[yellow_postit]

This really underestimates the amount of work that goes into UX for such a massively used product. Look no further than the ribbon to see the type of backlash that comes from any interface update. For any sufficiently large and complex project nearly every new UI tweak willl help some and hurt others. Measuring and walking that line is not to be underestimated.

[awoeirl]

So, I have a relative who worked Microsoft UI, and know a lot about it from that. I understand all the design and user testing that was involved.

This is what I see:

With the ribbon, MS came up with something that was nice and innovative. But it was also incomplete. Unlike the menu, which was consistent across all the functions you might want to apply, the ribbon exists for some things, and then you break into this totally different UI for other things.

Is this ok? My concern is that with Microsoft's monopoly (still) we could argue until we were blue in the face about whether or not the ribbon as implemented was worth it or not, and will never know because there were not really any other options other than "ribbon or not." We can't tell if people just habituated to the ribbon's flaws, or decided that the pros of upgrading outweighed the cons, or were forced to upgrade, directly or indirectly, by the legions of corporate decision makers who were afraid to be lagging behind, or what.

Office has improved a lot since LibreOffice's predecessor, OO, emerged. In some ways I think MS Office is superior. But I still have this nagging feeling that we never know what we could have had if there were more competition, in terms of pricing, options, formats, etc. I also resent being forced to use MS Office for things that absolutely do not require it at all (e.g., by certain publishers, etc.). Because then I have to choose an OS that MS Office is on, and then certain hardware, etc. It's not the cost of MS Cloud or whatever anymore, it's that cost, plus the hardware infrastructure that's required to run it.

At the moment LO, for me, is competitive with MS Office, and meets my needs, and to me that's important.

I don't think there's anything wrong with MS charging for a product. What I do think is wrong is everyone requiring it, explicitly or implicitly, and there being lack of choice. At the moment I'm not even sure that's MS's fault--most of the time I encounter it I attribute it to laziness or inconsiderateness.

[JBlue42]

Users get used to the flaws, shortcuts, or workarounds. That's with any software I've found. I typically argue that the difference between being 'experienced' with a bit of software vs basic/intermediate knowledge is having a greater depth of understanding of all the flaws and how to get around them.