Re: [tdf-discuss] LibreOffice UI should be tweaked, not reinvented

2010/11/2 Scott Furry <scott.wl.furry@gmail.com>

>  On 02/11/10 12:05 PM, T. J. Brumfield wrote:
>
> > The OOo team has been working two years on Project Renaissance. And there
> > is
> > a long running thread here in the discuss archives of a UI prototype.
> > While
> > that particular prototype looks clean/sharp, I think all this dicussion on
> > radically altering the UI is unnecessary.
> <snip>
>
>  I truly believe the current approach works and should be maintained, but
> > improved. There might be some slight tweaks in how the menus are
> > organized.
> > Toolbar defaults might be optimized. And the overall UI could be shined up
> > with some gloss, new icons, gradients, spot color, etc.
> >
> > If anything, I think we should be going the opposite direction. Instead of
> > chasing the Ribbon of 2007/2010, I think we should embrace the abandoned
> > Office 2003 UI even more. Perhaps provide an option to all but completely
> > mimic it. People forget, but Microsoft used this tactic themselves,
> > allowing
> > an option for Word users to use Wordperfect key-mappings, and provided
> > specific help for Wordperfect Users trying to migrate to Word. Since we
> > know
> > most users coming to Lo/OOo are coming from Microsoft Office, shouldn't we
> > do our best to ease that transition?
> >
> > It would also be considerably less work than completely redesigning the UI
> > from scratch. That is more time that could be dedicated to improving the
> > project in other ways.
> >
> > -- T. J. Brumfield
> +1
> Thanks T. J. for putting into words what I was thinking about the UI
> redesign.
>
> I concur with this thinking. Why re-invent an unpopular feature. This kind
> of idea was brought up when OOo unveiled a ribbon-like interface. Just
> because we can redo the UI doesn't mean we should. Can we avoid the
> "bikeshedding" and "chasing after the cool kids", please?
>
> I vote for the application of the K.I.S.S. principle.

I'd like some progress on the UI front in LibO. To be honest, I'd say most
LibO competitors (MS Office, AbiWord, iWork, Google Docs, ...) have better
UIs than LibO. That's because LibO has tons of features that are just put
under some menu without much consideration about how an average user would
look through these features. Where LibO absolutely fails is its Options
window -- it's absolutely unusable.

I'd say LibO's UI should change incrementally. It shouldn't copy MS (I don't
need or want the Ribbon on LibO) and it should be well thought-out and
shouldn't force a long-time user to relearn.

I'd begin by implementing command search:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/Command_search and
by making customized interfaces saveable (so that companies could have the
same setup on all their computers): that would make it much easier to find
commands and it would make it possible to keep using an old custom UI even
if LibO's default UI changes.

And only then, when there's no worry about having to learn something new,
should the UI change.

> Scott Furry
>
>
>
>
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