Office 2007 UI

GEC: Discuss gaming, computers and electronics and venture into the bizarre world of STGODs.

Moderator: Thanas

Post Reply
User avatar
phongn
Rebel Leader
Posts: 18487
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:11pm

Office 2007 UI

Post by phongn »

There's a blog about Microsoft's new Office UI, which seems to be a rethink of the whole UI. They're claiming extensive usability testing and also responding to feedback with the open betas of it. Does SDN have any thoughts on it?
User avatar
Ace Pace
Hardware Lover
Posts: 8456
Joined: 2002-07-07 03:04am
Location: Wasting time instead of money
Contact:

Post by Ace Pace »

I actully like the new UI, if they have quick preformance I might switch back from Openoffice.
Brotherhood of the Bear | HAB | Mess | SDnet archivist |
User avatar
RedImperator
Roosevelt Republican
Posts: 16465
Joined: 2002-07-11 07:59pm
Location: Delaware
Contact:

Post by RedImperator »

It looks like they're really trying to get the UI right. At any rate, any attempt to get beyond "cram as many mysterious glyphs on the toolbar as possible" is a step in the right direction.

On the other hand, I doubt Word is going stop being bloatware that does 90,000 things poorly at the expense of the 10 things I want it to do well. But from what I saw, at least it will do those 90,000 things poorly with a good UI.
Image
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963
X-Ray Blues
User avatar
Durandal
Bile-Driven Hate Machine
Posts: 17927
Joined: 2002-07-03 06:26pm
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Contact:

Post by Durandal »

I actually like the new Office UI. They finally realized that the "40 rows of 10,000 16x16 icons" idea was getting old really fast. And getting rid of the menu bar is actually a good thing for Office, whose menus were notoriously massive and complex. It might not be a UI which is suitable for all applications, but it works for Office.

EDIT: Also, this UI could not work on the Mac version of Office for a variety of reasons, the absence of the menubar for one. So hopefully this will mean that the Mac Office people will focus more on being innovative in the UI department rather than trying to duplicate the Windows Office's idiocy.
Damien Sorresso

"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
- The Onion
User avatar
phongn
Rebel Leader
Posts: 18487
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:11pm

Post by phongn »

Hrm. If you have IE6, you can remote into Microsoft via Citrix to play with it.
Post Reply