Re: Office 2007 toolbar... again

Bob, re the missing comments, see the post I just wrote a few minutes ago.
Yes, I've posted to the Mix08 blog.

Re providing a choice, I don't quite see why it's up to the admins. In the
Excel options panel, there could be one entry to achieve that and thereby let
the user choose.

Yes, I did see Jensen's detailed response. However, that doesn't say
anything about the user base (experienced v/s new, power users v/s casual
users, etc.). Based on the responses I've seen to date, those who have been
using Office apps for a long time (like yours truly) have been the worst
affected. That, IMHO, is something MS should have considered.

"whatever works for you is the
way to go to meet your needs, but not necessarily those of others, eh? :)"
Now when did I say that? That's the rationale behind providing two UIs and
letting the USERS choose, not MS and not the admins!

Bob, I've been using the trial version. I still don't see why I need to
spend premium $$$s for a product that crashes at random, a product that has
slowed me down, in order to complete the exact same tasks as before. That
appears to be a low ROI proposition. Then, on top of it, your proposal would
cause me to spend even more money to make the app useful to me. Now why would
I want to do that?

BTW, I've tried the product from AddInTools. Whereas it does provide the
classic UI, keyboard shortcuts don't work once it's "expanded". So, it's not
quite the same.

-- Gemini

"Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:

Hi Gemini,

Which blog entry are you referring to? It's not uncommon for blogs to have responses/comments only enabled for a specific (often
short) period of time. Jensen posted on 21Feb that he'll presenting at the Mix UX (User eXperience) portion of the sold out MS
Mix08 conference this Friday in Las Vegas and the topic is the ribbon :) and that blog topic is open for comments and it appears
that you are one of the folks that did leave more than one comment there including the one you said didn't appear
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/2008/02/21/mix-it-up.aspx#comments
Jensen replied today to some of the comments that had examples rather than generalities :)

FWIW, in a rush to get a project status *** together for an unexpected meeting called by a senior mgr today one of my folks who
hadn't used Excel 2007 before put together a really nice *** and her comment was that it was a lot easier for her to find her way
around and get things done in Excel 2007 than in the versions she had used before. :) So there are folks who find it 'about the
same' some who find it 'slower to use' and those who find it 'a help' :) It can depend on what the usage, need and how folks
perceive things (visually, tacticle, etc) - a lot of factors. There isn't a 'right' answer for everyone. Not everything in the
ribbon is slower, not everything in the menus was faster. :)

Your comment on the blog that allowing folks to choose the interface to see how productive they could be wouldn't necessarily be a
good test, as the corporate administrators would often be the ones who made the choice <g> and those folks are also 'customer's :)

If you don't choose to use Office 2007, fine, if you do, fine :) If you mix and match multiple versions or add one of the free
classic menu add-ins (does it really matter if it's MS or a 3rd party that provides the capability?) whatever works for you is the
way to go to meet your needs, but not necessarily those of others, eh? :)

=============
<<"Gemini" <Gemini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:56EE4CED-856B-4E7D-A577-432F053BB930@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It appears that comments to Jensen Harris' blog are being censored. I
attempted twice to respond directly to Jensen's claim about how well the
Ribbon has been received (apparently the results of an independent survey),
shared my experience with the trial version of Office 2007 and asked him
about providing the classic UI as well, since that'll be the acid test
(seeing how many users choose the Ribbon voluntarily). Those comments don't
show up at all. Perhaps M$ has indeed become indifferent to what the users
want. Arrogance, anyone?

-- Gemini >>
--

Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*



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