Interesting article at ComputerWorld: Open-source users revolt over OpenOffice.org's ribbon-esque UI talks about the implementation of the Ribbon UI in Open Office. There seems to be outrage by some in the Open Office community about using the ribbon design, however there are vocal supporters of the UI as well. According to the article the team has been working on the UI for about 9 months – so at least that long ago there would have had to have been some decision making criteria to move in this direction. I'm assuming the choice was made in the best interest of the users' experiences based on some research – of course; this is a guess since I have no visibility to their process.