Quite right and it would save the corporate customer world from having to invest in retraining of expensive senior and mid executives, among other related transitional skills.
Executives such as myself care. And I make buy decisions on a regional basis for my firm, that is a continent level geography.
My buy decision on Office 2007, having been unfortunately gifted with it on my laptop on a single buy, is not worth it. Many aspects I do care for, but lost productivity from relearning so many command items is not worth it.
It should have had - as a trivial matter to meet large buyer needs - a transitional interface tool so that high cost users could seemlessly transition.
The fact that was not included and the positive stench of Microsoft trying to create “barriers to change” by inconveniencing customers between platforms rather rankles.
Actually, it does mean that software is the problem.
Office is a business tool for me. It is a business tool for the group that I run and the people that work for me. The largest buyers of MS Office are corporates. I expect Office to meet my group’s needs. Not Microsoft’s nor smarmy individuals on low level work, or individual editors with their artistic idiosyncrasies.
I expect it, then, to serve our needs, not us to serve MS agenda - however much I understand it - in trying to create usage rupture barriers between their suite and competition. That is the one and sole explanation of not providing a packaged transition tool. To the extent that I lose hard won productivity over my group because of this conceit on their part, and have to increase training spend - direct and indirect form lost hours (in particular lost hours of highly paid executives), for frankly largely marginal utility gains, the SOFTWARE IS THE BLOODY FUCKING PROBLEM. It exists to serve, not me to serve it.
The attitude that the “software” has to be met is one of the major conceits of the MS world, the Customer has to be met.
If I took that attitude, I’d not have me any fucking customers.
Just carry out the function you want to do in a virtual Word 2003 and it shows you where in 2007 that function is. When we rolled out 2007 in work we gave the users that tool aswell.
Useful if not particularly solving productivity issues. However, it merely confirmed for me that the zapped one of the most useful portions - for me - of Autotext, the multilingual choices in auto salutations, closings. I suppose there may be some convoluted way to import that from Word 2003.
I get that it’s sort of a leap of faith, the idea that if your company will just suck it up and deal, you’ll see increased productivity once everyone’s made the switch. I get why it’s tempting to stand still. There is a productivity cost to moving to a new software package. But you know - there’s also a productivity cost to clinging to older, outdated ways of doing things.
The Ribbon interface is here to stay. Increasingly, your new hires will be people who use the Ribbon, not the older, slower, one. Office 2003 will likely only be supported for another three years, at which point it becomes even more expensive to maintain. And in another 10 years, Word will do things we don’t know even know we need.
The costs here are not all on one side.
It’s not solely a usage rupture barrier. After all, they really don’t have any competition. If they did, they probably wouldn’t have changed at all. They can make this sea change like this because what are you going to do, switch to Pages? (And best of luck telling Apple that -their- job is to serve -you-. It is to laugh.)
I’m genuinely curious what you envision for this transitional tool. As I said early, it seems to me like it would just prolong the agony. If the user base was able to go on doing things the old way, what would be their incentive to change gradually? For those who resist learning the new method, won’t they be just as unhappy when the transition is phased out?
It seems to me that the conceit here is that all Customers work just like you, personally, that your needs and yours alone are the only needs to be considered, that Microsoft’s UI department should begin and end with the way people learned to do things in Office 98.
I’ve got bad news for you. Computer technology is an evolving field. The software you are currently using is not finalized. You can expect to see regular changes in your method of use. You and your employees will routinely need to update your skills, learn new methods and embrace new hardware.
Failure to do so means you will lose productivity compared to your competitors. These are your actual options: lose some productivity short-term while adopting the new capabilities or lose long-term compared to your competitors who embrace the new capabilities before you do.
It’s absurd to blame Microsoft for developing new technology with new capabilities. It’s unrealistic to expect the new technology to be limited to behaving exactly like software from 10 years. Humans are the dominant species on this planet because of our abilities to adapt to changing circumstances. Evolve or perish.
If older ways are in fact outdated, then one changes. If not, merely changing because something is new and shiny is nothing but faddishness.
My judgement is that the transition costs relative to the marginal gains in Office 2003 are not worth it. As my decision also moves a large geography, it’s not merely personal.
An assertion. I heard the same claims about Vista.
In 5 years they will have another fix. Then if it works better, fine. If not, other choices may be on the market.
MS either serves my needs or I move on.
Actually, despite your amateur analysis snideness, Apple’s job is to serve me. The customer. Apple has done a great job of that over the years with a much more stable offering, better interfaces that are more intuitive to use in general, better transitioning between releases, etc.
Their success with other products reflects the same focus.
They did not capture the corporate market most due to non licensing.
No you’re not curious, you’re banging away at your single user decision. A transitional tool is as noted, ability to in part and or in whole recreate the menu system as needed.
I don’t need incentives to change, I need a multi-country work force that delivers service to our clients in an effective manner.
My conceit is based on my knowledge of my Spend size relative to market, to what I know similarly sized firms in my space are doing, and what we are saying amongst ourselves about this product. Not on some artsy little academic writer’s snideness and personal experience.
News for me?
I’ve got plenty of executive experience and have watched computer tech change massively. My offices are early adopters when the value analysis says adopt. We’re not impressed by hand waving about tech change. Office suites are not cutting edge business software, they’re base productivity tools. My spend on training for new methods is focused on real cutting edge. Word is like typewriters, either it functions for our needs, or it doesn’t.
Save your misplaced preaching.
Hahahah.
Myself and the competitors have pretty much the same conclusions on this “upgrade.” Our productivity concerns are in things rather less pedestrian than fucking word processors and baseline spreadsheet functions.
No, you stupid bitch, it is not absurd to blame MS for developing a fucked up new interface that imposes costs. And spare me your subliterate comps with evolution.
It’s fucking world processing software. Word processing software is not fucking new technology. They’re working on putting new clothes on fairly basic stuff. New tech is say their fucked up Vista OS, which again they fucked up for similar reasons.
I have seen good transitions. And I see MS over-reaching.
Sure, they can want to make money by creating a virtual subscription service with yearly shuffling of menu items and files with no backwards compatibility. And I don’t have to buy into it.
Amerone and I have already mentioned things we can do with the new version that the older versions don’t do. I can probably google up a full list for you for Office, Vista & Win7 too, if you want.
I have no idea what your business is except that you’re obviously a Very Special Executive of some sort. Maybe your business isn’t cutting edge, I don’t know. But it’s an objective fact that the current software can do things that the older versions can’t.
The next office version is 2010, not 2015. It also uses the Ribbon interface. The chance that anyone, in the next five years, will debut an Office suite capable of replacing Microsoft Office is non-existent.
But I don’t know your business. Maybe Google docs will do for you.
Apple’s strength and weakness, both, is that they want you to do things their way, on their hardware, at their price-point, at their pace. Apple’s the company, don’t forget, that completely dumped their old architecture when they introduced OSX forcing everyone to cut their legacy software entirely.
It results in a remarkably consistent user experience - provided the user wants to do things exactly the way Apple wants it. What you said up there about, about Apple’s non-licensing being the reason Apple failed to gain a toe-hold in the corporate? That would be Example #1 of Apple refusing to cater to their customers, even when it costs them business.
I’ve been doing IT and designing website interfaces since 1995. I’m currently studying interface design and usability, with an eye for a career in information architecture for library systems. So yes, I am curious what you have in mind for a transitional tool to make adopting the Ribbon interface easier.
Unfortunately, you don’t seem to have an idea beyond ‘let us go on doing things the old way’. That’s not a transition. Further, it wouldn’t address my question as to how this would be anything but prolonging the point at which people have to stop using the old way and use the new one.
Word 6 (I think this was Word 97, iirc,) had a feature where it included special help for people who were switching over from WordPerfect. Sort of like the tool yojimbo pointed to. I wonder if including this would have helped ease the transition or just made the help files to wordy? I think the help files for
What you personally need has nothing to do with the objective suckitudity of the Office 2007 interface. It objectively does things the old interface couldn’t. Whether you need those things is irrelevant.
Actually I think, conceit is the wrong word to use there. You seem to be using it as a synonym for ‘circumstances’ or ‘context’ when it more clearly connotes a metaphor. Sorry. It’s been worrying me.
Anyway, your company’s ability to be satisfied with the outdated methods has no bearing on whether the new advanced interface is good or bad. If you don’t need the new features, that doesn’t mean other people don’t, or won’t, or shouldn’t, or that Microsoft was wrong or sucky to devise an interface which enables them.
Again, Office 2007 objectively can do things that older versions can’t. Office 2007, objectively, has a more advanced interface which enables the new things to happen. Your personal job and its personal needs are irrelevant in determine whether Office 2007, therefore ‘sucks’.
Well, that’s nice then. It must be lovely that all your competitors agree that there’s no point in trying out new things or looking for a new advantages. Lucky for you that no one in your field will ever want to do anything with the new features in Office. It must be a real relief not to have to go through the agony of updating your computer skills.
Microsoft sure does suck! They should have just asked you first and you could have told them that your personal needs were entirely met by the old software so there’s absolutely no point in their releasing yucky new versions. Stupid Microsoft!
Subliterate! oh, how very wounding. Pardon me while I sit on this pedestal and weep. :rolleyes:
You haven’t demonstrated that Microsoft has developed a fucked up interface. You’ve ranted at length about your dick size and how it’s completely adequate for all your present needs, and all your competitors agree with you on that point.
My point about evolution was … not so much about your post, I guess. Now that I think about it. More bewilderment on my part I guess. I learn new interfaces because I think it’s fun and I get that most people don’t share that point of view. But do people honestly not get that it’s part of staying competitive and current? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to sit down and explore the new toolbar. Yeah it takes a while to get muscle memory but it’s still just a toolbar.
I know I sound like a snob. I’m used to it. I just don’t get why people wouldn’t be proactive about learning new methods. Even if the current job doesn’t demand them the next one might. And they might well be competing for that job with someone who can.
Yeaaah, see. I may be a pissant little academic with a kool-aid mustache who goes ‘baaa’ when the Win startup tune plays. Granted. But I know how to run Vista, flawlessly, on multiple networks and I do so because it’s more secure and more stable and all around more attractive than XP (well, I did before upgrading to Win7, just for the fun of it.) And I didn’t need thousands of dollars of corporate training or hand-holding transitional tools. It didn’t take years of my life. It didn’t need a Comp Sci doctorate. It dind’t drive me to drink. It didn’t even interfere with my WoW playing.
The fact that you -don’t- know any of that probably explains why you seem to have confused word processors with selectrics.
The feature that has been removed is the old interface. This is the feature they want back. It is bad design to remove a feature your customers want, no matter how much better you think they’d be without it. You should only remove features that are detrimental.
Look at IE7. Microsoft tried to get rid of the menu bar there, but at least left it as an option. Still, quite a lot of people don’t use it. Having it there does not make people use it.
The big problem with the ribbon is that it isn’t inherently customizable. A lot of people I know use custom toolbars in Office, and have had to buy separate software to do so in the latest version. If they don’t, they lose productivity, as they have to have multiple clicks to do what used to take one.
Anyways, if you are going into UI, please stop making the mistake that so many companies do. If people want a feature, figure out the cost that it would take to implement, and if it fits, do it. Don’t get all stuck up in ideals about how the software should work. Remember, New Coke should have sold better than Coke Classic.
ETA: And remember that not all your customers are as computer savvy as you. Remember that they’re not knowing how to use your software is your problem, not theirs. A business’s job is to serve the customers so they will pay them.
Pulled out my manual for Wordstar 3, circa 1982. There are surprisingly few features humans normally use that could not be done with a few extra keystrokes 28 years ago. Word processors were virtually perfected before you , or other IT types, were born. Everything since then has been the interface.
I don’t use Word, don’t have it installed anywhere except in emulation environments, and have pretty much found every version of it since Word 2.0 to be among the least pleasant software packages to use. (Encountering it on occasion is basically unavoidable). I have no idea how this horrid piece of shit became the word processing standard.
That’s the thing. Light users may be helped by the ribbon. Heavy users say, “Don’t fuck with my interface.” I wasn’t joking when I spoke of muscle memory. Our hands and our subconscious “know” where certain commands are and if you move them or, worse, take them away we are slowed substantially.
I really do appreciate the convenience of the reference tools but it drives me nuts that they apparently didn’t check with an English professor (or any professor) before designing them. For example: one of the most commonly used sources in college papers are articles from databases, yet there’s not a template for that, in addition to which some of the abbreviations and multiple author and other ‘more complicated than a simple book or web page’ features are erratic, and it doesn’t do hanging indent.
It took me forever to figure out how to do the indentation for citations on W2007. In case anybody else has wondered I’ll share it here:
[ul]
[li]After inserting your Works Cited/Bibliography, highlight the entire section.[/li]
[li]From the HOME tab click on the doo-hickey that’s shaped like an arrow pointing southeast in the right bottom corner of the PARAGRAPH toolbar.[/li]
[li]Select “Hanging” from the dropdown under “Special” in indentation.[/li][/ul]