[OT] Microsoft Office's New UI Blazes Some New Trails for Us

[jbv]

Dan ,

> Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox newsletter today is about the new "results
> oriented user experience" being developed by Microsoft for its
> bloated Office product line.
>
> I provide my thoughts and links at http://www.eclecticity.com/.
> 3c65da4c in case anyone cares or wants to discuss it there.
>

Here's a quote from J. Nielsen's article (BTW the link you provide
on your blog is wrong) :
"The new interface displays galleries of possible end-states, each of which combine many
formatting operations. From this gallery, you select the complete look of your target -- say
an org chart or an entire document -- and watch it change shape as you mouse over the
alternatives in the gallery. The interaction paradigm has been reversed; it's now What You
Get Is What You See, or WYGIWYS."

and my first reaction to this is : God ! this is one of most scary
things I ever came across !
It might not be so important in case of a letter or a spreadsheet,
but in general it means that users we'll have to chose from a set
of PRE-DEFINED shapes... and who will pre-design those ?
Microsoft ? Yikes !!!!
Now we have WYGIWWAYTCF (what you get is what we allow
you to choose from)...

and furthermore, what if you want to design something totally
new from scratch ?

I might be overreacting a bit, but I'm sure there are plenty of
different & more promising directions to explore for future UIs...

JB