OpenOffice UI Design Proposals Published 252
An anonymous reader writes "Various members of the OpenOffice.org community have been submitting their first revisions of proposals to the OpenOffice.org Call for Design Proposals to redesign the user interface of Open Office. As part of Project Renaissance, attention is being drawn to the OpenOffice user interface, and it's 'user-friendliness.' Among the designs, is FLUX UI, which won an award at the Sun Microsystems Community Innovation Awards Program. Anyone can, and is encouraged, to check out the proposals (scroll to bottom of page) and leave your comments so that the designers can improve their designs for the final deadline for proposal submissions to the community."
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't forget to make sure it's difficult for the visually impaired to use, and impossible for those relying on screen readers to explore the interface as a sighted person could do! You're 99% of the way there already, I'm sure you can come up with the remaining 1%
Re:Is there something WRONG with the file menu? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with the standard menu and toolbars is that they don't scale. As each new release of hte product adds new functions, you add more menus and more toolbars and pretty soon your screen is full of toolbars, and you can't find anything in your menus (the stupid auto-hiding menus of Office 2000 was an attempt to deal with this issue, and everyone hated it).
Like it or not, those that give the Ribbon a real chance like it. They find it easier to use. New users find the Ribbon more intuitive.
It's only the people who are set in their ways and those that have to be "trained" in everything they do that hve trouble with the transition.
This is not to say that OOo should have a ribbon. Just that there are real reasons why MS moved to it, and OOo is starting to see some of the same problems. They have to do something.
Re:Is there something WRONG with the file menu? (Score:3, Interesting)
For me, the oddest placement is not on the File menu but on the Edit menu: why is Navigate there? I would think that it should go on the View menu like the various toolbars.
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:3, Interesting)
Difficult for the Visually impaired? How so?
I actually have an eyesight problem myself, it's nothing MAJOR in the sense that I can't do everyday tasks (I can't, I just can't see clearly very far). I blow up the font a little bit and I'm all right and for me, personally, the ribbon interface that people seem to hate so much is a godsend. I can easily tell what every button does without squinting, but then again, I never feel the need to use an on-screen reader or whatever. However my first inclination is that the ribbon interface isn't at fault for "breaking" them, but rather the on-screen reader programs just haven't been updated to handle the new interface.
Re:Is there something WRONG with the file menu? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it all works pretty well.
I agree, but the main reason that we have a menu bar is to conserve screen space. As screens have gotten larger and larger, so have the numbers of toolbars and pallets and other GUI elements that make everything one-click away instead of two. So, in fact, the menubar paradigm HAS changed - just so slowly that you might not have noticed.
Anyway, I'm all for reorganizing the interface, but there should be some way to hide all the ribbony stuff when you are on a machine with a small screen where menus still make the most sense. I've never tried to use Office 2007 on a netbook, but I'd wager it is a sick joke.
OO needs no UI redesign (Score:3, Interesting)
What,
It needs is a significant amount of effort bringing the graphs in Calc up to a level that even approachs what was available way back in 1986 in Lotus 123.
Calc's graphs are a MAJOR stumbling block to my being able to push OO to clients as an alternative to XL.
Redesign graphs, enhance them, whatever you want to call it, fix them please....
Re:Is there something WRONG with the file menu? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think there is anything wrong with it, but when it starts to fill up it does get more cumbersome.
I took a job not too long ago where I was in word 90% of the day. Writing business requirements and the lot.
At the time I had a laptop with Office 2003 and a desktop with Office 2007. For the first little bit I wasn't all that impressed with ribbons, after a few months I dreaded having to use the laptop with Office 2003.
Change is becoming a harder and harder sell. So many people are trained to one approach that any change whether it is actually better or not is going to come with some resistance. If it's not broke don't fix it mantra. It isn't broke, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way.
The round button is annoying and I'd rather they just left a stripped down version of the menu in there. The quick bar and subsequent short cut keys have come in handy and so now it isn't even that big of a deal to me...to start it was definately confusing. As I'm sure getting rid of the "Start" button in Windows was as well.
Same thing happened to my wife when I started using Ubuntu at home. Took her about a minute to find the top bar, but now it is just part of the deal. She hated Firefox at first, but now doesn't really mind it. At the end of the day things are very similiar.
Most people who use Office use Office. They are not just typing up some simple little paper, but are in there doing crazy layouts where the new templates in 2007 come in handy. Features slashdot reader might not even know about are used everyday.
I use OpenOffice 3 at home now and I do find it fairly clumsly to find the some of the more obsure stuff in the menus. It can still take a bit of time with the ribbons, but overall I find it to be more user friendly. Also, the button on the ribbon themselves have been enchanced since Office 2003. In Excel the new conditional formatting is much better. Word has previews all over the place where changing the font actually changes it on the screen before click okay...so you get an acutally preview quickly.
The ribbons are a nice addon to Office 2007, but alos there is a lot of useful features. If your a student writing papers or just writing a note to the editor I think you could get by with pretty much anything.
If you like vi then I'd have to ask for you to just sit quitely in the back. To each his own and this conversation is for the GUI lovers :)
Re:Is there something WRONG with the file menu? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with the Ribbon is that each Ribbon (Ribbon-Tab?) is Function Oriented, rather than Task Oriented. Each Ribbon is effectively a fancy GUI version of a pull down menu for that function.
The Flex example in the article appears to be Task Oriented, so even though it may seem to have some Ribbon-like features in it, it actually could turn out to be quite different. It will be interesting to see how it finally gets implemented, I suspect it will end up Function Oriented because it's easier to implement.
Re:Boredom (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever look at the difference between the old analog aircraft gauges and the newer strip-based instruments in glass cockpits? There's a massive difference. Looking at the Cessna 172S and comparing the analog to G1000 versions, the turn coordinator is different, the airspeed indicator and altimeter are now sliding strips, and all of them are overlaid on the horizon indicator, which is now essentially the size of the screen. There are enough differences that a pilot moving from analog to G1000 generally has to be checked out before being allowed to fly it.
Interface overhauls should be carefully considered, but suggesting that they should never happen is akin to announcing that nothing more can be invented. That's been declared by many people over time, and they are often proven incorrect.
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it that developers think they need to move crap around or redesign so that they frustrate users? Is it some kind of sick game?
Because that's what Microsoft does. See, if you're going to release a new application or operating system and ask customers to pay for the upgrade, it helps if you offer new functionality that the customers can use. However, developing new functionality that's actually useful is difficult, and if you aren't able or aren't willing to do that, then the next best thing is to make it look very different. Ideally it will look much better, but as Windows XP's Luna theme has proven, "different" is enough.
Because if something looks different enough, human psychology makes people think that it is actually different. Also, culturally, we're disposed to think that newer+different=better. Therefore, people will pay to upgrade even if they don't stand to benefit.
So with each new version of Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office, they always change the UI even if the functionality is the same. At the very least, they apply a new skin and shuffle around which controls go where.
I'm not sure, though, what the benefit is for FOSS. It's not like people are going to pay to upgrade to the new version of OpenOffice.
The idea behind ribbon isn't bad (Score:2, Interesting)
I suggested something similar on ubuntuforums a couple of years back and got shot down instantly. But the idea behind flux/ribbon is actually really good. Hide buttons that you arn't using at the moment and give the document more space.
Menubar:Replace the main menubar with a menubutton [mozilla.org], use this to show all menu bar buttons that aren't shown by menu buttons that are spread out at the appropriate ends of the main toolbar (help)
Buttons: you are likely only interacting with one thing at a time, if define usage cases narrowly enough to put all the relevant tools on a toolbar but widely enough that there are only a few settings, then you can save space (or give more space to just the relevant tools). /print/save/open/new) and read (auto-hide the entire toolbar, giving 100% of screen estate to the document)
*Some Actions can be done from any of the states Copy/undo stick this outside of a "container"
*Bind keys&buttons (automatically based on selection?) to toggle whats in the "container"
*Imo the container should be editing text/ editing pictures/layout(including columns & tables)/document(changing setting
|Menubutton(s)|permanent buttons|toggles:relevant buttons|help|
Customizations:Make the whole thing customizable (if the relevant buttons are to big to fit in the provided space that section should be the first to loose space (be it only showing the 1st few and adding an arrow or allowing scrolling though the relevant buttons)) and allow users to define thier own usage cases, with repeated buttons (looking at you kde3) and thier own triggers (some people want to go straight to the text editing menu as soon as they select text others dont).
Make the whole look changeable (companies may want to replace the default menu button with a company logo? or make the whole thing bright pink?)
Allow the different sections to be separated (so you could give the relevant buttons an entire tool bar underneath)
Allow different toolbars to use different sized icons
Providing too much customization is not a bad thing as long as most people can use the defaults.
|Menubuttons|_____toggles_____|help|
|permanent buttons|relevant buttons|
Themes:Provide an easy&safe way to save/share a theme.
Provide sane defaults and get it out there, during the next release cycle look at which themes popular (you'll probably find there to be a few popular themes, classic, ribbon, office, geek, flashy) and ship them with the next release. There is no point in doing research designing what you thing is a good compromise for the work load that office/home users put their suite through, when you can just put a version out there and see what people do with it.
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:5, Interesting)
Well on the other hand if new users are trained to use ribbons coping that interface might be beneficial.
Now some aspects in OO.o are just horrible, the color picker looks *and works* like something straight from 1994.
I think they should ask for help or at least inspiration from AbiWord.
Abiword has a wonderful UI, minimalistic yet does 99% of what you want. It's colorful and even cute yet still looks professional. The icons represent exactly what they mean, the menu structure is very intuitive etc.
The problem of Abiworld is that it can't do *every fukken thing imaginable*, you can --for instance-- underline and/or overline and/or strike anytext, but always using the same color of the font. AFAIK in OO.o 3 you will be able to use 3 different colors for that. I'd personally stab anyone who sends me a document with multiple colors per font.
In principle you could apply Abiword's elegant GUI design to all the features in OO.o, it just will be a lot of work. But it would still be intuitive and standard.
This FLUX is both nonstandard and a cheap rip off.
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm really starting to think that all these people that need extensive training to use office software should be out back shoveling sand over a wall. I mean, if they can't get the basics in 10 minutes of clickly-clicky, I shudder to think the pearls of wisdom that will emerge once they get down to 'work'.
Re:Boredom (Score:3, Interesting)
The issue is, it's only needless to *you*. Are we to assume that standards and abilities apply across the entire user base? For others, it might be a total clusterf*ck in the old version, and the new one clears up every single issue they ever had. I gotta tell you, I tried OO.org, and it felt like I was using Win95 again. I have no idea if it was actually a bad program or not, but I absolutely couldn't use it. I have it as an emergency app on my flash drive, but I pray I never have to use it. Being OSS, I think the strength would be that we can BOTH be satisfied. I cannot see any reason that they wouldn't be able to make a redesigned UI, and then someone can find a way to make a plug-in to emulate the old UI.
Re:Mod me down, boys... (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple is the company that set themselves up so that if they don't do something new and original, they will be shot into the ground. This usually includes breaking backward compatibility randomly and making new custom interfaces. Microsoft is the company that set themselves up so that if they do something new and original, they will be shot into the ground. This usually includes not breaking backward compatibility at all costs and keeping things familiar.
I think a lot of the jokes that appear on slashdot reflect what people see and not necessarily how they feel about the ribbon. You go into an office as an IT person who has updated the machines the night before to the new version of office and and see a bunch of helpless noobs unable to quit their program.
I agree with you about Gnome and KDE. You could always try awesome [naquadah.org]...
Re:I had some ideas, but they are pretty "out ther (Score:2, Interesting)
I happen to Like Microsoft's 2008 ribbon. It got rid of the redundancy of having a toolbar and menus. It was a good idea on their part to simplify the interface in such a way. I'd hate to say it Microsoft devs once and a while do some things right.
Re:Mod me down, boys... (Score:3, Interesting)
You know what I find interesting? Every single real human being that I've talked to has hated the ribbons. This includes people who are barely computer literate and hard-core linux users who write code for a living. Yet, on slashdot, I consistently see comments like the grand-parent modded up, e.g. some story about how after a while of using the ribbons they get used to it and have at least "twice the productivity" (whatever that means). Either, a) I'm talking to too small of a sample size of real humans to get meaningful data (probably about 5 people total, I'm not in the polling business), b) slashdot users are different from most other users, or c) slashdot is filled with MS astroturfers. I'm guessing it's a combination of all three.
Another thing I see a lot on slashdot is that a lot of people who makes a comment critical of Windows here, or favorable towards Apple, get at least one troll mod. or if at least an overrated mod (even at a base moderation score). I guess I shouldn't be surprised that uou can't actually trust any of the moderators (and hence readers) to even try to be unbiased but still, for a site that started as a linux-favorable site, it's drifted pretty far towards a pro-MS site. It pretty much sucks actually, because I don't ever get mod points any more because I make some of these "controversial" posts.
Re:Hide all the menus... (Score:4, Interesting)
You jest, but who ever forgot the keyboard bindings for Word 5 for DOS? Those function key guides were very useful, and keyboard shortcuts were far more useful as a result.