proof the features are more discoverable is in the SQM data"
Where's this data? Can you post a link?

"The existence or desire for third-party alternatives again proves nothing
other than a certain segment of the population wants something else. "
On the contrary, it clearly indicates that a significant market exists for
these add-ons, further indicating that there's a significant %age of Office
users prefer the menu system over the Ribbon. A market does not exist in the
absence of demand.

To date, I haven't met anyone personally who actually likes the Ribbon.
OTOH, I've met quite a few who don't. Every time the conversation has turned
to Office 2007, I invariably hear several responses along the lines of "Now
I'm stuck with that #$^& Ribbon, because someone in the ivory tower decided
we need it." I wish I had a buck every time I've heard that.

Have you read that article on Excel 2007? You may want to read it completely.

"But at the end of the day the UI is designed to accommodate the
majority; and the majority are not power users."
I'm willing to bet the majority are long term Office users. See above.

"You're focused on the "popularity" of the Ribbon among power users. "
Incorrect! See above. I'm talking about power AND long term users.

"I daresay that is not the only measure of whether or not it succeeded. "
Exactly by which measure has the Ribbon succeeded? I see tall claims from
MS, but no hard data to back it up.

-- Gemini
"Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)" wrote:
[..]

Fine, power/longterm users. Many of those longterm users who couldn't
find features in the old system appreciate that they are more
discoverable now.

MS in their wisdom, knew that some people wouldn't like the Ribbon. It
was a trade-off they decided was worth it in order to move away from a
system that was becoming increasingly unwieldy.

There is no link to SQM data - it's internal only. I can't give you
specifics of the data because I'm under NDA, but that's o.k. because I'm
sure you wouldn't take my word for it anyhow. :-) Even if you were
showed the data would you believe it? It's just numbers on a page - how
would you know it was from legitimate users? If you saw data that
showed a 50% increase in usage of a particular feature would you accept
the hypothesis that it shows the feature was more discoverable or would
you argue for an alternate theory?

The existence of 3rd party solutions is not nearly as significant as you
would have us believe. Let's look at the Mac - a very solid 3rd party
platform. And yet its U.S. market share (according to MacWorld
Magazine) is just below 5%. Hardly a stampede of angry users heading to
Mac. The existence of 3rd party solutions means that some people want
them. It doesn't mean that the market leader (and MS Office has such
market dominance it is often referred to as a monopoly) is a total
failure.

There are alternatives to virtually everything - from soda pop to God.
Having alternatives to Office is neither new nor especially significant
as an indicator of market satisfaction. Talk to me when one of those
3rd party menu systems ships 200 million copies. :-)

Yes, I have read the article on Excel 2007.

As for "hard data" that the Ribbon succeeded - there is no less hard
data on success than there is on failure. :-)

Some people like the Ribbon, some people hate the Ribbon. I've
travelled the world (literally) talking with folks about Office and I've
met a lot of both.

"We can't all like the same things; otherwise everybody'd be after your
grandma."
-My Grandfather-

Do I get a vote? I've been using Microsoft products for over twenty years
and this Ribbon thing bites it. Still, I'm using Office 2007 because I
could buy the German Language Pack for $24.95. That is a super deal
compared with past offerings. I had a heck of a time getting just Proofing
Tools for 2000 and later 2003. I am annoyed by the random changes to the
user interface, but core functionality is what I am after, after all.

Cheers,

Earle

"Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)" <bens> wrote in message
news:3884
[..]