Comment by beagle3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by beagle3 | Hacker News Reader

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> Of course the biggest cliche is that Microsoft has failed to innovate. This despite creating two new UX paradigms - the ribbon and Metro - not just implementing a PARC based UI on a touch screen

"Innovation" != "Different Idea".

I'm sure some people like Ribbon or Metro, but I haven't met any; I've been looking for WP7 "in the wild", and over the last 6 months found exactly one.

Intel innovated with the Itanium - but that wasn't useful innovation.

> where does that put Kinect?

In the PrimeSense / 3DV innovation camp. Yes, MS did bring it to the masses. But they didn't get the thing working themselves - they licensed from one innovator, and bought (and closed down) the other, shutting everyone else out of that market for a while.

Personally, I think Metro and Ribbon are both from the same design school: They look beautiful when you look at someone else using them, but they actually get in the way when you're trying to get things done. I've spent an hour playing with a Metro based WP7 to see what it's about; I feel that their "throw all other tiles, then replace the one you pressed" wastes time. I know what I pressed - let me get there.

If you live in Seattle you'll see WP7 phones in the wild. They're all owned by Microsoft employees however.

> WP7 phones in the wild. They're all owned by Microsoft employees however.

Well, that's a reserve around their natural habitat. It's a far cry from "in the wild".

Same in Finland, where Nokia is headquartered

I for one, really like the ribbon version of Excel and Word. I'm not as happy with ribbon PowerPoint. I don't use Outlook.

I work at a company with a large contingent of non-Windows users. (several thousand people on CATIA workstations, most have done little to zero MS Office work, most are fairly internet/computer illiterate). Ribbon based Office works very well for them. They weren't proficient at the old office and the ribbon is a lot more approachable.

The same goes for my parents. They can get a lot more done in the new office vs the old office.

I think most of the negative opinions on ribbon come from people that were good with the old interface. The transition to the ribbon was all pain with no pay off. But for those that couldn't navigate the old office (many people), the ribbon makes finding functionality a lot easier.

Your point about licensing vs inventing a lot of the technology is fairly moot, Apple licensed a bunch of the multi-touch technology from various inventors (including the university I went to).

> I think most of the negative opinions on ribbon come from people that were good with the old interface. The transition to the ribbon was all pain with no pay off. But for those that couldn't navigate the old office (many people), the ribbon makes finding functionality a lot easier.

I suspect you are correct. The big question I have no answer about is what percentage of users was good with the old interface. If it was <10%, the ribbon is definitely warranted. If it was >80% ... maybe not so much.

An additional data point - my parents weren't really good with the old interface (need to call beagle3 tech support often), and the ribbon only made it harder for them (and for me, because it is harder to describe over the phone).

> Your point about licensing vs inventing a lot of the technology is fairly moot, Apple licensed a bunch of the multi-touch technology from various inventors (including the university I went to).

I don't disagree.

I'm amused that whenever someone says "Microsoft/Google is $UNFLATTERING_ADJECTIVE", the retort is "Apple is just as $UNFLATTERING_ADJECTIVE if not worse!", even if that was the first mention of Apple in the discussion.

So, to elucidate my point - the GP mentioned Kinect as a proof that Microsoft is a top notch innovator; They may very well be, but what I was saying was that Kinect is not an example for that.

> I suspect you are correct. The big question I have no answer about is what percentage of users was good with the old interface. If it was <10%, the ribbon is definitely warranted. If it was >80% ... maybe not so much.

My experience is that number was probably way lower than 10% -- basically, most people use Word as glorified typewriter. They do know to change font, and that's it. They indent/center text by inserting spaces in the front. They have no idea how to insert image..

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