Q&A: Microsoft Showcases New User Interface for Office “12” Core Applications

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/sep05/09-13OfficeUI.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/...13OfficeUI.mspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Thousands of software developers at the sold-out Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005 today got a preview of a new, redesigned user interface (UI) that will debut in several core applications of the next version of Microsoft Office, code-named Office “12.” While the Office applications have increased tremendously in power and added functionality in response to customer needs, the core UI has remained substantially unchanged for nearly 20 years. The command bar in Microsoft Office Word 2003, for example, looks much the same as the command bar in Word 2.0 did in 1998. In fact, the new UI is the biggest, most visible change to the way the core Office applications work since the introduction of the toolbar in 1997. To learn more about the new UI, how it will make it easier for information workers to do great work, and why Microsoft decided to implement the transformation, PressPass spoke with Julie Larson-Green, group program manager for the Office User Experience at Microsoft."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/Office12-PPT.jpg" /><br /><br />I thought this Q&amp;A made for a very interesting read, because this is the first time I've seen the Office team take any real risks - and I applaud them for it! Microsoft needs to move forward to create applications that are easier to use and make more sense to end users, and re-thinking their approach to the user interface is a critical part of that process.

[OSUKid7]

First impression: I hate it.
Second impression: It has promise.
Third impression: I'm almost liking it.

The screenshots don't give justice to everything the new interface can do. You should watch the Julie Larson-Green - Diving into the new Office 12 (http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=114720) video on Channel 9 to get a better idea how the new interface works. I'm really starting to like it, although I'm still afraid most users will be overly confused when they upgrade to Office 12.

[Jason Dunn]

First impression: I hate it.
Second impression: It has promise.
Third impression: I'm almost liking it.

Most of the legacy UI designs we're working with today have forced us to adapt to the way computers work. That's what we're used to, that's what we're comfortable with. The next decade or two of UI design is going to be about making the UI more natural, more intuitive. That will create changes that will be hard to handle at first, but ultimately more natural. That video interview is quite interesting, I'm watching it now...

[Jason Dunn]

Aha, in the video you can see that they're optimising for high resolution displays with bigger icons and fonts that are more reasonable in size for high DPI displays. Very cool!

[jhennig]

GEORGIOUS! I can't wait for it to come out.

Anyone got a good source for Vista Screenshots?

[OSUKid7]

Anyone got a good source for Vista Screenshots?
Neowin.net (http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=30383&amp;category=main) had some from earlier today, and you may also want to watch the PDC '05 Keynote (http://metahost.savvislive.com/microsoft/20050913/pdc_20050913_300.asx) to see demos of Vista, Office 12, and a bunch of other stuff. :)

[Mike Temporale]

I watched a large chunk of the PDC keynote, and I have to say that I was very impressed with what they are doing with Office 12 and Vista. There is a lot of really cool things coming down the pipe from Microsoft on this. For the first time in a long time, I'm really excited by the future of Office. :mrgreen:

[Gremmie]

I'd like to see Powerpoint to become comperable to Keynote 2.

[BrandonMiniman]

Wow -- the ribbon system is an excellent idea, especially with higher resolution screens where a line of icons wouldn't take up much screen space. I like how it visually gives you a laundry list of commands that can be initiated.

They seem to be going overboard with the "glassy" effect on everything...it's very...Tiger.

[Jason Dunn]

I'd like to see Powerpoint to become comperable to Keynote 2.

What kind of stuff does Keynote 2 do? I've never used it.

[Gremmie]

While giving presentations, the projector will display the slide while the computer will display the current slide, the next slide, and the current time. Very helpful for professional presentations. Also has nice 3D slide transitions.

[JonnoB]

While giving presentations, the projector will display the slide while the computer will display the current slide, the next slide, and the current time. Very helpful for professional presentations. Also has nice 3D slide transitions.
With a notebook and multiple view, Powerpoint does that for me now (2003) with speakernotes, etc.

[tthiel]

Taking risks? Hardly. Microsoft is copying Apple...again. Shameless.

[biglouis]

The implications for a change of this sort is huge. How far have Microsoft consulted their user base?

For 'geeks' this may a 'kewl' way of justifying their jobs and creating something fun. For the rest of us in the real world as users, educators or support staff it imposes changes that we haven't asked for, don't need and don't want.

What exactly was so wrong with an interface which has 20+ years of market acceptance?

Imho, this will only drive more customers to question the need for MS versus open source products.

LouisB

[aerin44]

I am reasonably certain they will include an option to use it in "legacy" format. There are too many people that would not want to learn to use the new one.

[andykemp]

PressPass: Can I upgrade to Office “12” but keep the old UI’s look and feel?

Larson-Green: No, we don’t have a “classic mode.” We surveyed customers to find out what would help people transition, and they told us they really wanted us to help them move forward, rather than doing any kind of classic mode. In addition to redesigning the UI, we’ve added a lot more functionality in Office “12.” Faced with the same challenge of making all this new functionality available in the old UI, we couldn’t keep the old command-oriented model and make it easier for users to find new features, so we decided to make a bolder move.

It would seem there will not be a legacy mode... :cry:

Which will just mean that my school wait ages before updating, because non of us want to have to reteach students how to use Word!?!

[mr_Ray]

The implications for a change of this sort is huge. How far have Microsoft consulted their user base?

For 'geeks' this may a 'kewl' way of justifying their jobs and creating something fun. For the rest of us in the real world as users, educators or support staff it imposes changes that we haven't asked for, don't need and don't want.

What exactly was so wrong with an interface which has 20+ years of market acceptance?

Imho, this will only drive more customers to question the need for MS versus open source products.

LouisB
For you and me? There was nothing too wrong with that old interface - because we've been used to it for many many years. However, the very significant majority of computer users - and people who aren't yet users because they just don't understand them - just don't get it. They don't and never will adjust to how computers currently work. If we want to really bring technology to the masses in a meaningful way, we have to do it in a way that is much more logical and discoverable. The current paradigm (oh how I hate that word, but it fits here) just isn't that.

A tasks based interface will hopefully help bring the power of Office, and everything else, to people who need it. With a relatively clean slate design the PocketPC OS, MS put things like "contacts", "tasks", "mail" in there instead of "Pocket Outlook". Why? Well.. "what's an outlook thingamybob and what do I want one for? I wish this thing could manage my contacts list...". That's just one aspect, and the new interfaces coming along seem to be another. Show people what they can do in a logical and coordinated manner instead of hidden in toolbars and menus with funny names.

I for one am looking forward to it.

[Jonathan1]

I foresee this bombing in a big way. There is NO way in hell most larger or even medium sized companies are going to want to retrain their user base. Training = Time = Money. Unless there is some massive benefit, which IMHO there isn’t, most companies will upgrade to Office 2003 and stay there.

Now if there was a classic mode. Maybe. Our company is finally moving to XP and downgrading the UI to 2000 mode so users have the same experience they had before. No training = drop it in place and away you go. I think this was a VERY bad decision on MS’s part. This is going to bite them in the butt big time.

[PetiteFlower]

Large companies are always slow to upgrade anyway, just because of the number of machines and the need to test with their company-specific software and the need to retrain and possibly the cost of licenses too. Most of the big companies I've worked for have been at least 2 years behind the current versions of stuff like Windows and Office. When the time comes to do the upgrade though, they'll schedule a training class and it won't be a big deal. Eventually everyone will upgrade because of support reasons and by the time they do, enough employees will have upgraded their home computers and gotten the newer versions that it won't be such a shock for them.

[martin_ayton]

I really don't get this sort of reaction. Change is not always good, but no change is almost always bad. If any software manufacturer limits itself to changes that are, at most, mildly evolutionary it is dead. Period.

And anyway, Word in it's current form sucks. It sucks mostly because the current UI is un-intuitive and makes it very difficult to do stuff. It is this way because it has evolved slowly into an unwieldy beast with nobody taking a fundamental look at what it is supposed to do. Any changes to the UI are likely to be for the better.

And the training thing is also spurious: Most companies have a turnover of employees and they have to train the new ones anyway. Why train new employees to do things the old way if there is a better way out there. Heck, support two systems if you have to in the short term, but if there is a new system which is more efficient then failing to implement it because of the training load is a sure-fire way to let the competition walk all over you.

Just my £0.02 worth 8)

[Muntasser]

i for one am finally excited about an office product, since Office 97 - and oh what a long time ago that was.

[Perry Reed]

Taking risks? Hardly. Microsoft is copying Apple...again. Shameless.

How is Microsoft copying Apple? Apple has nothing remotely like this. Other than pretty icons, there is simply no comparison. For the most part, Apple UI still depends on a menu at the top of the screen. They're not big on toolbars and they're certainly not big on context-sensitive menus that Microsoft has had for a long time.

This sort of task-based interface is something that Microsoft has been driving for a long time now and Apple simply has not.

Personally, I like it a lot. New users will find it much easier to get up to speed with Office applications and I expect that existing users, who already know the tasks they want to perform, will find the new mechanism for finding and performing them to be pretty intuitive.

[thanos255]

Taking risks? Hardly. Microsoft is copying Apple...again. Shameless.

Gosh can we not get into this microsoft/apple thing. It is an old and useless argument that neither side wins. I don't think apple is doing badly now...so kind of useless to discuss anyway.

Are you still upset about Gore losing in Florida also? :roll:

[Ed Hansberry]

I am reasonably certain they will include an option to use it in "legacy" format. There are too many people that would not want to learn to use the new one.
{raises hand} Me.. me! MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMe!

[jhennig]

Evolution is a good thing... or would you rather be using DOS still? :mrgreen:

[zybler]

Looks bad for poor little guys who's still 1024x768 resolution (or worse!). Those huge icons take up too much space.

Personally, I don't like it either. I'm a power user and usually what I do is I minimized the toolbar and menu space and maximized my content space as I want to see more of the documents. Since I can get access to all the features I need very quickly (using menus or keyboard shortcuts) so it doesn't bother me all that much. I don't think the new design will benefits power user or geeks like us all that much.

Just my 2 cents. :wink:

[Perry Reed]

Looks bad for poor little guys who's still 1024x768 resolution (or worse!). Those huge icons take up too much space.

Personally, I don't like it either. I'm a power user and usually what I do is I minimized the toolbar and menu space and maximized my content space as I want to see more of the documents. Since I can get access to all the features I need very quickly (using menus or keyboard shortcuts) so it doesn't bother me all that much. I don't think the new design will benefits power user or geeks like us all that much.

Just my 2 cents. :wink:

Actually, if you watch the video you'll see that you can indeed shut off the ribbon and maximize the workspace and the keyboard shortcuts are actually even better now in Office 12 than they were before (although you can still use the ones you know now, exactly as you do now).

[d-roC]

Seems like MS has been listening to all the UI comlpaints over the years. Especially in Office, the UI is horrible. And yes, for users who just want to type a doc and print it, the UI is fine. But if you told them they could shoot off 'x' resumes right from Word, and then proceeded to go thru the menus to show them, they would be happy, then run quickly the other direction.

Change is good in this case. The UI looks simple, but good enough. I think it could be even better, but hey, I dont get paid to do UI for Office, but to do websites with a good UI that are used in an office.

Other comment:
I personally wont be updating to O12. I am going open source with all docs and due to my techie influencing nature, I'll be taking other folks with me. Now, if the OO.org folks can do a better UI than O12 (think PalmOS simple, with Outlook03 funcationality, and Keynote pretty) then I'll be even happier. Until then, I'll deal with it, and continue to change what I can (withuot skinning) and respond to the surveys MS and others ask.