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

[Marielle Lange]

(obviously going through posts from the last week).

> ALso, it IS clear from the description that the old dialog box/ 
> sheet approach will still be available. I think the idea of having  
> the document appearance change dynamically as you mouse over the  
> icons for the design changes is a real coding challenge but could  
> make users much less prone to making dumb design decisions.

Not sure it is a coding challenge. You can very easily achieve such  
effect with HTML+CSS. The challenge is not about the programming side  
of things, but about coming up with very clever ways of representing  
the information. MS has announced a move to XML (http:// 
msdn.microsoft.com/xml/, http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/default.aspx? 
pull=/library/en-us/dno2k3ta/html/ 
odc_xmlinoffice2003_summarydoc.asp). Clearly, that's the kind of  
benefit you get when you spend more time thinking about the intrinsic  
organisation of your data than about the hacks and get around in your  
coding.

But XML is clumsy to use and read, time consuming to produce, not  
really good at mixing different data structures. Agreed. That's why  
there is now a move to Microformats: http://revolution.lexicall.org/ 
wiki/tiki-index.php?page=StandardsMicroformats.
Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set  
of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted  
standards.

In a sense, it is different mini xml patches within a page.

Marielle
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Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk, M.Lange at ed.ac.uk
Homepage:  http://homepages.lexicall.org/mlange/
Lexicall: http://lexicall.org
Revolution-education: http://revolution.lexicall.org