Goodbye File menu, hello throbbing Orb

We recently upgraded from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 at work. Clearly Microsoft has put a lot of effort into upgrading the UI in the various components of Office 2007. For those who have not seen Office 2007, this is a snippet from MS Word 2007.

So, gone are the various formatting, editing etc. toolbars that have been a mainstay in the UI for several releases. They have been replaced by “The Ribbon“, which in reality is just one big honkin’ set of toolbars accessed using the Home, Insert, Page Layout etc. menu titles.

Gone too is what has been probably the single most consistent interface element of GUIs, traceable back to the original Macintosh:

Original Macintosh interface

and the Apple Lisa:

Apple Lisa interface

So what was that interface element? It was the File/Edit menu structure. You can see it’s origins in the Lisa interface. Pretty much every general purpose GUI application since the advent of the Macintosh, and certainly from the time that Windows 1.0 came out, had that. That was over 20 years of UI consistency.

Windows 1.0 screenshot

In Office 2007, Microsoft decided to remove it. I have no issue with changing something like the File/Edit menu structure, IF they found a better paradigm or mechanism to replace it with. But the reality is that they’ve simply replaced the File Menu with the “Throbbing Orb”, or should I say the “Microsoft Office Button“.

I refer to it as throbbing, or perhaps pulsating may be a more appropriate adjective, because when I first launched Word 2007, that button was pulsating. I actually ignored it for several minutes, looking for the “File” menu. I wanted to open a document. How difficult should that be? I clicked on all the headers of the Ribbon — Home, Insert, Page Layout etc. — but couldn’t find the thing I needed most — File->Open.

Now I’ve been using software for a very long time. The first Word Processor I ever used was on a Wang 2200 computer. I’ve used WordStar (on CP/M and DOS), Multimate (I’m embarrassed to admit), Wordperfect on DOS (and unfortunately also on Windows — what a horrible product that was), as well as many versions of Word. So, when I sat there dumbfounded unable to find the equivalent of File->Open, I asked one of my coworkers for help. He came over and said, “Click that thing”, pointing at the Office button in the top left of the screen. This is what happens in Word when you click that button:

I immediately thought “What the *&@#?” Why would they do that?

It actually makes no sense to me to design something like this. Why not simply create a File title as part of the Ribbon and put the icons for all these things there? I have to guess there was some internal push by the marketing team to create the Office button for some sort of branding purposes, or perhaps there is some particular IP issue being addressed.

I don’t know, but I really wonder who made such a design decision and why? It’s completely inconsistent with the rest of the interface, confusing for new users, and yet so deliberate in it’s implementation that I’m sure there must have been heavy debates in the Office UI team when deciding to implement it.

There is evidence in the Word (and other Office tools) GUI that the toolbar/no toolbar debate happened within the UI team. After using the Office button, I noticed the little toolbar right at the top of Window with several of the “old” icons such as Save, Undo, Redo etc. Seems like a clear “hack” to appease the more traditionalist camp that insisted on toolbars, or perhaps a clear realization that users needed an easy way to perform basic tasks. I think the folks at Microsoft should remember one of the key axioms of Product Management:

Change is a process, not an event.

Anyone have any insights into the Office 2007 design process at Microsoft ? If so, please share.

Saeed

P.S. Apparently there is enough of a market opportunity for the “old” Office interface, that a 3rd party company has created a product to give that to users.

Honey, I bought the Phone. Confessions from the Cambridge Apple Store.

I have a perfectly good Blackberry 8200 series, but I’ve been waiting for a chance to hit the Apple store to check out the iPhone. If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you know that we’ve been paying attention to this product launch.

Finally, a trip to Boston, over a month after the release, and here I am. In fact I’m writing to you from the Apple store in Cambridge right now. It just so happens that today is a big day for Apple; they are right now announcing a new iMac design, upgrades to iWeb, a rewrite of iMovie, upgrades to iPhoto, and several other announcements. The announcement is still under way, so the staff here is still sworn to secrecy, but I’ve been getting SMS updates on my iPhone from macrumors since the announcement stared about 75 minutes ago.

Yes, I bought an iPhone. I can only say this: the thing is truly sweet, a masterpiece of design in every way. Some people have made sensible comments, such as “It’s only a phone”, and I did actually struggle with why I had the compulsion to buy it. I decided this morning on my way over to the store that I would try the phone out and just see whether I *had* to have one. It didn’t take me long. When I picked it up, saw the slick unlock button, my reserve cracked immediately.

Now after a couple of hours of playing with it (I admit that I have been playing), I realize that while this is *just* a phone, it also somehow expresses something about my tastes in product design, ease of use, and just plain beauty.

Am I being overly romantic? Tell us what you think. You can leave your comment here, or send me an iChat … awarmstrong@mac.com

(Saeed, I think we know how your feel. )

Now, 12 more minutes until I find out whether they have the new iMacs in stock here.

Why I hate PowerPoint

I hate PowerPoint. I hate what it has done to modern meetings, and I hate the fact that it is expected that one will produce slides for each meeting. Am I being a little strong here? Maybe the verb should be lament. Yes, I lament the dominance of PowerPoint in today’s meetings.

Your next computer will be a big-ass table: Microsoft Surface, Mocked.

Saeed blogged about Surface. The trouble is, his post wasn’t hilarious. But check this one out!

Safari for Windows: Shock and Yawn

By now it is all over the web: Yesterday, Apple has released it’s web browser, Safari, for Windows. When I first heard the news by live feed to the keynote at WWDC, I must admit that I was non-plussed. I mean, didn’t the browser wars end 10 years ago? And if I want cross-platform, secure browsing, why not just use Firefox? Frankly I prefer Firefox on my Mac and rarely use Safari 2.0.

Change is a process, not an event…

As Ethan wrote, I have this line that I’ve been using for many years: Change is a process, not an event.

I don’t remember where I heard it first or what I liked about it, but I realized that it was a truism, an axiom, that should be remembered.

Microsoft Surface, and user needs beyond the interface

This past week, Microsoft unveiled Surface, which according to MS is “a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content“. The last time I recall Microsoft making such claims was in 1995 with the ill-fated Microsoft Bob. But enough on that topic.

There has already been a lot written on the web about Surface, but most of it is related to the technical aspects of Surface. First let me say that what I’ve seen of Surface on the web is interesting. I’m actually surprised the Microsoft came out with this and not Apple. Aside from the “coolness” of the interface, even the table top computer itself, looked very clean an uncluttered; a real hallmark of Apple.