Searching for ways to improve Office
For those who have trouble finding their old commands in Office's new Ribbon interface, Microsoft has a new option: search for it.
On Monday, the company is releasing an Office add-on called Search Commands that lets users type the function they are looking to do. After months of testing it internally, Microsoft is ready to give the public a chance to try it out. But the new tool won't be found on Microsoft's main Web site.
Chris Pratley, who helped lead the development of Microsoft's OneNote, now leads the Office Labs effort.
(Credit: Microsoft)Rather, it will be available via a new effort, dubbed Office Labs. Spearheaded by Microsoft veteran Chris Pratley, Office Labs is Microsoft's attempt to test out productivity ideas that may--or may not--be ready for prime time.
In an interview, Pratley said Office Labs is designed to try out anything from just a feature to an entire new product concept. The goal is to get feedback early on, before deciding where to put the big development dollars.
"It's kind of expensive to make an entire product and then put it out there and see if it's any good," he said. Pratley knows firsthand. He was among those who helped create the Office OneNote application earlier this decade after spending the 1990s working on Word and Excel.
Office Labs is not the first time Microsoft has tried to create a sandbox for new ideas. It already has its "Live Labs," which has served as an incubator for the online services business.
In contrast to the masses of developers who work on Office itself, Pratley leads a team of about 60 designers and developers. On Monday, Microsoft is going public with two of the group's projects--Search Commands and Community Clips, which is basically an attempt to create a YouTube for help videos.
A note on the Office Labs Web site warns that usage of the products downloaded from the site will be tracked.
(Credit: Microsoft )Search Commands, also known by the code name "Scout," has been popular inside Redmond for some time. With Office Labs, Microsoft will get to see if the searching metaphor is a hit with average users.
Just because something seems like a good idea, doesn't mean users will jump on it. Pratley notes that in the 1990s, Microsoft experimented with--but never released--a Web browser-like approach to navigating for commands, offering hyperlinks to different dialog boxes.
In that approach, though, commands didn't have a fixed home, but instead could be accessed in any number of ways. That uncertainty didn't sit well with users.
"It was pretty clear people were uncomfortable not knowing where things were," Pratley said.
With Search Commands, though, the commands still have a home--the user just doesn't have to remember where that is. Microsoft is still weighing an option that lets users see where the command they are searching for "really lives" as well as a way to add it to their main toolbar for easy access.
Office Labs is working on about 10 or so ideas, Pratley said, but the remainder are either in the planning stages or only being tested internally.
For the ones that do see light of day, he said the goal is to get as much feedback as possible. In that vein, Microsoft tells users that it will be collecting information on how they use the Office Labs code. So those who don't like being tracked might want to forgo using their offerings.
"We're trying to be really upfront about the fact that we are doing that (tracking), and that (getting the feedback) is the only reason these things are available," Pratley said.
The goal, he said, is to figure out which ideas are actually worth pursuing.
"A lot of times that means that we won't end up coding them into a product because they weren't as good as we thought," he said.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Even in Windows XP, they allowed users to choose between the new interface and the classic interface. Most people I know opted for the classic interface till they got used to the new one. They could easily have solved their problems by offering the user the option between their new interface and the "Classic Office Interface."
It's just another example of microsoft screwing up another product launch (ie: Vista). There quite frankly, isn't enough reason to upgrade to Office 2007 from Office 2003. Most people don't use most of the functionality of the old software as it is. And, the new interface is the biggest deal killer of all. Adding a search feature to "Find" the command you want is another Screwy idea. Just make the interface plain and simple.
Microsoft screwed up and they still won't admit it.
I am a long-time Word user, back to the DOS days. I have pumped out many pages of technical reports with it. Now I am supposed to take a week or more off to learn the new interface? I HATE using Word 2007 because I can not get anything done.
The default for a cell containing an e-mail address should NOT be to make it a hyperlink. There should also be a way to select the default.
Select a group of cells containing hyperlinks. The "remove hyperlink" option is missing from the right-click menu. E.g., the hyperlinks have to be removed one cell at a time.
openoffice.org
version to the old one. The interface is more interesting and appealing, which means it is also more human-friendly than the
old one. Of course, I'm a Mac user at home, so maybe the non-
boring interface is easier for me to figure out than for hard-core
Windows users :-).
The biggest issue with Office 2007 is not the interface, but the
lack of interoperability with older versions of Office. Our iWork
suite at home (we don't own Office for Mac) works and plays
better with Office 2007 files than older versions of Office.
This story is most likely a hoax.
The software is pre-release (beta) only. I don't install beta crap.
All are too expensive, too demanding on hardware, bloated code, and worst of all when you use MS products you are essentially running around with a BIG TARGET painted on your PC.
I choose to zig in my product selection while others may zag, I already know I have beaten them in the wallet (where it really counts anyway).
MS products are simply not worth what they COST THE CONSUMER.
"OpenOffice.org for eComStation and OS/2"
http://www.ecomstation.com/product_info.phtml?url=nls/en/content/openoffice.html&title=OpenOffice.org%20for%20eComStation
How about admitting that the ribbon bar is a failure and bring back the classic menus? Keep the ribbon bar as an option, but make the classic menus the default.
You could add an option under preferences that says something like, "Check here if you were one of the people that Microsoft used for their flawed usability studies and prefer to have your commands organized in an unintelligible and arbitrary manner on a ribbon bar."
There is a good plugin for Office 2007 that brings back the classic menus: http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm But I refuse to pay for something that Microsoft should have included for free. Since the plugin's author was able to make the menus show up, you know that all of the API hooks are still there, so Microsoft could easily keep the classic menus, but chose not to. Poor choice, IHMO.
Searching for a menu item is like having to hit the F1 button anytime you want to do something.
If you have to search for a command then shouldn't it be obvious that the interface is too complex and not intuitive?
Why pay for something that locks you in and costs so much. Why pay at all if you can to the same work for FREE. MS office bloat-ware and seems to degrade with each new disappointing upgrade.
OpenOffice.org is such a better choice. It can read and save in MS Office file formats, it is based on OPEN STANDARDS (keyword being 'standards'), is NOT bloat-ware, and best yet it is FREE!
Do yourself a favor and at least check it out. Who knows, you may also save HUNDREDS of ill spent/ wasted dollars.
What we really need to know is whether or not the product manager responsible for that fiasco has been fired yet, and can we be assured they will never be allowed to manage, spec, oversee, or have any involvement with another software application for the duration of their life?
If that person has not been fired, are they now in a janitorial position?
A lot of people in the technical positions at MS are high on Acid, Shrooms, other things while at work or Drunk.
No wonder their software sucks so bad. You should be clean and clear minded when doing important things.
And if you are boss the cash will matter in your corporate environment eventually. This will either happen because of more restricted cash flow or compromised production due to a compromised and poorly implemented, and costly MS Office Suite.
Corps. need to wake up to...and they will because the coming economic conditions will make it more WORTHwhile than ever. Save a buck and give it to you wife or kid instead.
http://www.openoffice.org
SORRY
The next will do even more for this bloated product. Pull out of 80-90% of the crap that most people don't use. Modularize it, put the rest of the functionality into these modules. It will also help with pricing and adoption. Why spend hundreds or thousands when your employees use 10% of the functionality?
Open up Office a bit so others can extend it easier. A good candidate is to make it easy for others to add in reference and documentation formatting. Not only is the existing functionality flawed(MLA is wrong in Office) but severely lacking. There are many other useful document styles that could be added. Supposedly this is already available but a search on Google will show no one can figure it out.
In short they need to make Office small, flexible, agile, and exhibit more forward thinking. Things that MS isn't known for.
If they want to get their relevancy back they need to finally move into this century.
Also, IMHO, MS product, though poorly designed, are also the black hats most favored TARGET.
Protect yourself better, KEEP YOUR MONEY. You will be much better off if you use the FREE alternatives to MS products if you can.
- am i the only one that likes the ribbon
- by bluehairmail April 28, 2008 9:23 AM PDT
- No, i am not.
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- Very few like it
- by The_Decider April 28, 2008 9:24 AM PDT
- The ribbon has resulted in layer after layer of pop ups just to get to functionality. Then when you finally find it, you have to click OK about 6 times.
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- How Long Did You Use Office 2003 Before the Ribbon?
- by walterwood April 28, 2008 12:56 PM PDT
- From your post it appears you are a fairly new Office user. Those that do not have much experience with Office usually like the Ribbon because they did not know where the commands were in the Menu anyway.
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- Hmmmm..
- by xcopy April 29, 2008 7:11 AM PDT
- OK, you're a grad student. In two words, Big deal.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (108 Comments)My School gives everybody a new copy of office if they ask. And i have to say that the ribbon has made me way more efficient has a graduate student than any other option, and most of my peers feel the same way. no body wants to move back to 2003 after moving to 2007. I love open source however when i return to Openoffice i loose productivity because it is just a carbon copy of the Office 2003 interface. Everything in Ribbon makes sense. When people come to me complaining that they cannot find a function in this new terrible ribbon, i ask them if you were designing a new interface and you were using the function a lot where would you put it. They then find the function is right were they would put it every time, not buried in some menu. all i can say is grow up and quit complaining, it does not look good on you.
cheers
How is this better then a standard menu bar?
If you like the Ribbon I don't have a problem with that. However, after using Office over 15 years I think the Ribbon sucks! Give me a choice to use the Menus.
Also, judging from your English skills, not a native speaker but that's OK as long as you make sense and in this case it's borderline at best....
Many of us have had graduate degrees for many years and real working experience. We also understand user interface design, software development, and the holy grail, which is productivity. Why are you making excuses for a product that 85% of experienced users don't like. Are you confused when you hear that experienced users LOSE productivity with the new software, and there are many "features" that can not be modified to regain that loss? Seems like it to me, but perhaps it's the English skills getting in the way...
I hope you can work for either MS or some government (not the US government please) when you finish school. They're both very good at shoving crap down our throats and telling us it's good for us.