Forums | MacLife

That's a sorry ass looking brushed metal wannabe.

Will it ever be possible for them not to copy OS X's look?  I mean really, damn already.  Just ask Apple to license the OS, and pay them $100 per copy.  Slap on and XP logo and charge $200 for it and call it a day. 

Actually, the more I look at it.  It kinda seems like a Linux theme that resembles OS X.  But, that would be double coping.  And so wrong. 

M$ is like one big "Rolez" watch.

Ok, I for one LOVE this new interface. Why? Because now there are no hidden features, everything is in each of those tabs. You DO realize this is essentially the EXACT same thing that apple has done with a tabbed inspector in its office apps? Pretty much the only differences are that in MS Office the inspector is docked to the windows, as opposed to floating in iWork, and that there are fewer tabs but they have more content. And frankly, neither of those make it any more or less confusing than Pages.

Hey, I hate MS as much as the next Apple zealot, but that doesn't make me blind. Please, get off this "everyting that m$ makes sucks0rz!!!111!1!1" horse, and realize that you're bashing somthing that Apple is already using: a tabbed options interface.

I'm running this same alpha build and um, while I think in time it may work into a solid release *down the road*, right now its just so  different coming from office 2003 that its dare I say a bit unsable because so much has changed.

I haven't spent the time with it to get fluent and every time I try I find myself just closing out and launching word 2003 to get something done.

I heard about this on tWiT.  The end of menubars.  MS is retarded.

ctachme wrote:

Instead of citing specific examples people just use words like "crappy" and hope that that carries as a valid argument.

There are a lot more words in the original post than "crappy".

ctachme wrote:

but that doesn't make me blind.

A man is talking to the family doctor. "Doc, I think my wife's going deaf."
The doctor answers, "Well, here's something you can try on her to test her hearing.
Stand some distance away from her and ask her a question. If she doesn't answer, move a little closer and ask again.
Keep repeating this until she answers. Then you'll be able to tell just how hard of hearing she really is."

The man goes home and tries it out. He walks in the door and says, "Honey, what's for dinner?"
He doesn't hear an answer, so he moves closer to her. "Honey, what's for dinner?"
Still no answer. He repeats this several times, until he's standing just a few feet away from her.
Finally, she answers, "For the eleventh time, I said we're having MEATLOAF!"

Sometimes the one who accuses everyone of being "blind" is really the one who is blind, as is clearly the case with ct, since all he "saw" was 1 word in the original post (crappy), when clearly there was much more.

Jakob Neilson's take (abridged):

For the last twenty-five years, one user interface style has reigned supreme: the Macintosh-style graphical user interface. ...  Compared with earlier interaction paradigms, the Mac-style GUI's features are far more usable: rather than typing in commands and parameters, users select commands from menus, freeing them from typing errors. Menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes operate on the screen's visual objects, which faithfully represent user goals. This is known as WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get.

... Unfortunately, we've now reached the limits of the current GUI paradigm. Displaying commands in menus, toolbars, and dialog boxes works with a limited number of elements. But Microsoft Word 2003 has 1,500 commands, and users typically have no clue where to find most of them.

... Much as I have criticized Microsoft for its thousands of buried features, the company actually has a good usability team and was well aware of the problems. Basically, it tried to retrofit usability onto an overly complicated foundation and failed. Microsoft has now finally realized that enough is enough: The company is parting ways with the old UI and going for something completely new.

The next version of Microsoft Office (code-named "Office 12") will be based on a new interaction paradigm called the results-oriented user interface. As the demos show, the most obvious departure from the past is that menus and toolbars are all but wiped out. The focus is now on letting users specify the results they want, rather than focusing on the primitive operations required to reach their goals.

The new interface displays galleries of possible end-states, each of which combine many formatting operations. From this gallery, you select the complete look of your target -- say an org chart or an entire document -- and watch it change shape as you mouse over the alternatives in the gallery. The interaction paradigm has been reversed; it's now What You Get Is What You See, or WYGIWYS.

... For now, we can explore how the results-oriented UI works for productivity software like Microsoft Office. Although I'll reserve final judgment until I've worked with the software for an extended period, the new design does seem to resolve many of the problems with recent user interfaces.

If anybody else introduced a new user interface paradigm, it would probably remain a curiosity for years, but Microsoft Office has a special status as the world's most-used interaction design. We know from user testing that users often demand that other user interfaces work like Office. When you're used to one style most of the day, you want it in other applications and screens as well.

If the new interaction style works as well as early predictions indicate, users will quickly expect many other user experiences to provide the power of a results-oriented design. People don't like messing with commands and preference settings on the Web, which is why most customization features fail. It'll therefore be interesting to see how these new ideas translate into environments far beyond Office-like productivity applications.

this is still the sorriest sight that has ever plagued my eyes.

Gary Patterson wrote:

My problem with the new interface is that it takes up too much space.

I agree. A lot of folks, myself included, run monitors at 1024 x 768 and it seems that with every subsequent release, more and more screen real-estate is being sequestered by Office clutter.

ctachme wrote:

Ok, I for one LOVE this new interface. Why? Because now there are no hidden features, everything is in each of those tabs.

Jakob Neilson wrote:

Microsoft Word 2003 has 1,500 commands...

I can't speak for anyone else, but with that many features, I would prefer them to be hidden away. Make them easy to find, sure, but not in your face.

I've witnessed many roll-outs and upgrades over the years, and without fail any improvements in terms of features have always been overshadowed by people's frustration: "Does anyone know how to use the mail merge in this new version?" or "What's this reading pane on the right for? Why don't my e-mails look the same?". In my experience, office users crave reliability and consistency in apps over pretty much everything else.

Microsoft may have a noble aim in trying to make Office more accessible to those not familiar with it, but it's a double-edged sword, and I just hope it doesn't alienate those of us who have used it for years. I think it's a brave (or stupid) decision to make such a sweeping change to their corporate products.

I am not so anti-MS that I would say here and now 'I won't use that smurf' - and if my company decides to go with it, then I won't have much choice. In fact, I would be very interested to try it for myself - I'm curious like that. I may be pleasantly surprised, though based on first impressions, I doubt it.

tF