Jensen Harris of the Office 2007 design team tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Ribbon at MIX08. He covers early prototypes, mistakes, and the UX principles used to design and validate it.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN points to it to explain the design rationale behind the Ribbon and why the older menu and toolbar interface had accumulated too much cruft.
“he certainly made a good case for how the older interface had accumulated way too much cruft”HN comment, 2020
“Being surprised by Microsoft employing the ribbon and persistent UI elements in a redesign of any software product is nothing short utter cluelessness.”
Story of the Office ribbon design rationale
Full comment
> "It seems that essentially, every single command that customers have used or requested has been moved into a ribbon or wedged into some corner of the chrome. And many are rightfully lambasting it." Being surprised by Microsoft employing the ribbon and persistent UI elements in a redesign of any software product is nothing short utter cluelessness. The story of the ribbon: [ this video ]
Cites itbrudgersFeb 2014
“the UX design methodology described in The Story of the Ribbon.”
Full comment
I have a third theory: The theory behind Unity was a theory and not based on empirical data collected from actual users. I am not comparing the design process to focus groups etc. but to the UX design methodology described in The Story of the Ribbon. this video
Cites itrichevSep 2018
“when I understood the rationale behind it (which was covered at MIX08[0])”
Explains the rationale behind the Office 2007 ribbon
Full comment
I actually really liked it when Office 2007 introduced the ribbon, in particular when I understood the rationale behind it (which was covered at MIX08[0]). this video
Cites itghaffJul 2020
“he certainly made a good case for how the older interface had accumulated way too much cruft”
Designer presentation on why the old Office interface needed replacing
Full comment
I never loved the ribbon and I suspect that Microsoft underestimated how disruptive the change was for a lot of people. However, I saw a presentation by one of the lead designers around the time that it was introduced and he certainly made a good case for how the older interface had accumulated way too much cruft. ADDED: Ah, this is probably it: this video (That said, MS Office in general had been loaded with so many functions that 1% of users used but that were absolutely essential to some 1% that it's something of a mess anyway. It's one reason I prefer the relative simplicity of GSuite these days.)
