Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog

Yesterday, a few of us spent the day until almost 10pm locked in a conference room meticulously reviewing all the tabs in the Ribbon. We've done these all-day marathon sessions a few times during the product cycle, and I find them to be extremely draining...

Today's Guest Writer: Savraj Dhanjal Savraj is a Program Manager on the Office User Experience team focused on user interface extensibility for Office developers. Today we're going to take a break from control types to highlight one of the more...

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak at the April Vancouver User Experience (VanUE) meeting. The venue at a theater in the Vancouver Film School was quite nice--unfortunately there weren't quite enough seats to go around and some people had...

There are many ways we collect feedback about the new UI. I've detailed some of the ongoing usability activities in a previous article . We have so many outlets for feedback: customer visits, instrumentation data, the beta program, this blog, usability...

One of the most discussed aspects of the new Office 2007 UI has been: "Does it take up too much room?" It isn't a straightforward question to answer, above all because to answer it requires a subjective opinion. What seems just right to one person...

On Wednesday , I mentioned that as part of the keyboard work we've done for Beta 2, controls on the customizable Quick Access Toolbar are auto-assigned KeyTips. For example, the first item in the QAT can be accessed by typing ALT+1, the second item...

Today's Guest Writer: Savraj Dhanjal Savraj is a Program Manager on the Office User Experience team focused on user interface extensibility for Office developers. Hey everyone! Another week, another batch of RibbonX controls and attributes. You can...

I mentioned in mid-March that we had been putting a lot of thought and effort into improving the Office 2007 keyboard access model for Beta 2. Getting keyboarding for the new UI model right is a necessity--not only for accessibility but also for efficiency...

This is the eighth part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Over the last two posts, I've discussed the Customer Experience Improvement Program and some...

Tomorrow I'll be reposting the last of Why the UI: Special Edition and on Wednesday I'll be back with original content. Sorry for those of you who have read the series before--my other option was to go dark for a couple of weeks and I thought this was...

This is the seventh part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Last time I issued a challenge: for readers to pick the most-used command in Microsoft Word...

Today's Guest Writer: Savraj Dhanjal Savraj is a Program Manager on the Office User Experience team focused on user interface extensibility for Office developers. This week, we'll look at the different types of buttons you can create with RibbonX...

This is the sixth part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Microsoft is tracking your every move! Soon after you install Office 2003 on your computer...

This is the fifth part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Over the last few articles, we've taken a trip through Ye Olde Museum of Office Past , looking...

This is the fourth part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Last time I discussed the UI mechanisms added to Office 2000 intended to reduce the perception...

This is the third part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Last time we started a walk down memory lane by taking a look at the first five major versions...

Today's Guest Writer: Savraj Dhanjal Savraj is a Program Manager on the Office User Experience team focused on user interface extensibility for Office developers. One of the key design features of RibbonX is the "pull" model, a model where Office...

This is the second part in my eight-part series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Today, I want to take you on a journey. A journey that starts back into the cold recesses of...

This is the first in a series of entries in which I outline some of the reasons we decided to pursue a new user interface for Office 2007. Any discussion about the graphical user interface of computers today has to start all the way back at the Xerox...

It has been said that nothing is as boring as blogging about blogging. Which makes this article among the most boring I've ever written. Even just typing "boring" three times made me yawn. ( Are yawns contagious? ) Anyway, when people start blogs...

This morning, new information was published on the Office 2007 Preview web site , including a new video of the UI in action and updated links to sign up to receive information about Beta 2. The build used in the video is a little old (it was shot in...

Today's Guest Writer: Brad Weed Brad Weed is the Product Design Manager of the Office Design Group. For many of the UI changes we've previewed this month, March really has come in like a lion. And as you watch your favorite team get eliminated in...

Today's Guest Writer: Savraj Dhanjal Savraj is a Program Manager on the Office User Experience team focused on user interface extensibility for Office developers. For Office 2007, we built the UI extensibility model around a simple idea: If your...

A long-open issue in the designs of the Ribbon content for the Office 2007 programs has been what to name the first tab of the programs. In Beta 1, Word's first tab is called "Write," Excel's first tab is called "Sheet," and PowerPoint's first tab is...

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but after six months of relatively civil discourse, a few people have decided to flood the blog with obscene and otherwise off-topic comments. I had to remove over sixty comments just yesterday. Although I reserve...