waffle

So - here’s the beef.

Office 2007 will ship with a new variant of toolbars called The Ribbon. The Ribbon will contain buttons to functions pertinent to tasks you choose via a set of tabs. We all knew this months ago. You probably already have an idea of whether you think this is a good idea or not. (I’m undecided, but I’m leaning more towards liking the idea than not liking it.)

However, Michael Affronti, the Microsoft Outlook program manager, recently posted about a feature in Outlook 12 (aka 2007) that will allow easier sending of feeds (”subscriptions”) via email. Making that simpler is not bad idea, however, the Outlook UI the screen shot conveys is a train wreck:

There are so many things going on in this screen shot I don’t know where to start. How about I don’t start at all, and I instead show you a recreated copy of the message in Apple Mail (or, as it’s also called, Mail.app):

Never mind if you care for OS X’s styling or Office 12’s styling, there are still a number of lessons the Outlook team could learn by staring long and hard at the screen shots:

• Font settings can be hidden away in a font panel, for usage when needed. (Everything offered in ways of formatting in Outlook is offered in the OS X font panel (and more).)

• People know how to use menus. There’s no need to rid of them, even with the ribbon.

• One button for the Address picker is enough - you can drag the addresses around afterwards, or click the picker’s To and Cc buttons respectively instead.

• Buttons in The Ribbon are differently sized. However, the copy button and the text subscript button are the same size - are they used as much?

• Mail’s (and OS X’s) font size is comparatively ginormous, yes. However, the Outlook screen shot has actually been shrunk. Even then, the Mail screenshot comes in at 242,379 pixels, and the Outlook screen shot comes in at 251,292. Tell me, which one offers the most text editing space?

• Why do you need a special user interface widget to show information about a damn link? Since it’s shown outside of the text area, and it’s not specifically labelled as an attachment (I can’t even find an “Attach” button in The Ribbon), is it wrong of me to conclude that the information is not going to be sent as an attachment? The weblog post states that the information will be included for instant subscription, but will it degrade into a form that makes the information show in other email clients? (Under some circumstances, earlier versions of Outlook would send attachments in rich text messages in an undocumented format, and I have to deal with such botched attachment data files on a regular basis. My worries are not unfounded.)

• All in all, it seems to me like Mail offers fewer shiny buttons, but a better way to concentrate on the actual mail being sent. (Full disclosure: I’ve customized the toolbar away from its default by adding space and separators and removing one button; the one allowing direct opening of a chat session with the receiver or sender using iChat and the person’s entry in the OS X Address Book. I assume Outlook will carry something similar pointing to Groove or Windows/MSN Messenger.)

Now. Microsoft employs tons of UI people. They do exhaustive usability testing. They’re all fairly smart guys, and they can all probably counter my arguments in a heartbeat. And in fact, I quite liked Outlook when I was using it (and I never caught one virus by doing so either, which, if you’re to believe the folklore, must qualify as some sort of record).

At the end of the day, I’m absolutely not saying that a guy in Sweden is right and Microsoft’s huge organization is consistently and categorically wrong. What I’m wondering is just if it wouldn’t be neat if Microsoft, for once, leaned more towards Apple’s philosophy. Stick menus in menus, toolbar items in the toolbar, and as long as your user knows his (or her) way around the system in general, text editing and other stuff is just given.

My guess is that the answer will be that there are fields, endless fields, of Office computers, where little to nothing else is going on except using Office, and that this subsequently becomes the standard. This means that a lot of existing apps positively must adopt these conventions - even if they are much less complex and really would do nicely with nary a Ribbon in sight - just in order to “fit in” or “look like Office”. And that frankly scares the living daylights out of me.