A MIX08 session from Microsoft's Office team on how the Office 2007 ribbon was designed. It explains the user-feedback and telemetry behind it and the alternatives that were rejected.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN recommends it for its in-depth view of a major UI redesign process driven by user data.
“some guys from MS actually talk through the design process and everything that went into it with a lot of depth”HN comment, 2024
Why Microsoft chose the ribbon, driven by user feedback and telemetry
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There’s a lot of interesting history that I think this comment ignores. The office 2007 project was one of their more heavily feedback-driven initiatives; had they been paying attention the same way for Windows 8, it likely would have looked a lot more like Windows 10. Really interesting talk: this video They had really good reasons for using the ribbon, not the least of which was that people weren’t finding the features they needed. That was all driven by telemetry back before it was considered the evilest of evils. I’m amazed that you’re still bitter after 13 years. Afaict actual user preference is strongly for the ribbon, minus a very vocal minority that were bothered by the change. Office 2007 was in fact not the boon for OpenOffice that was predicted. edit: tone, realized it came across as not as respectful as I intended
RecommendssaratogacxJan 2024
“some guys from MS actually talk through the design process and everything that went into it with a lot of depth”
MS designers walk through ribbon design process and rejected alternatives in depth
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There's an old MIX08 video where some guys from MS actually talk through the design process and everything that went into it with a lot of depth as well as looking at alternative ideas and why they didn't work. this video
Cites ittroupoSep 2025
“and there's a presentation, too”
Presentation accompanying Microsoft's command usage research
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With Word especially (and probably with any software approaching anything that can be viewed as professional) the long tail is unbelievably long, and "users only care about 20% of your application" may actually become "users may only care about 20% where no two users share the same 20%". Here's Microsoft's own research on it from an era when people were actually doing research: link --- start quote --- Beyond the top 10 commands or so, however, the curve flattens out considerably. The percentage difference in usage between the #100 command ("Accept Change") and the #400 command ("Reset Picture") is about the same in difference between #1 and #11 ("Change Font Size") --- end quote --- The whole series is great: link and there's a presentation, too: this video
