Maybe they will fix it back up if Silverlight ever gets decent take up?

I wasn’t arguing against the larger dialogs, I was merely commenting about how ineffectively the larger area has been utilized. I can think of many reasons to expand the size of a dialog, and localization of labels is a good one.

I had not thought about the vertical alignment of dialog tabs being a precursor to web forms, good point. It doesn’t change the poor use of space. Maybe if the dialogs were wider and not as tall (how many tabs are really necessary?) they would be more effective.

As far as I can see, the dialog box being larger is partly in an effort to make the multi-language capabilities easier to write, with languages reading in different directions, or with substantially longer words able to fit in the standard size dialogues.
I used to provide Excel support for a client with some German users so I know how lengthy some of those labels can get (and how hard it is to train your muscle-memory to use ; as an argument separator in place of , which is used as a decimal separator in much of Europe).

As for a list down the side rather than tabs at the top, the usability argument I have seen for this is that some users get confused by multiple tab rows, as the row order changes when you click on a tab to bring that row to the front. An alternative fix for that issue would of course be to simply leave the tab labels exactly where they are, don’t swap the rows about and simply highlight the current tabe more clearly. That said, I don’t mind the left navigation method, but they do seem to have split them up too much as you say, so you don’t get many options side by side.
I also wonder if the change of navigation layout for dialogs is a move towards something which is easier to deliver in a browser interface, versus a classic multi-row tabbed box? Just a thought…

The way that dialogs such as the formatting ones update properties one at a time rather than as one update after clicking OK is really frustrating as you say, if one wants to re-use the same changes using CTRL-Y. Possibly an option within the dialog to turn off this behaviour would be useful – similar to the “defer layout update” checkbox for Pivot Tables. This might also require the reinstatement of a “sample” pane since this has been dropped in favour of “live” changes which let you preview (well, you’re already committed, but that’s what 100 undos are for, right?)

Speaking of Pivot tables – @Jeff, did you know you can move the split between the upper “Choose fields” box and the lower areas boxes? This can give you almost twice as much space in the bottom half. Equally, you could simply drag the fields into the right areas in any order, then turn off the upper pane by choosing the task pane view for “Areas section only (2 by 2)” which gives you oodles of space to drag and drop into the right order

I switched the the 2003 pivot table interface, just so I can drag fields around on screen. That was so handy, and the pivot table pane seems so unweildy, just like so much of the new interface. I don’t know what features I might be missing because of this setting, and I’m not sure they’d be worth suffering with the new interface..

I like the new pivot table functionality, but I REALLY REALLY HATE the ‘dance’ you have to do when dragging a field from the fields list into a specific place in the Row Labels pane.

The window is so small, that Excel ‘helpfully’ scrolls the existing fields up or down if you hover near the top or the bottom of the list. I say ‘helpfully’ because it scrolls so fast that most of the time you miss the place where you want to drop the field in. Really pisses me off.

Only a problem when there’s heaps of fields in the Row Labels pane, but for me that’s 90% of the time.

DIfferent subject now: Jon, your blog and site are outstanding, as are your pointers to other books and blogs of interest. I can’t believe the time you put into this stuff…and probably your wife cant believe it either ;-)

When do you ever get any paid work done?

My learning is skyrocketing from reading your stuff. And I’ve only read a small portion. Thanks.

Re: Display All Options

If a user is trying to decide what to do, having to go back and forth among hidden options is a terrible punishment. Four options do not take up much space.

I know in this particular case, that I spend much longer formatting my axes just because I can’t see the options all at once.

Re: Show Related Tasks Together

You can get all the options for a series in one pane; they did it in Excel 2003. Then if the user wants a fancy gradient, place a button there to open an “advanced formatting” dialog. Like we have Fill Effects in 2003. Why make a user go to a view that has fill effects just to select a color, and make the color hard to match because it was on a tab which was navigated away from?

Re: Dialog Size

The beers help explain the misalignment of the Auto and Fixed option buttons.

It can be argued that once the user make a choice the other options become irrelevant. Therefore a drop-down combo box can be used.

Re: Show Closely Related Subtasks Together
The same argument (as above) can be applied here as well where the right column in the dialog support the user in his/her navigation within the specific task/area.

Re: Dialog Size
I strongly believe that the guy who made the final sizing at MSFT worked with a 40″ screen with a resolution of 6000 x 6000. Late in the night (and after some beers) he thought that the dialogs looked too small so he decided to upsize them…

Kind regards,
Dennis

I plan to go through Excel 2007 and run it head to head with some subjective tests to see how long various simple tasks take, how difficult it is to find menu items, and if speed increases with use over time.

I sent an email to the Excel team through their blog to see if there is an email address or website to make feature requests/suggestions. There has to be a way to communicate with them re: Edit Series dialog box size, Named range dialog box size, etc.

That Select Data dialog is among the worst I’ve ever had the pleasure to use, for a number of reasons. By itself it’s a good topic for a blog post. In this post I started with a couple “easy” ones, and stopped when I reached a good length.

Jon – That is a great line indeed (although I fear you are being far too generous).

However; the line “On the other hand, dialogs are an old technology, not considered worth deploying scarce resources to improve.” just scares the shit out of me.

I used to dread anytime I need to change a data series in a chart. When you right click on a chart and start up the Select Data Source dialogue box, then select the Edit Series option, the the puny dialogue box that comes up only shows the first thirty odd charaters of the range address, and this box can’t be resized. That is just crap. Sure, now I know how to change the series in the chart series formula bar, but how many people know which bit of the series formula does what?

And the charting dialogues are of course just the tip of a growing iceberg. To recycle a rant I had in the Bacon Bits comments, why the hell is so much stuff basic stuff in Excel 2007 still suffering from the crappy usability flaws of Excel ‘97? I wish Microsoft would put new ‘bling’ functionality on hold they you do simple no-brainers…like resizing dialog boxes now that we all have screens bigger than the ones we had 10 years ago. It would have been incredibly easy to identify and then change these simple but major annoyances, and these things would be worth the programming overhead.