[LINK] Even thieves don't want Vista

David Goldstein wavey_one at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 4 21:36:22 AEST 2008


Try a search for <"Microsoft Office 2007" usability>. It's not rocket science to realise the exact phrase is not likely to work. The phrase makes no sense to write in a sentence.

I guess it's a fair assumption that the vast majority of users don't use their computers the same way many people here on this list do. So experiences are going to be wildly different among different types of users.

That said, I'll say it again, my experiences with Vista have been very positive over the 16 months or so I've been using it, and I find it much better than XP.

David



----- Original Message ----
From: Ivan Trundle <ivan at itrundle.com>
To: Richard Chirgwin <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au>
Cc: Link List <link at anu.edu.au>
Sent: Monday, 1 September, 2008 3:01:21 PM
Subject: Re: [LINK] Even thieves don't want Vista


On 01/09/2008, at 2:41 PM, Richard Chirgwin wrote:

> Yes, this *is* a complaint about "getting to know Office". It's an
> extremely mundane program - WP, spreadsheet and presentations - and
> there's no good excuse to say to users "we want you to do things our  
> way
> and if you don't like it, tough, because we're ditching the menus and
> we're ditching the macros". In this, at least, I feel no compunction
> calling on the cliche that "the customer is always right": why  
> should I
> change my ways of working, just because someone in the design office  
> got
> bored with menus?

I tried a Google search for "Microsoft Office 2007 usability" and the  
response was 'No results found for "Microsoft Office 2007 usability".  
Fair enough. Without the quotes, once you get past the MS shills, some  
interesting gems surface about their 'Microsoft Office Fluent' UI.

I'm all for maximising space for content, and leaving menu items and  
toolbars at a bare minimum, and it looks as though Office 2007 fails  
to address this at all, and yet forces users to learn a new interface  
altogether.

It still stuns me that many user resort to menus and drop-downs/pop- 
ups, and avoid learning (or making) keyboard shortcuts: even for  
obvious things such as copy/paste/cut/undo/save/print.

iT
_______________________________________________
Link mailing list
Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link



      Win a MacBook Air or iPod touch with Yahoo!7. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/homepageset




More information about the Link mailing list