More on the GUI

Steven Vore today: (follow the link, he's got a bunch of screenshots and more to say, this is just the part that caught my attention.)

For starters, gone is Windows' "system menu" - the top left-hand corner menu that's always held options for the window itself; Minimize, Maximize, Close etc. Though it's still available via the Alt-Space keystroke combination, it's not obvious and it's different from other applications and from the OS itself.

In it's place is a large circular area with the Office logo inside. That, believe it or not, is the File menu! I can't believe how long it took me to find it, to figure out how to open an existing file.

Interestingly enough, I figured that out in no time flat. As soon as it occurred to me to look for the File menu, I went to the upper left of the screen. Habit, I guess. On the other hand, the first time I tried to insert my signature in an email, I had the hardest time figuring out where that is. Silly me, thinking it used to be on the insert menu, thought it would be on the ribbon when I was in the insert mode. Nope. It's on the default ribbon. I actually would have seen it quicker had I not gone looking for it. :)

More from Steven:

I think that's going to be a huge problem for users, that helpdesks are going to be flooded with "how do I open an existing file" calls.

I fear that he's right. As I said before, the ribbon makes more sense for "experts" and brand new users who will go looking for things. Most business users fall somewhere in between, and they generally will call the helpdesk when something isn't in the first place they look, usually where they're used to looking. Lots of things in 2007 aren't in the first place I look. It seems our choices when it comes time to rolling this out across an organization is to spend enough time training users so they find things in the first place they look, or spend a lot of time answering questions about where things are. More than likely, we'll be doing both.




posted 10:43 PM | 0 comments | Links to this post

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