What's your feeling about the Ribbon and why?

[dogberry]

If you took a poll, what would the most popular desktop gadget be? Probably an analog clock. Different minds work in different ways, so it’s no surprise that some love the ribbon and others hate it. It’s been a while since I saw anyone with a digital wristwatch, but we’re just about all stuck with digital when it comes to clock radios. I like the ribbon.

I think one problem with the ribbon is that it is not independently scalable, which means that it is intrusive on some screen displays and much less so on others, and you can only change the size of it by messing with your carefully-selected screen settings, which then ruins your display. If memory serves me well, it was the same Ted who started a thread (rhyme accidental) about not being able to read his screen display. I think the aspect ratio of the screen has a lot to do with the ribbon being a visual sore thumb when it is one, and I would like to see them provide a means of adjusting the size of it.

[Medico]

It must have been someone else who started the other poll. (I do not remember doing it) My laptop has an almost 17 inch screen with 1600x900 resolution, so works fine for office products. My desktop is even bigger with a 19 inch screen. I have plenty of room for the ribbon. It is possible some of the people who don't like the ribbon don't because of it's size alone, but by putting their most commonly used commands on the QL bar and minimizing the ribbon, it really takes up no more space than the old menu. Several people have stated their keyboard shortcuts still work so with keyboard shortcuts and a customized QL bar I would think many power users could find most of what they commonly use fairly easily.

[dogberry]

Sorry about the wrong attribution Ted. It wasn't actually a poll (that was a hypothetical example to suggest that a lot of people are more comfortable with a clock face than with a digital time display, just as some are more comfortable with the ribbon than the menu system), but there was a thread (unrelated to the ribbon, I think) started by someone with poor eyesight who was having difficulty in reading on-screen text.

[Medico]

I seem to remember that as well, although my eyesight seems ffine. I need reading glasses, but no glasses for distance.

[petesmst]

I am getting used to it and as this happens I, of course, find less wrong with it! However, I must admit I have installed the Ubit Menu and use it as a fall-back when I am in a rush and don't have time to search for a particular feature using the ribbon. Being a bit of a power user, I have built up a sizeable memory of shortcut keys that makes my work considerably easier and this results in bypassing the ribbon (and Ubit Menu) much of the time.

[jsachs177]

hrdubwd said most of what I wanted to say, so I'll just add "ditto"!

Now, apart from that: in this topic I read the first rationale for the Ribbon that I've ever seen. Microsoft adopted it because so many of the new-feature requests they received were for features that were already there.

How interesting. I thought their reason must be something wrong-headed but logical, like "We ran comparative tests and found that Ribbon users were 7% faster than menu users with 3% fewer errors. Never in my most cynical fantasies did I imagine something like this.

Menus are not constantly on display (I would say "constantly in my way"), but they are easily browsed and reasonably comprehensible. Ribbon displays are not. Until the user becomes familiar with the application, they resemble a child's toybox: countless oddly shaped and colored objects thrown together in no apparent order. Most of the icons disclose little or nothing about what they do.

When the user does become familiar with the application, she does so largely by learning by rote where the icons she needs are located. The ones she doesn't use are like background noise: irrelevant when she can ignore them, distracting when she can't.

Some users will eventually learn what some of the unfamiliar icons do -- by clicking them accidentally, for example. Some of the icons these users learn about will prove to be useful. This is not an effective way to learn what features a program has, any more than equipping a hundred moneys with copies of Word is a good way to produce the works of Shakespeare.

Given the problem of users who don't know that the feature they want is already available, the solution of displaying several collections of cryptic icons in complex and variable two-dimensional arrangements is farcically superficial.

I'd be very interested to hear how many requests for existing features Microsoft gets now. l'd be surprised if they have declined much, if at all.

[JoeP517]

I'd be very interested to hear how many requests for existing features Microsoft gets now. l'd be surprised if they have declined much, if at all.

Given the amount of telemetry, feedback, and requests that Microsoft has I dobut very seriously that the Ribbon would be extended beyond Office in the way it has if the results were as skewed as it appears you believe.

Joe

[jsachs177]

Joe, your faith that a positive feedback loop is functioning somewhere in Redmond is touching, but I don't share it.

If all of that feedback and all of those usability studies were producing positive results, the Ribbon would never have made it out the door in the first place, at least not in anything like its present form. I've stated some of the reasons why the Ribbon is a usability disaster. The fact that Microsoft expended tremendous amounts of resources producing the disaster does nothing to assure me that they know what they're doing.

[rory]

Most basic users/beginners that I have spoken to find the Ribbon easier to use (I don't understand it myself, but there you are). Given that they make up most of the licences, it's not surprising that the ribbon is here and probably will be for the foreseeable future, though it will naturally evolve.Personally I think its first incarnation, like the rest of 2007, was rubbish, but 2010 made some good steps in the right direction. Fingers crossed for 15 which I can't comment on.

[RussB]

Most basic users/beginners that I have spoken to find the Ribbon easier to use (I don't understand it myself, but there you are). Given that they make up most of the licences, it's not surprising that the ribbon is here and probably will be for the foreseeable future, though it will naturally evolve.Personally I think its first incarnation, like the rest of 2007, was rubbish, but 2010 made some good steps in the right direction. Fingers crossed for 15 which I can't comment on.

This is no surprise. Think back to your earliest days with a computer and how you have progressed. There was the same reluctance and even "hate" between DOS & Windows, Word Perfect & Word, Lotus 123 & Excel, Unix & AS400 there are many more. We (humans) are creatures of habit.

[RetiredGeek]

Russ,

How right you are! Unfortunately, most of my habits are bad ones.

[joela44]

For me, as a Word/Excel user for 20+ years, I of course hated it at first. I spreat the QAT across with the most frequent commands and tried to ignore the ribbon. As i used it more and more I came to if not really like it, get used to it. Now I find myself un hiding the ribbon to use it. The saving grace for me is the same keyboard shortcuts still work the same way. I'm a BIG keyboard guy, and having those still work is the absolute best thing for me. As Ted has said, it is a good thing to learn new stuff, so I grudgingly went along and in short order was working as fast the "new" way as I did with the menu.

As an aside, the point made by Clint is also valid, I am sure many people had no idea all the features in Word and Excel even existed as they truly were buried deep in the menu system thus unknown to many.
Joel

[JoeP517]

Joe, your faith that a positive feedback loop is functioning somewhere in Redmond is touching, but I don't share it.

If all of that feedback and all of those usability studies were producing positive results, the Ribbon would never have made it out the door in the first place, at least not in anything like its present form. I've stated some of the reasons why the Ribbon is a usability disaster. The fact that Microsoft expended tremendous amounts of resources producing the disaster does nothing to assure me that they know what they're doing.

If menus were reasonably comprehensible then there would not have been the continuous new feature requests for functions that already existed. As a very seasoned but far from expert Office user I found the proliferation of menus confusing & functions very hard to find. When I tried to use a feature in any Office product that I had not used before or had not used in a while I would just give up quickly because the discoverablility was so bad.

I like the idea that the Ribbon changes based on what I'm doing. It gives me a much better chance of using the product in a productive way. Yes, I understand that those who "live in Office" or are just very experienced in one Office program probably don't like the Ribbon. Like many of Microsoft product decisions it will probably take another iteration (i.e the third) to make the Ribbon useful enough for the experienced Office user.

Microsoft decided that the menu metaphor was obfuscating features making Office harder to work with not exposing them making usage easier. Just to humor me, what would you have done given the circumstances at the time?

Joe

[Medico]

Joe, most of my points exactly. I knew nothing of many of these features simply because most were buried so far in the menus and that even if I had an inkling the feature existed, there was little hope of finding it. I suppose some would say a similar thing of the ribbon, but the tabs at least give me a hint where to look. And with 2010 I can customize to make things easier for me. I have placed many of the features I use on my favorites tab.

[TerFar]

It actually works well in Windows Explorer - mainly because WE has far fewer commands and comfortably fits across the screen.