Re: cross-reference of Office 2003 programs' menu, sub-menu and to
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Ah, my bad. My very bad. Please accept my apologies for leaping to
conclusions.
Not sure why MS considers "Suggesting a feature to a future version" and
"commenting on a feature in a product that anyone who has actually seen
can't legally talk about" to be the same thing (or appropriate for a public
newsgroup), but that's not your fault.
--
George Nicholson
Remove 'Junk' from return address.
"Alan R. C." <AlanRC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9116F018-C5CD-4CA7-9CA1-36467C400642@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I am not a beta tester of Office 12.
>
> Having read the presentation Beyond Menus and Toolbars in Microsoft Office
> (see http://www.baychi.org/calendar/20051213/) by Jensen Harris, the lead
> UI
> designer for the Office UI suite, and learnt that the menu interface had
> been
> removed from most of the programs in Office 12, I sent a post to his
> Office
> User Interface blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh and in response,
> received an email which included the following :-
>
> Suggesting a Feature
> If you would like to suggest a feature for a future version of Office,
> click
> the Make a Suggestion link at
> http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/contactus.aspx. Your suggestion will be
> forwarded to someone on the relevant product team.
>
> My post below was merely following the instructions in the email.
>
>
> "George Nicholson" wrote:
>
>> This is not the proper forum for comments regarding the beta version of
>> Office 12.
>>
>>
>> I suppose it's good to know that Microsoft is using a large cross-section
>> of
>> people as beta testers. Even those who evidently can't follow
>> instructions
>> about where to send comments, even when failure to follow those
>> instructions
>> violates the non-disclosure agreements they signed in order to be a
>> tester.
>>
>> --
>> George Nicholson
>>
>> Remove 'Junk' from return address.
>>
>>
>> "Alan R. C." <Alan R. C.@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:8D283B36-9E1A-4D82-A90B-AB42FDE09A07@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > Subject (above one is truncated)
>> > --------
>> > cross-reference of Office 2003 programs' menu, sub-menu and toolbar
>> > functions with how to locate same function using ribbons
>> >
>> >
>> > For the sake of all the expert/heavy users of Office programs before
>> > Office
>> > 12, like me (well, as far as Word, Excel and Outlook are concerned),
>> > who
>> > know
>> > where to quickly locate functions on drop down menus, sub-menus and
>> > toolbars
>> > and who are going to be very frustrated by having to learn a new
>> > interface
>> > using ribbons and how to navigate these to find a particular function,
>> > to
>> > help bring us up to speed, please include on the Office 12 product CD,
>> > a
>> > document for each Office product, that cross references each menu,
>> > sub-menu
>> > and toolbar function (using the function name and toolbar icon) used in
>> > the
>> > Office 2003 version of the program with a description of how to
>> > navigate
>> > to
>> > the same function in the Office 12 version of the program, including
>> > screen
>> > prints of the ribbon(s) etc. for illustrations.
>> >
>> > Better still; make this document for a program readable from the
>> > program's
>> > help function too, with the ability to click on a link in the help page
>> > to
>> > display the relevant ribbon, with the mouse pointer positioned over the
>> > required function.
>> >
>> > In the past, when Microsoft have published a new version of Office,
>> > companies largely based their purchasing decisions on whether they
>> > could
>> > afford the new licenses, as the new Office version could be installed
>> > on
>> > the
>> > company's computers and their employees could continue to use the new
>> > version
>> > in the same way as they did with the old one, with retraining costs
>> > limited
>> > to the few who might need to know how to use new features.
>> >
>> > Now that installing Office 12 will require company employees to be
>> > trained
>> > to use the new user interface before they can be productive, I think
>> > Microsoft is going to find many companies resisting purchasing Office
>> > 12
>> > because of the shear investment they have in their personnel's
>> > knowledge
>> > of
>> > previous versions of Office, especially the previous user interface,
>> > and
>> > companies' reluctance to pay large sums for retraining.
>> >
>> > For this reason, I think it was a mistake, which Microsoft will regret,
>> > to
>> > completely remove the menu, sub-menu and toolbar interface from each
>> > Office
>> > program rather than allowing a user the choice, in the Options
>> > function,
>> > of
>> > reverting to using the menu, sub-menu and toolbar interface rather than
>> > the
>> > ribbon interface even if this meant losing some functionality only
>> > provided
>> > with the ribbon interface.
>> >
>> > Perhaps including these cross-reference files will go some way in
>> > assuaging
>> > companies/peoples reluctance to change.
>> >
>> >
>> > ----------------
>> > This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
>> > suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the
>> > "I
>> > Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow
>> > this
>> > link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and
>> > then
>> > click "I Agree" in the message pane.
>> >
>> > http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx?mid=8d283b36-9e1a-4d82-a90b-ab42fde09a07&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
>>
>>
>>
.
