Ribbons saga: Ribbons in Windows 7 and in Windows Live Wave 3
It all started yesterday when Stephen Chapman talked about new Paint in Windows 7 M3, and today guys over at LiveSide are publishing out screenshots of new Windows Live Wave 3 stuff. Common line: Ribbons are almost everywhere. But are they just missing the point?
Ribbons were introduced as user interface model with Microsoft Office 2007 release and since then they are making their way through numerous other applications – mostly developed by third parties.
But in the latest (or not so latest) move, Microsoft seems to be adding ribbons all over their products.
Newest Microsoft Dynamics family of products such are NAV or AX is featuring ribbons, but what about Microsoft Paint with ribbons?
Steve Chapman aka UX Evangelist yesterday posted a screenshot of new Microsoft Paint interface – and it features ribbons.
Guys over at LiveSide are busy with writing about new Windows Live releases – so called Wave 3 – and Windows Live Movie Maker features ribbons. But then again, Windows Live Writer is stuck with classical toolbars.
And Long Zheng is talking about Windows Scenic and finds out interesting facts about “new” DLL’s containing resources from Office 2007 Beta 2.
But, all those things aside – I can resist asking myself a question: Do we really need all those ribbons everywhere?
First things first – I really love Office 2007 interface and I will never ever return to something older than Office 2007 – and that is not just because of new DOCX, PPTX or XSLX data formats but almost purely because of great user interface. And ribbons were introduced to ease the use of Office interface in applications like Word, Excel or PowerPoint and to let users pick out options they need in just few clicks and to enable UI to adapt itself to current working context. I am talking about those groups and tools showing for tables or pictures when I am working with them.
But major point of ribbons is the fact that they are doing just great job in exposing vast number of features that were hidden in numerous menus and toolbar before. And that was all good for Word, Excel and other Office applications as well as for Microsoft Dynamics products.
But what about ribbons in Paint? Do they make any sense?
Well I would say yes but not wholeheartedly. I am happy to see ribbons implemented all over future Windows 7 operating system and Windows Live too, but I don’t like that fact of putting them in some applications just because “we can do that” principle. In Paint, ribbons are implemented quite fine – but having just two tabs (Home and View) is kind of missing the point of ribbons user interface idea.
But again, and to be fair, this is just Windows M3 – not even close to beta edition so lot of things might and most likely will change in future. For example, you can see really ugly black and white icons in status bar and honestly – that was something I noticed first.
As I’ve said yesterday in comments on UX Evangelist – I’m also concerned about Fitts’ law in Paint application so I keep my hopes alive that we will be able to see some kind of Mini Toolbar to provide easy access to the most-used formatting commands. Also, nice touch would be if some customization would be possible, taking into account that Mini Toolbar customization in Office 2007 applications is not supported.
If you are interested in Fitts’ law and its implementation in Office 2007, be sure not to miss this great article by Jensen Harris – Giving You Fitts.
What about ribbons in Windows Live Movie Maker?
Oh my, this is one where I have some certain doubts.
Again we have just two tabs – Home and Visual Effects. On first tab there are about 8 main options and on Visual Effects – three of them. And I think this is something that should be improved. Putting this small number of options into ribbons just does not makes much sense – they could all be on just one tab – but then we can’t talk about ribbons then, right?
I really like Windows Movie Maker and I’ve been working on several Movie Maker related projects for Microsoft Partners in Learning activities and this Windows Live Movie Maker just makes me feel bad. Not because of the idea of putting Windows Live Movie Maker for free download, separated from Windows (I sure Windows 7 won’t even include Windows Movie Maker but rather make it available as a separate download), but because of poor implementation of ribbons.
What is solution? Easier that you might think – add more features to Windows Live Movie Maker (it sure misses lots of them, see what LiveSide guys are thinking about that and then ribbons will shine!
Windows Live Writer – no ribbons at all.
WOW! But not that good one. Application that could be really making some sense with ribbons is not using them at all. Live Writer is full with options and with menus and some task panes – all of those could be nicely placed on ribbons and could look just like Office Word looks like. Please, give us ribbons in Windows Live Writer.
Regarding Live Writer, you know that WordPad in Windows 7 will feature ribbons, too? What’s next – Notepad with ribbons? Nope – Notepad will be all brand new in WPF 
So, what is your take about ribbons in applications? Do you believe that they are good step forward in establishing common and easy to use interface and that they should be implemented in every application? Or you have some other ideas? Feel free to share your thoughts.
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6 Responses to “ Ribbons saga: Ribbons in Windows 7 and in Windows Live Wave 3 ”
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- Ribbons saga continues: Ribbons in WordPad UI (Windows 7)
- New Microsoft Windows 7 screenshots (Taskbar, Scenic Ribbon...)
Notepad as a WPF app, are you kidding? From a 1 MB memory footprint to 125 MB and 18 seconds start-up time?
Well I don’t know if anything is going to happen with Notepad, but take a look here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080122/neowin-forum-review-windows-7-m1/
…and this one too: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=716
I’ve been looking for this exact info on this subject for a while.