[IxDA Discuss] Critiquing the Office 2007 (was Re: Microsoft tolicense Office 2007 UI system)

[peter sikking]

David Malouf wrote:

> To me comqring iWork to Office is comparing apples to oranges.
> The legacy burden for office is so intense. It is just a comletely
> different design context qnd so the solutions should be different.

I can share some actual experience here:

In 2005 I ran a openOffice imPress re-design project.

practically speaking: imPress = powerpoint and has the same
mind-boggling number of features. I decided not to weasel out,
and ruthlessly slash features, but instead to work under the
real world conditions of product managers being addicted
to features.

During the project, hundreds of interaction architecture and
design decisions had to be taken. We evaluated 3-10 variants
for every one of them. The modern UI design principles
as implemented by apple in keynote proved themselves really well
in the context of the 3 times fatter imPress.

The perception of feature jungle can also be
mitigated by ruthless complexity reduction in the UI itself.

Some results can be seen here (note: this is a presentation for
a non-expert audience):

<http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/systemslecture2005.pdf>

     --ps

         principal user interaction architect
         man + machine interface works

         http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture