Office 2013 Ribbon
In a world where many still long for a return to Office 2003 style menus and toolbars, I've benefited greatly from the ribbons in 2007 and 2010 as they've exposed functionality to me that I've needed and would otherwise have struggled to find.
For that reason, I've always been a defender of the ribbon and I'm fine with the Explorer ribbon too. I've also appreciated Microsoft's desire to flatten and metrofy the desktop in Windows 8 for more visual consistency with the Metro world, the most obvious example to me so far being the new grey, rectangular scrollbars in applications.
BUT, I think the ribbon in Office 2013 is a disaster. If I had didn't have some memory of the placement of things from Office 2007/2010 I would greatly struggle to use it. The gradients and other design effects made each little button etc stand out and easy to find. I'm finding the borderless buttons, black-and-whiteness with odd splashes of colour and excessive white space in the 2013 ribbon not only very ugly but it also makes things much harder to find, now instead of glancing, I need to read the words and study the icons to figure things out.
It varies from application to application, it's less of a problem in Excel for me where I just keyboard shortcuts more but I find it especially bad in Word.
Who agrees/disagrees? Further thoughts?
There are 8 Comments. Load 'Em Up. Show speed reading tips and settings
Shortcuts to mastering the comment thread. Use wisely.
C - Next Comment
X - Mark as Read
R - Reply
Z - Mark Read & Next
Shift + C - Previous
Shift + A - Mark All Read
Comment Settings
Live comment alert: Hide it!
Comments for this post are closed.