Reality Check

re: Reality Check

Folletto Malefico — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:13:39 GMT

I've seen that article linked on Digg and commented how much it was biased, linking the original source - you.

I've also mailed to the Australian source, in order to suggest an errata corrige.

I think that this sums up with:
(1) Check the source
(2) Link the source

These two points will have reduced the issue a lot... but still, even journalists at this time doesn't do these simple but still crucial steps.

As you said, everything started here, but here the details were correct. It's also nice to note that many bloggers picked this "news" correctly and on the other side many so-called journalists got it wrong.

From my perspective, this blog has been crucial in the correction, since many people out there already got the news from a *right* source - this blog. So, hooray to blogs. ;)

I was expecting this post from you, and you did it. This is another hint on how much you - and the Office team - is sensible to the user feedback.

Thank you, again.

re: Reality Check

cpg — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:31:07 GMT

I've been following this blog for a few months and am using the beta. Just wanted you to know that I love it.

Also, I check slashdot everyday and when I saw something along the lines of "Microsoft confuses users and will drop ribbon," I was totally bummed...

I'm glad that it was just the telephone game.

re: Reality Check

Charlie Williams — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 17:56:33 GMT

So what you're saying is that the Ribbon is being replaced by some kind of crazy-big tooltip?

re: Reality Check

Dan Dautrich — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:08:47 GMT

I remember reading some of those articles last week and while I was reading, I remember thinking, "No, that's absolutely wrong." And, "Where did they get this absurd information?" It's been great being a beta tester of Office 12, and combined with your blog, it's almost like being 'on the inside' of the development. I firmly believe that this will be the best version of Office ever because of the large amount of user-feedback during development to get things right for the masses the first time. Without such a large-scale beta program, these features like the persistent minimization may not have made it into the final build, and the ribbon may well have been buried alongside the Office Assistants.

La verit

Lorenzo Barbieri @ UGIblogs! — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:09:33 GMT

re: Reality Check

Anonymous Coward — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:00:02 GMT

People are morons. They plagiarize each other left and right, and can't even do that right.

The scary thing is that people are also gullible. It's frightening how many people believe everything they see on the TV news and read on cnn.com. Put "an official source at [Microsoft, or wherever] says" spin on it, and it must be true!

Whatever happened to checking facts before publication?

re: Reality Check

Abigail — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:17:04 GMT

Way to clear up the brouhaha!

re: Reality Check

Kermit — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:34:25 GMT

You're being kinder to the press than I would've been.
When I got out of college, I went to work for Microsoft in the early 90's and worked there until 2002 when I retired.

I realized within my first month of working there, that 80% of what gets reported by the tech media is distorted, uninformed, and/or outright false. I had a laugh reading stories in the now-defunct MacWeek on a Mac project I was working on, that was entirely false, attributed to "sources within Microsoft". And that was before the web. Now, with the internet, the problem is 5 times worse. Many tech stories are not only inaccurate, but shallow, vague, and meandering.

Tech "journalism" (I use that word loosely) is in a very sad state of affairs, and has been for a long time now.

re: Reality Check

Maria taking pictures — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:35:52 GMT

Very funny, how people make assumptions and believe them to be facts. The misinterpretation of facts seems to be very common in our modern information overloaded enviroment. Famous writers were often upset by this.

Thank you for sharing this story with me !

How the "ribbon is dead" myth was born and died

Office Rocker! — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:39:04 GMT

Jensen finally puts this one to rest as he confirmed to me last week.&nbsp; It is interesting how these...

Don't Believe Anything You Heard At TechEd Australia

Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET - Windows Vista Edition — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:03:07 GMT

So there were two really big pieces of Microsoft news last week, that were talked about on practically...

re: Reality Check

Chris Greaves — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:18:50 GMT

Thanks for the latest automated "[Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog] - Comment :: Reality Check".

I'm tempted to say that *I* heard that MSoft was going to Tie A Yellow Ribbon ....

Something that has been bugging me about the ribbon, fodder for your grist mill should you choose, is making the Addin tab (or any other tab) the default.

I wrote that up yesterday at http://microsoftoffice2007.blogspot.com/ titled "Asking for a default ribbon"

re: Reality Check

Andre — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:29:21 GMT

Only someone who has never used Office 2007 would believe that Microsoft drops the Ribbon.

I'm using a 3rd party Ribbon control in my own app now and I never want to look back to the hundreds of grayed out menu items and toolbar buttons.

re: Reality Check

Jonne — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:37:21 GMT

@Charlie Williams
Yes Charlie, the Ribbon is being replaced by a gigantic tooltip, and Earth is being invaded by the Marsians.

re: Reality Check

A User — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:54:46 GMT

>> Honestly, I love that people are excited by Office 2007.

Don't let it go to your head. People also get very excited when fire, flood, or earthquake strike close to home. ; )

>> What we had considered to be a relatively minor, if nice, improvement to the way Ribbon minimization works turned into rampant speculation on the 'net ...

Don't take it personally. 80% of everything out there is execrable. Your blog is top tier. Anybody who editorializes on the 2007 UI without reading it is a fool.

re: Reality Check

Step — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:28:36 GMT

It seems all of us regular readers had the same response when we saw the reports last week: Where'd they get that? That's not right! Don't these people fact-check at all?!

Thanks again for keeping us updated, and improving the product. I'm really looking forward to the final release. It's a good idea on this one to have a response to the misinformation of last week. Hopefully a few more people will learn to check sources and double-check facts...

re: Reality Check

Glen C. — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:54:26 GMT

This may not be totally on topic, but I do have to say I love what your guys are doing with the interface. Beautiful and functional, well done. Hell, I'll pay for it just to support you and your team for making it awesome.

When I heard they were dropping the ribbon I was really sad, but of course all is well. Rock on.

Don't Believe Anything You Heard At TechEd Australia

External News — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:19:41 GMT

So there were two really big pieces of Microsoft news last week, that were talked about on practically

re: Reality Check

Andrew Eberhard — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:15:00 GMT

Man, I could have predicted this. In fact, in a way I did. It just so happens, however, that I thought it would be Microsoft (um, that is American Microsoft, I guess) who would announce the persistent collapsed ribbon as the "legacy" configuration for reluctant business customers.

Still, I'm sorry you had to deal with this Jensen. The viral nature of the media is, for what sad comfort it may provide, not limited to the web. I've referred people to your blog in the past and will continue to do so.

re: Reality Check

Jack — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:52:54 GMT

Thanks for clearing this up. I remember reading the ridiculous headline in Digg and thinking, "Jensen has blogged way too much about the Ribbon to have it simply drop from Office. There'll eventually be a clarification on the blog."

re: Reality Check

Borek — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:21:11 GMT

Hi Jensen, I'm glad you corrected this but I still think you're not completely honest.

When you say "We improved the minimize feature in the upcoming Beta 2 Technical Refresh by making the minimize state persistent" you try to convince us that this was only a small technical change and that you made thousands of them. In fact, this has a huge impact on usability. In beta 2, working with minimized ribbon is not really an option but what actually happened in B2TR is the return of the menu concept, except that we don't have grey vertical lists but colorful horizontal ribbons.

This _is_ a major change and I'm bit surprised that you try to confuse this fact.

re: Reality Check

Michael Gannotti — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:07:20 GMT

Thanks for setting the story straight. Just posted up a piece on my blog pointing back here.

re: Reality Check

Brett Chapman — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:33:58 GMT

I constatly feel embarassed for our Media here in Australia. It has long since stopped being about the News and being all about their opinion of the news.

Having whinged about them, let me just say that the Ribbon is to notch work. Everyone i have shown/demonstrated it to has loved the whole concept of it.

Not only that, this blog has really opened my eyes to all the consideration that goes into the smallest details. Fantastic!!

HYPE: Office 2007 ribbons disappearing? « Craig Bailey on Visual FoxPro

HYPE: Office 2007 ribbons disappearing? « Craig Bailey on Visual FoxPro — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:59:09 GMT

PingBack from http://craigbailey.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/hype-office-2007-ribbons-disappearing/

re: Reality Check

Folletto Malefico — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:06:45 GMT

@Borek: "This _is_ a major change and I'm bit surprised that you try to confuse this fact."

This *is* a big change from an usability point of view *and* from that specific feature point f view (from unusable to usable), but that's not the point of the correction.

The point here is that "Ribbon has been cutted off": clearly a *feature* allowing to use Ribbon in a minimized state is just a *small* improvement in the huge Ribbon redesign project.

Also, that feature was conceptually there since the first release, so it was a mere matter of "how" and not "what".

So, I feel strange when I see a comment that tells one of the developers that "you try to confuse this fact". ;)
Don't you think, now that you've read my comment, that the minimized changed behaviour IS a minor improvement.

“Big-company PR” versus “the blogosphere” « Philotica

“Big-company PR” versus “the blogosphere” « Philotica — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:55:04 GMT

PingBack from http://philotica.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/big-company-pr-versus-the-blogosphere/

re: Reality Check

Ave — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:48:12 GMT

Internet journalists or news-sites simply copy each other without double-checking. Once a rumor like this starts somewhere on a major site, soon, all those news-sites will bring this "news" like it's true. Kinda sad somewhere.

re: Reality Check

Borek — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:49:11 GMT

2 Folletto Malefico:

From a technical standpoint, this is really a minor tweak but on the other hand it will totally change the way I'll use Word. From my point of view, this "minor improvement" actually means a return of the traditional menu concept and honestly, I can't imagine more important usability change at this late stage of a product life cycle.

I don't agree with you that "that feature was conceptually there since the first release". It was there *technically* - but the main (and only, as it appears) purpose of Ctrl+F1 was to minimize ribbon when you don't need it or when the UI have to be scaled down (see http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/10/19/482631.aspx , which are the first articles about ribbon on this blog).

To be short, I really don't think, even after reading your comments, that the return of popping-up-menus concept is a minor change. It will completely change the way I'll use Office 2007.

P.S. My comments don't have much in common with the main point of this article. Sorry for that.

re: Reality Check

Lam — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:28:22 GMT

Your excellent blog makes me interested in the product - previously, particularly with Office 2002, 2003, I (and countless other people, I'm sure) would be thinking something like -- not again, yet another new version of Office with unknown new features - particularly as most see Office suites as something that has reached its zenith.

This is most certainly not the case with Office 2007 -- the new interface is stunning and the new features are easily accessible. Best of all, communicating this information makes people excited about the product, and having feedback acted on so quickly by the developers certainly make for much happier users -- rather than faced with a faceless "Microsoft", people can relate to the developers.

Thus, it is a bit of a shame that the mainstream press sometimes seem like they are out to 'catch out' Microsoft - especially with something that is clearly inaccurate - and could've been sorted out easily with a email to you or another developer.

We're Still Listening but beware of false whispers

The wonder that is the Microsoft Office system — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:54:42 GMT

Looks like the rumour mills have been in overdrive over the last few days. The most amusing that I have...

re: Reality Check

Sebhelyesfarku — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:48:01 GMT

Journalists are inbred morons.

re: Reality Check

Folletto Malefico — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:24:13 GMT

@ Borek:
Even just from an usability pov, it isn't a huge change since it's an *addition* (mainly for heavy shortcut users, or "powerusers", or small screen users).

Due to the fact it isn't a change for everyone but a feature you enable, the Ribbon is still as it was, so the usability is completely unchanged... until you enable that feature (to save on-screen space). So it isn't at all a return of popup menus: to make an example it's like saying that the inclusion of Terminal in OSX is a "return to Unix", or that "the usability of OSX is turned back to CLI".

A switchable, default off and non-must-to-do modality isn't at all a change in usability, it is instead a specific mode of use, usable if you *prefer* it. Exactly this one was the initial concept of hiding the Ribbon and so in this iteraion they got it working well: the idea was already there.

re: Reality Check

Keith Ryde — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:34:53 GMT

One problem that I haven't seen discussed anywhere is the behaviour of touchpad scrolling when using a laptop. On my laptop touchpad scrolling does not work when the message, blog post etc is opened in Outlook 2007. It works fine in the reading pane (or in IE7) but stops working if I open the message, post in a new window in Outlook.
Probably just a quirk with my old dell laptop, but annoying just the same

re: Reality Check

A User — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:01:30 GMT

One reason this little tweak provoked such an absurd overreaction is that the ribbon is so big, prominent, loud, and in-your-face that some people just can't see past it. To someone who sees it as the only new feature in this version, the ability to turn it off is equivalent to rolling back to a prior version altogether.

When we are all done laughing at these idiots, there is something to be learned from them: This little episode is a case in point demonstrating that in fact the new UI is DISTRACTING.

re: Reality Check

Folletto Malefico — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 05:37:24 GMT

@ A User: "This little episode is a case in point demonstrating that in fact the new UI is DISTRACTING."

Pardon? Apart from the fact that the case isn't related with this statement... why? Less buttons, more clearly positioned features and good discoverability... distracting?

Please argument... without any more explanation it just seems a "flame" line. ;)

re: Fantasy Check

A User — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 04:32:08 GMT

Folletto – Pardon? Perhaps you have not been following this blog long enough to recognize this as a brief note in a longer conversation. In this conversation I have made both critical and laudatory comments, and have offered suggestions which may even have been taken by some to be constructive.

There has been a running discussion of this characteristic of the UI. My observation here may have been overly abstract (which I am frequently guilty of) in overloading two notions of "distraction" from the context of the discussion. So, without intending to be argumentative, I offer here some clarification:

– Visually Distracting – Let me add a little to the discussion of visual distraction by noting a remarkably powerful feature of the human vision system: it integrates two distinct channels that are virtually (not really) Fourier transforms of each other. One has high resolution in the frequency domain, and the other has high resolution in the spatial domain. As a consequence of how the former color vision works, six or eight different shades of blue background in the “blue theme” fight for attention. As a consequence of how the latter detail vision works, juxtaposition of black-on-white with white-on-black in the “black theme” confuses the eye. This is only one source of distraction in the UI. While the “silver theme” offers a compromise by refraining from hammering one channel or the other, it still uses a lot of gradations that do not signify much. Whether this is a good compromise is a matter of opinion and preference.

I think the real compromise is between the understandable desire of the designer to “make it pop” and the preference of some users that it “stay in the background” because of the signal-to-noise problem. The information in a signal is found in “the difference that makes a difference.” The eye is drawn to search for information in visually prominent features even after the mind has decided they have little information content, and is trying to focus on the work at hand elsewhere.

– Conceptually Distracting – An inevitable challenge with anything new is that the newness itself captures attention, which can distract from what is actually going on. (This effect can be exploited by marketing initiatives that emphasize newness when nothing is actually going on, as with the new improved box of detergent that is just the old detergent in a new box.) It is also inevitable that when something new requires a bit of relearning, as when affordances are rearranged, regrouped, and relabeled, it introduces some distracting confusion. Of course, these are transitory effects. The distraction fades as one gains familiarity, except for those who never get it.

I can imagine some simple minded “journalists” may have been so fixated on the newness of it all that the merest hint, that in some respects it might work more or less like it used to, led them to conclude it has all been undone. (I will not elaborate on reporters who become distracted by events, or by prejudices, from the concept of responsible reporting.)

– In Conclusion – My comment yesterday, and above, suggesting that the distracting visual characteristics of the UI can exacerbate conceptual distraction, was not intended as a literal description of, or conjecture about, the thought processes of the guilty parties. I imagine rumor mongers will continue to do their thing in any event, although I do consider such persons to be literally distracted, as well as distracting. Rather, I intended a cautionary illustration of how “merely” aesthetic considerations can have objective consequences. This is the “relation to the case” that you are looking for - an obliquely allegorical one.

Where my comments have often used peculiar, sometimes clumsy, rhetorical devices, I understand it can be, well, distracting. But I honestly do not think it detracts from the fine quality of the discussion on this excellent blog.

re: Reality Check

Francis — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 20:21:23 GMT

A User: Some would argue that inverting the user interface relative to the document window actually draws attention to the latter. When the page is beamingly white, the black UI recedes into the background. Think of a crow that spots a shred of tin foil on asphalt, or a nightime driver seeing oncoming headlights.

re: Reality Check

A User — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 03:14:18 GMT

Jensen - We are getting off topic here. Please speak up if it bothers you.

Francis - What you say is true. Hence a matte black frame on a monitor or TV works well. But there is another layer. Consider the crow reading black lettering on that bit of tinfoil in an expanse of asphalt. Or, somewhat extreme but closer to ordinary experience, consider those headlights on a black car against a bright horizon.

My issue has more to do with the situation when the ribbon is displayed, where there are two aspects I find troublesome. The most conspicuous is big whitish blobs within the black frame, which compete with the document area for attention and do not allow the frame to recede into the background. The other is more subtle: Reading white text on a black background is made slightly less efficient by close proximity to a large white blob. (This is mostly related to the headlight example, but I think it is partly due to low level texture detection being impaired so it can not contribute to letter and word recognition. I could be wrong.)

The “classic” UI made it easy enough to spot controls and recognize groupings while using only one background color for all the menus, toolbars, window frames, etc. The new UI uses visually prominent effects to call attention to various groupings and features. It is all this calling for attention that I find noisy and distracting.

In the spectrum between distinctive enough to readily convey information, and striking enough to demand attention, it is a matter of degree, but I think the new UI goes too far. I do not think it can be justified in terms of discoverability, because I never met anyone who failed to locate the classic menu on the screen.

I do recognize, however, that some people actually prefer to work in a noisy environment. The psychology of this is a mystery to me, but may have something to do with greater exertion when focusing attention having the effect of deepening concentration. I find quite the opposite.

re: Reality Check

ehealthewealth — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 03:13:00 GMT

What R U folks, nuts?! Plus I went to download again this Office 2007, I'd tried twice before couple weeks back to no avail. Now there's a small two pence ha' penny charge!

Come now folks, come come, Yahoo done put us to the grumble but Jesus H, R U nuts now?

re: Reality Check

Peter Menadue — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:18:36 GMT

Jensen,

This is the best blog around Office 2007 - well done and keep up the good work!

Peter

re: Reality Check

Folletto Malefico — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 18:44:24 GMT

@ A User: I'm following this blog since a long time ago, but I don't follow as deeply the comments here ;)
I noticed a post a bit "harsh" and I noted it: the explanation made it now a good point to discuss. :)

Now that I understand how it is "distracting" for you, I think that the *most* part in this game is played by its new-ness. It is new, so it makes us talking. The paper under that part is always the same since the invention of the paper... so isn't something we speak about.

I might add that even if I think about themes and layout as two entities, I see that they are of course related in the final product. I'm saying this because even if Ribbon is really "colourful" and, maybe, distracting, I also notice that the plethora of icons of the "classic" UI made this *less* distracting.

Or, better: Ribbon is better in so many aspects that gaining a point in "distracting" is, in the end, a really margina issue that is handled, by another pov, right by the feature discussed in this blog post.

I might add: nice discussion. ;)

The Resurrection of the Ribbon at blog.mcbyte.dk

The Resurrection of the Ribbon at blog.mcbyte.dk — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:11:14 GMT

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How the "ribbon is dead" myth was born and died

Office Rocker! — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 13:26:52 GMT

Jensen finally puts this one to rest as he confirmed to me last week. It is interesting how these things

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Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog : Reality Check

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It was with a bit of surprise that I read a flurry of stories on Friday with breathless headlines like "Microsoft backs off the Ribbon in Office 2007!" and "Microsoft Cuts Office 2007 Ribbon!" Part of working at a company like Microsoft

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