Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
AIA

Office 2007 – great answer, wrong question? By Simon Hurst

by
31st Oct 2006
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Given the time spent in most organisations working with the main office software applications – particularly word processing and spreadsheets – it's important that such software helps users work as efficiently as possible. With the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft Office in this area, a new version of Office entails a heavy burden of responsibility.

The discussion as to whether Microsoft has got it right with Office 2007 is well underway. Whilst there are many important developments in the functionality and underlying structure of the Office suite, perhaps the most important change, and the change on which the success of Office 2007 is likely to be judged, is the new user interface. It seems to me that there are two fundamental issues with the radically revised Office 2007 interface. Firstly, does it do what it's meant to do? Secondly, is what it's meant to do what it should be meant to do?

Goodbye menus and toolbars, hallo ribbon

Microsoft has stated that the main aim of the new 'ribbon' based interface is to enable users to find the software capabilities they need to use more easily and more quickly. Apparently, this approach derived, at least partially, from an analysis of enhancement requests from users. This analysis showed that a significant proportion of the 'new' functionality requested was already available, but users had obviously failed to find it. Having spent some time working with the beta version of Office 2007 I think Microsoft has done a pretty good job in achieving their aim. The key element of the new interface is the replacement of menus and toolbars by a 'ribbon' that houses collections of 'tools'. The tools themselves make much more use of graphics and previews than the old toolbar buttons. Tools on the ribbon are grouped by type e.g. Insert, Page Layout and View. The ribbon based interface does generally make it a lot easier to find and use the tools that exist within each application. In addition, the more graphical approach of the new interface should help users make choices based on a preview of the result, rather than on a detailed understanding of a series of options within a relatively unfriendly dialog box.

Is less more efficient?

Office 2007 will make it easier for users to find a range of options that they didn't previously know existed, and thereby create "great-looking documents". In some ways this is a very dramatic change from the approach in the last few versions of Windows. Office 2000 introduced the concept of 'personalised menus and toolbars'. Rather than making options as visible as possible, personalised menus and toolbars were intended to gradually adapt to how a user worked by hiding little-used options. So, between Office 2000 and Office 2007 Microsoft has moved from trying to show as few options as possible to users, to an interface that seeks to make all options easily available. In fact, the change may be even more extreme than that – a key feature of previous versions of Office was the ability to customise toolbars and indeed menus. Whilst 'developers' will be able to customise the ribbon, it appears that 'normal' users will be limited to adding buttons to a single toolbar known as the 'Quick Access Toolbar'. Microsoft has defended this approach by pointing out that their research shows that very few users ever customised their toolbars in previous versions of Office.

It would seem that there are two different philosophies underlying the old and new approach. Either users are made more efficient by hiding options they don't normally use, or users need to be able to easily find and use all the functionality within an office application. Clearly, the second of the two philosophies dominates in Office 2007.

Tools for the task

Software is a tool that helps us complete a task or a range of tasks. A good tool should help us complete the task effectively and efficiently. Whilst the Office 2007 philosophy of exposing all functionality may occasionally help identify a previously unknown aspect of the software that helps complete a task, it might also lead to 'over-engineering' simple tasks and possibly reduce overall productivity.

So is it possible to create a user interface for Office software that helps users discover relevant functions, but at the same time helps them complete day-to-day tasks with optimum efficiency? Whilst the way Microsoft has used the ribbon in Office 2007 may not achieve this, the ribbon could be developed to create a much more task-oriented approach. Using Word 2007 as an example, the current ribbon does group some tools by task, for example there is a 'Mailings' ribbon that contains the tools necessary for producing mail merge documents. This concept could be taken much further to produce a set of 'task-based' ribbons that group the tools required to complete particular tasks. If done properly this could achieve some of the best elements of both possible approaches. It would reduce the number of tools displayed to those that are actually useful for a particular task, but also include relevant functions that users might not routinely take advantage of. A 'simple letter' ribbon could include tools to directly apply a limited number of styles, the 'shrink to fit' tool, name/address insert options, save, print and print preview buttons, undo and redo and maybe not much else. For more complicated documents, different styles – particularly the automatically numbered heading styles – could be included together with some of the paragraph formatting tools, watermarks, headers and footers etc. This approach could be particularly effective if it was made relatively easy to adapt the task ribbons to a user's particular requirements. This would help those responsible for IT within an organisation create an interface dedicated to helping users use the right tools for the range of tasks they regularly work on.

What should office software really do?

Do you think that the existing Microsoft Office interface ensures that users find the right tools to accomplish the tasks that they spend most of their time on? Will the Office 2007 ribbon make things better or worse? Are you already using different office software that you think is more effective? Will Open Office or one of the online solutions deliver a better solution? Does office software in general need a radical change in approach?

Answers on a postcard in 12.5 point Comic Sans MS with a wavy border, pale lime background and a graphic of an Adele Penguin…

Tags:

Replies (6)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By User deleted
03rd Nov 2006 12:14

We are here to serve you? (one of the three lies)
Simon Hurst and Ceri Jones are spot on - I've been using Office since it was first released - every time a new version appears I have to change my working practices to accomodate the fact that my preferred way of working is no longer available - this is time-wasting and frustrating - particularly when Microsoft's motto used to be along the lines of "we let you work the way you want to" - I used to love the (customisable) pop-up toolbar in Office 2000 making exactly the sort of task based toolbar Simon Hurst talks about.
Is a possible solution to have different approaches to a "Home" edition and the "Business" editions
Ever since larger memory has been available most of the increase is taken up by Microsoft's ever more demanding Office suite - why can't they leave the queries and knowledge of capabilities on their excellent Office Online site - not slow down and stuff my computer with little used resources. (you may have gathered I'm not a fan of Microsoft's policies - but I do use their programs - not a lot of choice!)

Thanks (0)
By EMichaelJakins
03rd Nov 2006 12:50

Tool Bars etc
The key questions about the new Ribbons / Toolbars etc is not so much what they look like but is two fold:-
1) Will those of us who have been building spreadsheets since the days when 123 was a teenager not have too much difficulty in adapting both our brains to the new way of working and more important using and probably updating existing worksheets?
Preferably can we just use old workbooks without any change on the basis "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
2) Many of the worksheets I prepare are for use by people who just have to "fill in the blanks" - I do not want them to have any but basic functionality, neither do they want it - can all this super new functionality be switched off?
Microsoft with all their new gismos seem not to realise that most of us use thier products to get a job done - not to produce works of art. Sorry no wavy lines round this reply!

Thanks (0)
avatar
By alistairms
02nd Nov 2006 15:53

Right Question - good answer
Hi,

The ribbon, the ease of using power features and the accessibility of them (like the greatly improved and much easier to use cross tab reporting) show a big improvement and indicates to me at least that they have asked the right questions and come up with a good answer.
The Quick Access Toolbar (QAT of course) is v. easy to use.

All in all a very good product - we'll see what the final final release is like, but full marks so far.

Thanks (0)
avatar
By bseddon
03rd Nov 2006 15:50

Sometimes it helps to see an expert use a tool
Like other commenters my initial reaction to Office 2007 has not been positive as I struggled even to find out how to access VBA. Some cosmetic enhancements, right? However I do have to check myself because I thought the same of the change of UI from Windows to Windows 95 and from Windows 95 to Windows XP. Maybe its innate that we don't like change and presume that it is bad. On the otherhand, as soon as I got comfortable with Windows 95, old Windows looked as awful as it really was so I wonder if I'm experiencing the same cold dread of change now and that, in fact, in a year from now I'll look back at earlier Office versions with a similar disdain.

So I found a video clip in which one of the more senior members of the Excel 12 team presents some of new features including ribbon based ones. In an experts hands (me next year) they look pretty good. Here's a link to the clip. It's long, it's pace is pretty slow and I'm sure like me you will wish the guy interviewing would shut up. I watched it in Windows Media Player and in the end I found it better to watch the interview at full fast-forward speed and slow down at an interesting point (like being able to create formulas in a new way).

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=177827

Bill Seddon

Thanks (0)
avatar
By cerij
02nd Nov 2006 12:56

Steep Learning Curve
Any organisation planning to deploy Office 2007 will need to prepare for the steep learning curve. Even experienced Office users will take a while to learn the new way of accessing features. Whilst I like the look and feel of the ribbon, I don't think it's always grouped in a logical way.

I also find myself reverting back to the "old style" dialogue boxes too often. The ribbon makes it easier to achieve simple tasks - but in doing so makes it slightly more difficult to achieve more complex tasks.

Thanks (0)
Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
07th Nov 2006 02:41

There's more
It's fascinating that so many readers are making suggestions but don't seem to know there's a heck of a lot resource around this topic. Bill pointed to some - here are 87 others: http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/MS+Office.

The maybe good news is that this will likely be the last major change for a while.

The bad news is that you still need to upgrade - probably machine AND software, fork over cash and then learn about the product

Thanks (0)