The old menu system was not fancy but it was fast to use with a
keyboard and fast to *learn* through use.

I see that lots of data were collected on which items to put where on
the Ribbon, but I did not see any being used to decide *whether* to
use the Ribbon or instead stick with a menu command system.  This is
the key decision, not where to distribute items in the UI (although
it's obviously good to optimize that).

Frankly, this feels like microsoft Bob and Clippy all over again,
where someone wants to force their idea of a cute visual UI down our
throats, rather than a fast interface.

I would like to hear the views of someone responsible reflect as to why

(i) you have ended up with an interface that your power users like me, even after several months of use find slower to use and harder to learn from than the old menu system.  Even your own surveys showed 25% of people disagreeing that the new UI offered any improvement.  I use Excel for hours each
day and suffer from your stupid slow new design every single time I
use it.

(ii) you could not have provided a newly optimized set of menus along with the Ribbon

(iii) someone made the *astoundingly* stupid / annoying decision to provide new keyboard shortcuts that don't match the items that are visible and old keyboard shortcuts without visible items.


Finally, the existence of at least two commercial products that do
nothing but provide menu interfaces for Office 2007 should be a strong hint that not everything has gone swimmingly.

Nicole,  that link has been available on Jensen's blog for ages now. "Huge treat" is NOT the correct description.

Many posters, including yours truly, have asked Jensen about the user data which was supposedly used to design the new UI. No answer. Many users have asked about the data which supports Jensen's claims of "high acceptance" of the new UI. Once again, no answer. Jensen may be a great storyteller. However, considering the remarkable lack of responses to probing, direct questions, it is hard to place any credibility in his claims.

I used the trial version of Office 2007. I primarily use Excel heavily. Excel was unstable and crashed randomly. IMO, the Ribbon UI is confusing, counter productive and illogical. I saw no reason to spend $$$ for a product that was unreliable and sported a pathetic interface. The Ribbon presented ZERO advantage to me. Actually, it was less than zero!

After reverting to Office 2003, the crashes disappeared and I can actually work at my previous speed.

The Ribbon is the major reason I am now working towards transitioning to a non-MS product which provides the necessary functionality, as MS appears to be planning on using the ridiculous Ribbon everywhere they can. If one of the aims of the Ribbon was to drive away longterm/power users, that has definitely succeeded.

I personally know quite a few people are captive users, i.e. they have no option but to use it at work. Based on the posts I've seen on MS sites and elsewhere, the Ribbon has proven to be useful to beginners and has been a hindrance (to put it quite politely) to power/longterm users.

I've read about cos. that rolled back the Office 2007 updates because of complaints from their user base about the ridiculous Ribbon interface.

I am willing to bet that had MS provided the classic UI option, the Ribbon would have died a slow death. There are several add on options which provide the classic UI for those who have no interest in using the Ribbon whatsoever. Someone at MS has made the astoundingly stupid and arrogant decision to try and make longterm/power users learn a whole new UI, rather than provide them with an alternative.

Here's a link which clearly illustrates exactly how well the Ribbon has been received by Excel users.
http://www.exceluser.com/explore/surveys/ribbon/results.htm

All in all, the Ribbon represents a giant leap backwards for many users. As such, the Story of the Ribbon is a tragedy!

As a full-time developer of automated Excel workbooks, I was eager to use Excel 2007 and take a close look at this new-fangled Ribbon.  I am unable to contain my profound disappointment.

As the other posters here have noted, the Ribbon is clearly aimed at folks who are something other than hard-core spreadsheet users.  Want to easily customize your menus?  Sorry (unless you can pack everything you want into the Quick Access Toolbar).  Need to work efficiently?  Sorry, you'll have to sort through layers of cartoonish menu groups and, if you think that finding things will be considerably more intuitive than in previous versions, well, sorry that too is not the case (e.g., looking to insert a row or column?  Don't look at the "Insert" group because it's not there, instead go to the "Home" group -- yeah, I know! That makes so much more sense!).  Do you want speed?  Oh, sorry, unless your spreadsheets are doing trivial calculations, you might want to skip Excel 2007 because you're just not going to believe how slow this thing is (especially if you're doing any sort of intensive number-crunching with VBA).

For the first time ever with any software from any vendor, I actually ended up reverting from the newest version of an application back to the previous version (Excel 2003).  I am confining all my development work solely to Excel 2003 and actively discouraging all of my clients from "upgrading" to Excel 2007.  Fortunately, my employer (global financial firm, 150,000 employees worldwide) reviewed Office 2007 and has no plans to implement it anytime soon given the ridiculously steep learning (or, should I say, re-learning) curve. 

Combine the awful Ribbon UI with the slow, death by neglect of VBA (does anyone actually believe VSTO is anywhere close to ready for primetime?) and Microsoft's objective seems abundantly clear: Office users doing simple stuff should use Google apps for free.  Office user doing more complex stuff should use Sun's Open Office, also for free.  As for Excel development professionals, well, you are hosed (unfortunately, Open Office's scripting environment, like VSTO is far from ready for primetime).

Ah well, it was a good run with Excel and hopefully Open Office will evolve its scripting environment and tools to something nice and useful so that we can all start migrating over to an otherwise pretty decent (and did I mention, free) office suite.  Excel 2003 will still be a good source of my income for a while but I will actively discourage all of my clients to stay far, far away from Excel 2007.  Windows Vista, Office 2007?  Wow Microsoft, when you decide to blow it, you can do so in a world-class, Titanic-hitting-the-iceberg way!

AK summed it up nicely: The Story of the Ribbon is indeed a tragedy.

I have just downloaded a demo version of Excel 2007 and I am still in the process of picking my jaw up from the floor.

The new 'ribbon' interface is nothing short of terrible. An ergonomic disaster zone. The one-line-only 'quick access toolbar' which, ludicrously, competes for space with the document title looks like an afterthought or perhaps an exercise in mocking long-time users of the product.

I use Excel at work every day - like hundreds of thousands of people in fact. To take away a perfectly useable, compact, easily-customizable menu/toolbar interface and to enforce an oversized, inflexible new one is an act of such irresponsible arrogance and stupidity it takes the breath away.

I can't quite believe I'm sitting here questioning whether I should upgrade to Vista due to the horror of the new Excel 2007 interface. But I am. I really am.

Do the developers of Excel actually use Excel every day? I guess they don't. I guess they are happy with their IDEs and they don't actually stop to consider what it's like for someone who has to use their product eight hours a day, every working day. I, for better or for worse, am condemned to use Excel most working days. When you force me to use three clicks instead of two for many repetitive and unspectacular tasks it feels like a personal affront.

It simply astonishes me that Microsoft, with its armies of intelligent, experienced programmers, is still capable of producing product-harming 'enhancements' like this.

Andrew

I would have to agree with the comments made by previous commentators - the ribbon reduced my productivity to a degree that's easily measured each day!  The keyboard shortcuts that we've grown used to should, at least, have been made available as a selectable option.  After years of expounding the increases in productivity available through adding the tools and features people really want to a custom toolbar, have been wasted and negated by having that facility removed in the latest incarnation.

Come on Office Team!  This has been a real retrograde step. :-(

New usability idea follows, but first:

I have been programming for Windows since 3.1.  I love .Net, but I can still write a message loop if I have to.

I write firmware.  I design hardware.  I know how to use hundreds of applications.

Yet, after two years, I still cannot efficiently use the ribbon bar.

That's pretty bad, I think you should consider it a condemnation.



Ok, enough with the complaints, here's the new idea:

Since we can't talk you into giving us back our old menu system, why not offer us a 'Power User Training Wheels' mode?  Here's how it would work.

You put up the "old menu" at the top of the screen, but it does not immediately execute the command.  Instead, when you select an option from it, an huge impossible-to-miss animated cursor pops up and goes through the motions of selecting the that command from the ribbon bar.

It would be a, "hey, I KNEW how to do it, but how do I do it now?" system.

It wouldn't take long to relearn the new system if there were any easy way to associate the old with the new.

I still think you should throw the ribbon bar in the trash, or at least give us the option of which style we'd like to use.

A quick point about old menus: you could click once, then move your cursor back and forth and speed-read the menus that would fall down.  Since they were close together, it was pretty easy to find things.  Now with the ribbon bar, I have to click once for each ribbon I open, and scan the entire screen left-to-right each time.  How could you have thought that would be faster?

New usability idea follows, but first:

I have been programming for Windows since 3.1.  I love .Net, but I can still write a message loop if I have to.

I write firmware.  I design hardware.  I know how to use hundreds of applications.

Yet, after two years, I still cannot efficiently use the ribbon bar.

That's pretty bad, I think you should consider it a condemnation.



Ok, enough with the complaints, here's the new idea:

Since we can't talk you into giving us back our old menu system, why not offer us a 'Power User Training Wheels' mode?  Here's how it would work.

You put up the "old menu" at the top of the screen, but it does not immediately execute the command.  Instead, when you select an option from it, an huge impossible-to-miss animated cursor pops up and goes through the motions of selecting the that command from the ribbon bar.

It would be a, "hey, I KNEW how to do it, but how do I do it now?" system.

It wouldn't take long to relearn the new system if there were any easy way to associate the old with the new.

I still think you should throw the ribbon bar in the trash, or at least give us the option of which style we'd like to use.

A quick point about old menus: you could click once, then move your cursor back and forth and speed-read the menus that would fall down.  Since they were close together, it was pretty easy to find things.  Now with the ribbon bar, I have to click once for each ribbon I open, and scan the entire screen left-to-right each time.  How could you have thought that would be faster?

Obviously MS cares not for its customers, but would rather devise programs which FORCE customers to do MS's bidding ... then figuratively tell you, "Oh, well, we're smarter than you and you DO like the changes ... you're just too ignorant to know that."
As for customer service ... ROFLMAO ... we aren't gonna tell ya for free, pay us some money and we'll tell ya Nope, you can't do that.
MS would do well to learn, "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, FIX IT."
Then, again, that would imply that they would fix things they KNOW are broken ... (sorry, cracked a rib laughing so hard).

If I've got to go through a MAJOR learning curve everytime I get a different computer or program because MS's "infinite wisdom" has decided I enjoy being inconvenienced, MAC won't need to do much more advertising ... MS is doing a fine job of converting users.

TOTALLY, COMPLETELY, UTTERLY DISGUSTED (other users have figured that out ... wrote it in caps in the event a MS person read it ... maybe that would make it clear????)

I have been using MS Word, Excel and Access for about 15 years. Though I've tested Open Office and other alternatives, they have never really met my expectations. Until now, I've been able to be productive and adapt the MS programs to my work and personal needs. I must say, though, that Office 2007 has made me think long and seriously about whether now wouldn't be the time to change. What are my gripes?

For my personal style of work, I like to customize most things to fit my needs. I customize the short-cut (context) menus removing unwanted or unneeded commands and adding those that I do use frequently, adapt the existing menus, add my own. Many of the menu items that I used are based on macros that I have developed and perfected over the years. And yes, I do use the "Work" menu extensively. That is to say, I used to... because now it is gone. To lose all  that flexibility has truly been a disappointment and definitely slows down my work flow considerably.

I agree with the comments of several above, that the menus are considerably faster and easier to use. I would like to see them back, together with the functionality that has been taken away. The ribbon, to me, gives the aspect of the contents of a child's toy box, strewn across a room, where a few things have fallen together, but most of the items you are looking for are no where to be found.

Of course, I realize that it is unlikely that a move will be made to return to what was used before. But it would be nice if at least some of the functionality could be returned. For example, if the ribbon itself were made customizable, allowing one to organize it and the specific commands where they want them to be (drag and drop), it would make it much more useful and there would only be the need to go hunting for that function that you can't find once. Of course, those who never knew the difference wouldn't need to worry about it. It is good that the ribbon can be minimize to get it out of your face. Why not make it customizeable as mentioned above, and give the user the option to have it expand either horizontally or vertically, adding the option to hide the different sections until they are clicked on? (Maybe that sounds too much like a menu?). At least in my case, it would make for a much better user experience.

The long and short of the matter, is that the current interface for me is not functional. I am a power user, accustomed to working hours every day with Microsoft Office. The new interface has truly made me feel like a novice, perhaps even more frustrated, because the novice doesn't know what he needs. I do, I simply can no longer determine where to find it.

Tens of millions of users, like me, learned and became familiar with the toolbars and menus in the Office applications. When MS forced Office 2007 down the throats of anyone buying a new PC after its introduction it pretty much demonstrated that it retains the arrogance that made people and regulatory agencies worldwide regard it as nothing more than a corporate bully.

There is no advantage to the Ribbon (I'm almost embarrassed to use the term Ribbon, to be honest with you) for experienced Office users. None. If I were a teenage kid just learning Office I'd have no complaint. But to basically do away with the keyboard shortcuts, menus, and toolbars that the rest of us basically grew up on was nothing short of an insult. This is the last time I'll purchase an Office product, unless they create a fully compatible plug-in that allows the use of the traditional menus. I'll go to Open Office or some other application before I'll pay even a dollar to MS for one of their applications.

Believe me, I've got an office full of unhappy co-workers and managers. Each time a work station is upgraded and we have to install Office 2007 yet another user starts screaming "Where the heck are the menus?" and, unfortunately, I'm one of the ones who gets the "How do you do this?" questions, only because I've spent so much time trying to learn the stupid programs. And I'm not an IT guy, I'm just a person in the financial department!

Classic menu from addintools sets it all straight, but at a cost. I manage a network of 500 machines and my wifes company has 6,000 users all at XP and Office 2003 because of Vista Licensing and the ribbon bar.  Windows 7 and KMS sort the licensing but if Office 2010 has the Ribbon, Microsoft will lose all those users to Open Office.

It seems that in some design lab somewhere, a really naive intern decided that it was a smart thing to do away with the file menu system and force The Ribbon upon us.  I could understand this if it were an *option* or if I could *customize* it to fit my needs and preferences.  I deeply resent having to relearn where everything is.  It makes me feel like I'm in Jr. High, when I've been using Office for almost as long as it's been available!  I spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out where the Page Setup option was!  Come on! 

"We the people" love innovation, but we abhor having it shoved down our throats.  If you are going to try a brand new (and possibly brilliant) idea such as the Ribbon, at least leave us with the option of keeping the familiar so we can *do our jobs!*

I hope somebody is paying attention to the hoards of Office users who are trembling with rage at what Microsoft has done to our productivity.  No matter how big you are, you cannot afford to force your customers to do what you want them to do and like it.  Whoever is running the show had better sit up and pay attention.

From MS Office Help pages:

Things you can't do
    * Add to or rearrange the commands on the Ribbon.
    * Change or remove a command or group on the Ribbon.
    * Add tabs to the Ribbon, unless you use XML and programming code.
    * Switch to the toolbars and menus from earlier versions of Microsoft Office.
    * Change the font or font size used on the Ribbon.

Need I say more?

as an IT lecturer forced to use the appalling Office 2007 can I register my disgust at Microsoft's decision to bring out the ribbon. It is a retrograde step in usability and indicates the companies contempt for its customers. The standard menu system has stood the test of time and the WORDS used in the menu system can NEVER be adequately replaced by idiotic and ambiguous ICONS. In my view icons were always designed for people who found reading difficult and never found a valid use for them. Menus and shortcuts rule as far as I am concerned.
To see productivity software like Office hampered by such a puerile and time-wasting interface is beyond my understanding. Bring back Office 2003  - thank goodness for Ribbon Customizer which at least gives Office 2007 users a fighting chance.
I should mention that none of my students find the Ribbon helpful - all prefer the conventional menu system they are used to.