Why I Dont Like The Office 12 Ribbon
on 09.26.05, 02:01pm in microsoft • comments (11)
The Office 12 user interface has received a ton of press over the last week since it’s unveiling at the PDC (tons of screenshots here and here). Even Jeff Atwood says that "we just witnessed the death of the main menu".
I disagree completely. But it’s not because the ribbon bar isn’t cool, useful or puts users into the wrong frame of mind.
Why then? Because it’s not a common control. The amount of work that 3rd party ISV’s (and heck, I’ll even go as far as saying other teams at MS) are going to have to do to create other applications that have the ribbon look and feel is a significant undertaking (just look at the work required to write an Internet explorer-style toolbar). And while this may be a great opportunity for a 3rd party control vendor, there’s still a good chance that the non-office ribbon experience might not be identical to that of Office, which can add to user confusion. (In fact, I still think it’s weird that applications in the "office suite" (such as OneNote 12) aren’t using the ribbon since I thought was one of the original selling points of Office - all the apps had the same menus, toolbars, etc).
From the Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines: "Windows Vista developers will also be able to easily apply Windows Vista User Experience themes to their applications and common controls….This creates a consistency within the Windows Vista environment that will put the end user at ease and provide a level of confidence."
Repeat after me: Common controls create a consistent user experience.
Charlie Owen (September 26, 2005 @ 4:38 pm)
But do common controls create the best user experience? [Honest question, not a flame in disguise.]
Mike Gunderloy (September 26, 2005 @ 5:12 pm)
Amen.
Steve (September 26, 2005 @ 6:41 pm)
Good point. I asked this a few weeks back, when faced with a similar issue:
http://www.furrygoat.com/2005/08/consistency_vs_.html
I’m not saying that the ribbons are bad - I’m just saying that I’d like to use them (as would some ISV) in their own apps. We (MS) need to fix/enhance/expand the common control set.
Tim Marman (September 26, 2005 @ 7:01 pm)
In fairness, the Ribbon Interface really doesn’t make sense with OneNote, because you don’t interact with it in the same way as, say, word or Excel. Outlook doesn’t have the ribbon either.
Oh, and I am a big fan of the new OneNote UI. Subtle but important changes.
Jeff Atwood (September 26, 2005 @ 7:02 pm)
Well, I agree.
But hasn’t this always been the case with every version of the Office UI? For example, are Office 2003-style shaded toolbars available in any set of common controls?
Isn’t there time for someone on the Vista/Office team to whip up a common control for the ribbon? We are talking about a full calendar year between now and the release date..
Steve (September 26, 2005 @ 7:29 pm)
Jeff - true enough. Office usually does their own thing when it comes to controls.
Randy (September 26, 2005 @ 7:51 pm)
Funny - I’ve had all of these points raised with the ‘goat via IM over the last two days… that Office has always done it’s own thing, that the ribbon would be over kill for OneNote, and that the break of having the exact same UI for every Office app was a worthwhile break. I’ll go ahead and add the other thing that I keep bringing up, so that he can bitchslap me for later:
Since Office always seems to do their own thing UI wise, doesn’t this help the ISV Controls market? I mean for SharpMT 2.x - built with VS 2003 - I have slide out panels, images in my toolbars, red-underlining spell checking, and all the neat stuff that was in the VS2003 IDE - I just had to get third party controls to do all of that stuff, which helped drive the market. For 3.0, I’m using VS2005 which has a number of new controls available to it, but there’s still a number of things - sliding panels and spell checking mostly - that I go outside the stock framework to get.
I’m betting that within one month there will be a “make your applications look like [the new] Office!” ad with a ribbon-like control available to it. Just like there was for the toolbars and panels of Office 2003, XP and 2000 before it.
JM2C of course
Mark Finkle (September 26, 2005 @ 8:01 pm)
Don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but there is a difference between a “consistent user experience” and a good user experience. The Office UX team did not make these changes willy-nilly.
Also, the solution of Word and Excel may not be the solution for OneNote. Let’s not force the “ribbon” where it doesn’t belong.
Steve (September 26, 2005 @ 8:06 pm)
Perhaps I should have rephrased my original post. I’m not advocating ‘put the ribbon everywhere’, this is more about ‘provide developers with the ability to create ribbons in their own apps (if it warrents it)’.
Randomize (October 10, 2005 @ 1:47 pm)
Ribbons Across Vista?
Jon Galloway (October 11, 2005 @ 1:52 am)
Nope, don’t follow you.
Office has always preceeded the common controls, and developers have struggled along. Users and managers use Office, and they don’t care what’s in the toolkit. Developers need to match the Office UI, and they’ll have to find a way to do it if it’s not in the box. Wanna put some bets on how long it will take for this to hit Codeproject?