Comments on: I guess it’s supposed to be funny

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:14:46 +0000

Ouch Jon, that last one will hurt. True of course, I think it will take more than a few crap, insulting songs to get things more how MS wants them.
Thanks for the info, those ads mean nothing to me, I’m not even sure we have Bud light over here.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:11:52 +0000

Simon - The ad is done in the style of the tongue-in-cheek Real Men of Genius ads for Bud Light (which is itself something of a joke). The ads are generally radio spots, and they are pretty funny. Here are some samples. These Real Men of Genius are celebrated for all kinds of dubious inventions and achievements: Mr. Hot Dog Eating Contest Contestant, Mr. Boombox Carrying Rollerskater, and the like. So in parallel, the MS ad is poking fun at VBA developers and their own dubious achievements. Maybe we need one for Mr Microsoft Office 2007 Ribbon Designer, or Mr Microsoft Office 2007 Color System Inventor, or Mr I Wish I Could Get Real Office Developers To Use VSTO.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:36:24 +0000

aaarrrrggghhh!
Maaten mentioned these after the ODC, I watched a couple and couldn’t work out if they were meant to be funny or just patronising.
The UX one mentioned wasting tons of money, which just seemed to be stating the bleedin’ obvious.
They just seem to be true so I couldn’t work out if they parodying themselves, or their customers for not using the ‘correct’ tech (according the MS tech police of course – not correct as per real world business requirements)
I actually wondered if it was just a US/UK humour difference?
Jon I thought the whole justification for the ribbon was the number of tabs on tools/options. Odd then that they have added tabs elsewhere.

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:22:14 +0000

They don’t get Office Developers, but I also don’t think they really get Office Users. They certainly don’t get efficient user interfaces.

This is not a rant on the ribbon per se. The ribbon is just a big toolbar with space for many fewer visible commands at a time, and custom ribbons and tabs can be designed to get a lot of them back. Blah blah.

This is a rant on general usability. Maybe I should make a whole new post, but for now, this comment will suffice.

Usability hit #1 imposed by Office 2007: Double clicking on an object does NOT open the format dialog for that object.

Usability hit #2: This could be multiple items in a hit list, but let’s roll them all up.

2a) The new dialogs have many more tabs than ever before. Excel 2003′s Format Chart Series dialog had one tab for formatting the patterns (line, marker, fill) of a series. Excel 2007′s equivalent dialog has up to six: Marker Options, Marker Fill, Line Color, Line Style, Marker Line Color, and Marker Line Style.

2b) The new dialogs have replaced several option buttons with a single dropdown. Sounds like they saved space, but what they’ve done is hidden the unselected options, so you have to click just to remind yourself what’s available.

I’ll save the rest for another post. I’ve already outlined a number of problems I see with the Excel 2007 Chart Formatting dialogs, in view of designing an add-in that provides a better formatting environment. I’ll write about that one day, and offer my formatting dialog the next.

By: alderaic

alderaic — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:02:37 +0000

already commented on that other blog, but one thing they probably dont get, is that a well documented VBA macro can be somewhat modified by the end user or and IT tech without the need to geta programmer involved, to the contrary VSTO requires the full army of programmers IT approvals etc… and isnt close to be as flexible as it is to modify something in VBA.

I do program in different languages including C++ Java and Delphi, and I would never ever consider those as a viable solution for office use.

Any scripting language is gonna be a lot better than a compiled language IMO.

and VSTO is particularly heavy and not user friendly which makes that solution even less interesting.

I guess some monkeys probably thought that having a true and complete programming environnement in office was helping the end user… problem is those guys were probably never involved in such an work environement and dont understand what is needed.