> No i think the intention was to experiment with concepts, give users the chance to play live with different settings and see what works best

The problem is: you cannot make any correct opinion with such a pure concept of the mind. Interface choices must not be based on abstract concepts such as this prototype. An interface based on that would certainly be a complete failure. Only real experimentation with real-case work on real documents by real users can do it. And how can you do that with an early partial prototype?

For me it clearly shows that OOo developers are going in the wrong way. Experiments must be conducted only once things are working. Maybe it was released too early?

Posted by xavier robin on August 07, 2009 at 09:39 AM CEST #

"Misinterpretation of a prototype?"

- I think no "misinterpretation" here. Prototypes are precisely for getting feedback and first impressions of a 'good or bad' working path, so you just got what you were asking for.

"I personally think that it is not bad to reuse ideas or concepts that are already accepted..."

- Sorry, but that "ribbon" thing has never been accepted, just "imposed" as MS Office users cannot get rid of it. I still wonder 'where is the science behind that ribbon'... if any? :-)

- More than a "Renaissance Era", the prototype seems to fall back users into one of the worst periods of the deep Middle Age...

Posted by NoName on August 07, 2009 at 11:06 AM CEST #

@NoName: In my personal opinion, the Ribbon is probably the single best idea that Microsoft Office came up with ever since... well... actually, it might the ONE outstanding productivity enhancer. I'm no Microsoft fan at all (Mac User, where Office 2008 is really not that great and I'm thus using OOo / Neo respectively), but seriously, nothing beats Office 2007 on Windows in terms of productivity and, yes, "fun" to use. The interface is, given more than ten minutes to look around, not only much more intuitive and 'intelligent', it's also simply much more pleasant to use, visually and on an interaction-level

(if you have a lot of time, this might be worth watching: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx )

That being said, I do think OOo needs to
- improve the interface, mainly visually (I get along with it and find things well, but then again I'm a geek)
- do that while keeping its own identity; I also liked the Lotus approach with regards to contextualization

All the best, a Microsoft- and OOo-User =)

Posted by Burtchen on August 07, 2009 at 12:09 PM CEST #

As long as the classical menu interface ist kept (at least as an option) I have no problem with a ribbon-like feature at all. But dont take away my menu bar with File, Edit and friends.

Posted by Ralph Aichinger on August 07, 2009 at 12:56 PM CEST #

I agree with Ralph: Microsoft's greatest failing with the ribbon was not its ultimate implementation, but its lack of a smooth transition. As I recall, a single management type claimed responsibility for making the call to put it in without giving a transitional menu-based lifeline for all of the long-term users who had to spend many hours to retrain, or place all of their personalized frequently used commands onto the quick access toolbar. Talk about lost productivity! The real kicker there, too, is that in order to move personalized settings from one machine to another it would require more coding expertise than most have, or the purchase of an overpriced macro from a 3rd party, meaning that you get to spend hours again tweaking your new Office installation. The beauty of projects like OOo remains in the variety and choices that can be afforded. Explore, expand, and push the envelope, but at least allow the option to retain the tried and true path. Corel allows this sort of menu layout choice with their WPO, and it seems a reasonable approach. Maybe add a selection screen in the installation process to allow the user to decide which interface to install, or allow the "ribbon" analog to be minimized on-the-fly and a real working menu system to be be visible, rather than the slower-than-molasses, marginally functional add-ons that were built to ease the MSO ribbon transition.

Posted by Darrell Ray on August 07, 2009 at 01:24 PM CEST #

@Burtchen: Marketing can be very persuasive, but a "146-pages" presentation says "little" about what a clean and brilliant idea has to be presented. With just 5 slides should have been enough ;-)

I know some users like that "ribbon" thing but -being a system administrator and working in tech. support area- I also know there are a lot of people which also dislike such toolbar. Many icons and very little space to see their work.

Remember those "nettops" with small screens and lower resolutions. When MS was developing and prototyping that "ribbon" did not take into account the big increase of small devices in the market... and now it is a tendency for the next years. Utra-portables are not wide-screen devices so they are directly affected by that "ribbon" which occupies a very high percentage of the screen.

The worst here is that users are not able to change that "ribbon" bar and design the toolbar to fit theirs needs, so I consider "ribbon" a bit intrusive.

Posted by NoName on August 07, 2009 at 05:19 PM CEST #

Of course delivering a prototype through the backroads of a sun blog which got hit up by the technical community would garner the type of response that it did. Of course "normal" people are really really scared of change and learning in terms of changing how they work with documents on the computer. After all, the object is to learn as little as possible so they can go outside and play.

If people checked in the prototype there was a way to hide the ribbon, enabling something similar to the OOo 3 interface (less the smaller icons and two sidebars (just one)).

What I see OOo 4 doing right is where they are going with this. I imagine it to take up less vertical real-estate than the current prototype (like InDesign) which would make it better for those netbooks than MS. I also can see them leaving the menu system intact, allowing those "oldskool" or "unwilling to learn" to remain that way.

Posted by Jack Matier on August 08, 2009 at 02:28 AM CEST #

I think the prototype is a good idea--all the discussion is a good thing. If nothing else, now the developers know there is a contingency of users who don't like the ribbon at all.

The biggest problem with the prototype is that it's not clear what's supposed to be functional and what isn't. If some things got lost, it might be because users didn't have any strong reaction to it one way or another, or it might have been because they didn't expect a prototype to be that functional.

I like the idea of a prototype--don't get me wrong--but the UI team needs to be much more explicit about what aspects of the prototype they want people to provide feedback on if they want it to be useful. The prototype is useful; the feedback system perhaps less so.

Finally, can we really be surprised that a community who use an office suite in part because they don't like MS Office would be upset when their suite starts talking about becoming more similar to MS Office?

I personally like some aspects of MS Office 2007's UI, but think it's really flawed in other ways (most notably, because a UI paradigm is not implemented consistently throughout). I would like to see this as an opportunity for Open Office to do something better, like they have in other areas.

Posted by merkri on August 08, 2009 at 11:05 PM CEST #

I'm not sure about scientific background of msoffice 2007 interface, but where is scientific background of the openoffice.org's new prototype interface?
From my point of view, the only way to start restructuring of interface is productivity studies of different applications in different conditions, for instance, to reproduce printed version of a spreadsheet file, text or presentation. It would clearly show, where the most of time is wasted in different users' groups and how it can be recovered just by improving of interface without introduction of new features. I'm sure that right choice would be introduction of interfaces with several complexity levels, starting with notepad options and finishing with, let's say current interface, but, of course some visual improvements would be very welcome.

Posted by andis on August 09, 2009 at 12:13 PM CEST #

The MS Office ribbon is the worst UI change ever made in a program. It severely reduces the productivity of staff. Most organizations I work with have chosen not to implement it, since simple taks take much longer and many, many more movements to perform.

The ribbon is stupid crap.

On the other hand, there are some nice enhancements in the demo UI other than the ribbon.

It would be great to see those real improvements introduced into OO and the horrible ribbon clone thrown away. Even better all code for it destroyed so no one can threaten common sense and productivity again.

Posted by John S on August 10, 2009 at 03:21 AM CEST #

It's not that I don't like the Ribbon -- having used it, I think it is a really good interface, but it bothers me that there was the Renaissance with the intention to make the OOo UI different and better, and all of the work seemed to be scrapped in favor of the MS UI, like it's been done in the past, and there's no innovation. But I hear Sun is willing to change the prototype more -- add a different categorization (like having text tools contextual, so it, unlike the MS implementation, actually makes sense) and, hopefully, even a sidebar. I'm definitely looking forward to that when it comes. (Or is it there already? I need to check.)
Otherwise, live previews, object rotation, scrollable slides, the "M" tab, and sorter view were very nice innovations. The 3D View, I think, is just bulk added on. It has no real meaning and presents no real advantage, even for small devices.
But as all prototypes, we need to start somewhere, and hopefully with all this feedback, and especially negative feedback, it can be molded into something good. So keep it coming.

Posted by Mirek2 on August 10, 2009 at 10:53 AM CEST #

The point is: will user be able to keep using a classic GUI instead of ribbons?

If the answer is Yes, I will still be an OOo. I'jj just disable ribbons and keep using my custom toolbars with 16x16 icons that really push up my productivity.

If the answer is No, OOo will loose an user. I don't wanna use ribbons... so if I'm forced to do it, I'll change software. AbiWord is not that bad after all....

Posted by Tommy on August 10, 2009 at 03:18 PM CEST #

"Only real experimentation with real-case work on real documents by real users can do it. And how can you do that with an early partial prototype?"

That is how usability testing has always worked. You start with rough ideas, test them, refine them, test the new ideas etc. It's *never* too early to test ideas with users.

Posted by Neil on August 10, 2009 at 04:44 PM CEST #

I think it is very difficult to judge the prototype, given that it is rather ugly and half-functioning. I know we are supposed to imagine it as a sleek and working application, but it is difficult.

I also have to agree that there are a number of really nice and innovative features which sadly got lost on most people, for example the previews, rotations, the "M" tab...

I think thet the extremely negative reaction had two reasons:

1.) Many Linux users hate Microsoft passionately. Another set of (many) Linux users generally seems to dislike GUIs and "Bling." While both points (disliking MS and rejecting Bling) have some value, it is clearly limited. I think this source of the loud criticism should be ignored. But...

2.) The Renaissance team has conducted several surveys with hundreds of thousands of users participating. Nothing came of these. The team itself announced that evaluating the surveys more or less failed. The wrong questions were asked and the massive amount of data seemed uncoltrollable (maybe, rather, the wrong statistical methods were applied, but who cares now?).
Thus, the insights to be gained from the surveys were simply scrapped and the next phase begun: user desing proposals. Again, many many OOo users sat down and spent time on drafting, revising and discussing proposals. Some of these are clearly excellent. Given that the surveys were a failure, the OOo users assumed these proposals would be taken seriously and used to construct a new UI.
However, while a few features made it into the prototype, what it looks like to us users is that not only the surveys were disregarded, but also the user design proposals. What the UI team came up with instead was a copy of the Microsoft ribbon. Great.

Thus, what many are wondering is why the Renaissance team had to create all this fuss about desining "something new", "with the users," if the end product is going to be a copy of Office 2007?

Clearly, the ribbon has its advantages. I am not even saying the user design proposals were better. But this whole process looks like a punch in the face of the user community. Surely, it may have happened differently begind the scenes. But then, why did noone communicate the decision making? To us it seems like failure, disragard, and contempt. Thus the reaction.

Now I hope that the UI will be a good one, despite this awful process, and whether ribbon-like or not.

Posted by mutlu on August 10, 2009 at 11:40 PM CEST #

I participate a lot, unfortunately only after the decisions were made. But its clear that most of the ideas were not implemented in this prototype starting with the vertical view.

Also the behavior of the toolbars such as the bluefish tabs.

One of the things that really frustrating is that usually get compared with ribbons which this toolbar has little todo except fo the increased size.

I would invite readers to take a look at my blogpost:
http://www.alexandrocolorado.com/wordpress/?p=633

Posted by Alexandro Colorado on August 12, 2009 at 09:55 AM CEST #

Reposting a snippet of my comment from that other blog post:

Add ways for VERY simply rearranging the toolbars AND adding almost any command (and simple scripts. BTW, the scripting system also is a pure nightmare. Only professional programmers can use it).

Then add a way to instantly switch between, save, export/import such GUI layouts! So users could have a hotkey for toggling in/out of netbook GUI mode.

In short, OOo should emulate Firefox's success with plugins, greasemonkey and stylish. Make it REALLY easy to modify and you will get a critical mass of crowd coding going.

OOo devs also need to think about what is most important: (1) a way to access ALL features (through a Ribbon like system) or (2) a way for each user to access the features he/she NEEDS (which strongly varies from user to user).

Check out this unanswered forum problem/request post for an illustration of the great problems OOo, and as a result its users, are in when it comes to access to features through the toolbars. http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10410&p=65585%23p65585

Posted by thomas on August 12, 2009 at 12:39 PM CEST #

Completely agree with the poster above.

If a plugin system is put in place, the ribbon can be distributed separately as an official or unofficial plugin (with, of course, an option to enable or disable like in Firefox).

This may even deflect any legal complaints from Microsoft, which is what Sun should be worried about: Microsoft made a point about *not* using the ribbon in MSOffice-like products!

Where the addition of a plugin system would really make a difference is.. innovation. There are many users out there who would be more than willing to test out new ideas!

Posted by me on August 12, 2009 at 02:00 PM CEST #

as i said be4 i have no troubles if the new GUI will be an option... i'll keep using the standard GUI.

but if the new GUI will be the only OOo GUI user must use, well i'll leave the OOo community and look for another software

Posted by Tommy on August 12, 2009 at 02:12 PM CEST #

let's me say I'm disappointed the OOo is spending so much time and energy on a ribbon-like GUI while a tabbed GUI which was requested in 2003 ( see issue: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=12686 )
is still "NEW" and "yet to determine"...

well, this was asked 6 years ago... when ribbons did not even exist....

Posted by Tommy on August 13, 2009 at 01:11 PM CEST #

@Burtchen

Stop lies with Ribbon as productivityenhancer!

See a survey here:
http://www.exceluser.com/explore/surveys/ribbon/ribbon-survey-results.htm

Google search hate ribbon office
http://www.google.it/search?hl=en&q=hate+ribbon+office&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=
10 400 000 results

Google search love ribbon office
http://www.google.it/search?hl=en&q=love+ribbon+office&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=
3 660 000 results

Who yet has the courage to say the Ribbon is a great idea to help users???

Posted by None on September 02, 2009 at 11:22 PM CEST #