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TG2

But therein lay the problem … some of the commands are *not* the same … in both cases with WordPad … you clicked the button with the white sheet of paper which does “New Document” … MICROSOFT changed the defaults of the button! In XP it gives you the choice of document type, in case you were doing something that you needed text only, RTF or Unicode .. what’s the default now in Windows 8? unicode? how do you know? and so if I wanted to make it Text only in Win 8 then what? I wouldn’t have the ability till I did save as? Or I would have to find an options button somewhere so that I’m restricted to ONLY what can be done in text mode? And how does *that* effect the Save As if I’d have to do it when saving, rather than starting with text only?
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And it isn’t just about the clicks required … just as you turned on toolbars that were optimized (microsoft’s selections) to include additional functionality .. those are advancements and changes microsoft made in the newer version … if they wanted they could update the toolbar in their old version …
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I’m surprised you didn’t say “oh and you can’t insert a JPG in Wordpad XP”.
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And lastly .. Copy and Paste … in any application … in Windows XP … when you select it in the menus of the basic programs.. what do you see there? Keyboard Shortcuts … one of the reasons? Because on the basic tools, you’re treated to a learning experience without being told you’re getting a learning experience.
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At some point … your brain should have realized CTRL C and CTRL V are for Copy and Paste … but there is no such thing in Windows 8 … its just buttons.. how would you know that CTRL C & V do what they do? How would you know anything about what keyboard shortcuts are or do? You’d have to see someone do it.. or read about it somewhere..
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You pick the basic tools and miss one of the reasons they were included in the first place.. to give users some functionality and to start them on a basic learning curve.. all someone learns with Windows 8 is how to move their mouse hand more.
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Everyone *could* use a typewriter to do a letter … why even bother to do it in Wordpad? Just as time goes on… and you realize you need more functionality WordPad isn’t the program you open, you’ve got MS Word/Office, or WordPerfect, or even OpenOffice applications that perform more than the “basic” functions.
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And in time you graduate so you’re not using Wordpad, or paint … although sometimes the simple tools are still used, but I’ve not used wordpad since the last time I looked at one of microsoft’s idiotic “Release Notes” documents, I do still dabble with Paint when I do a screen shot or want a simple resize (Image -> Stretch/Skew enter a % less than 100) But wordpad? doesn’t happen in my world.
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The ribbon bar isn’t just about click through, but optimization, and training. Give an idiot a Ribbon Bar for copy/paste, and I’ll show you someone that thinks you’re a god when you can do CTRL C/V. (especially in Paint, good god why would you waste your time moving the mouse after selecting the item, to go all the way up to copy/paste, edit menu or not)

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

Regarding the document type – you can specify it during the Save As operation. There you choose if you want a text file, a Microsoft Office Word document, an RTF, etc.

As for the fact that the old interface showed you the keyboard shortcuts, that’s still being done in Windows 8. If you keep your mouse over a button, you will see its name, a short description of what it does and the keyboard shortcut. The education is still being done.

I think the idea behind the ribbon is that most users still use the mouse for most tasks. Only “power users” such as you or me will use many keyboard shortcuts. And, for people who are not like us, the ribbon works better. They have all the buttons available there and for some tasks it takes less steps to do the same thing.

Now… regarding the usage of WordPad instead of Microsoft Office Word or other solutions – that’s a personal choice and not the subject of this article. We simply wanted to benchmark the ribbon in all the applications where it is used in Windows 8.

TG2

Right.. mouse reliance yet again. File-Help menus are Alt+Key activated and don’t require waiting for “on hover” (plus on XP you could easily set menus to always show the underline for “alt” activated itmes)
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and then there’s the “during save/save-as” for file type. That’s all fine and well, but again during the creation of the document it gives you full access to all types of tools that are wasted the moment you save something as text. (wordpad vista did the same thing if you changed the default from not showing the format bar, ruler, etc) So in the comparison, what happens is that microsoft just presumes to give you full functionality, and then force you to choose on the back end without a clear or better understanding of the differences. Thus the loss of a click or two for “new” simply because they defaulted your choice, rather than giving you one before you hit the “save” button.
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And one dig that I hadn’t yet pulled out against the ribbons, which most people quip that you can just “hide” or “auto-hide” is the space those ribbons occupy. They don’t just display as an overlay, they actively shift the edit/display area.
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One of the worst offenders in this case is Outlook. You’re typing an email, the body of the email doesn’t “scroll” the screen until your cursor is at the bottom of the email window … then you need to activate the “auto-hidden” ribbon, which shifts your typed body and cursor 5 or more lines off the bottom of the view area.
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Classified as smart? No. not even remotely. Microsoft treated the ribbon as a Toolbar, rather than a Menu system. The difference, a toolbar has a set place that if you display the toolbar, it will take up X space and shift the viewable area around … duh, that’s the problem, menus don’t do that, they are opaque or can be a degree of transparent but they appear over top of, not squishing itself into any given area
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The only way the ribbon bars will have a place for me, is if they activate and hide like the standard menu system in XP does. You don’t see the items on the “edit” menu till you activate the Edit menu.. then how Microsoft decides to show you the tools for Edit is up to them, though I would argue that they still need to give choice to the user, if I want buttons and icons or with/without text, that’s one thing… if I don’t want them, I should have the option to make those items smaller or text only (like the menu system in xp currently is).

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

Regarding choosing the format of a new document in WordPad only when you save it – I agree with you that it can be wasteful if you plan to write a text file and you start to do formatting of the text. Even though, it might not be a real problem. People most probably use Notepad to write a small text, without formating and use WordPad when they want to create a small, formatted document. And then, this whole discussion is moot.

Anyway, the analysis I made was not about that. I only counted the number of clicks needed to execute a task using both interfaces. And yes… you need to make less clicks to do the same thing. Which means some time savings for users.

TG2

Ok the number of clicks.. but example “New Document” it wasn’t the button that changed.. the same button “New Document” is there in both programs.

The button does the exact same function, start a new document… it was Microsoft that changed the assumption about what type of document was to be defaulted. So the “Ribbon” doesn’t get this “point” or score for something it did no differently.

In wordpad xp/vista … if you do “File New” you get the same prompt for document type … if there were a “File” menu in word pad, and it had a “new” that would have changed as well … again not because of the ribbon, but because microsoft altered their functions’ defaulted selections.

(& apologies for using Periods as paragraph separators in longer text, for what ever reason HTML/Text only the editor just will not put in an extra return!)

vgamesx1

“Anyway, the analysis I made was not about that. I only counted the number of clicks needed to execute a task using both interfaces. And yes… you need to make less clicks to do the same thing. Which means some time savings for users.”

Not true, this is about efficiency – since the title is “Is the New Ribbon Interface More Efficient?”
so this article is all bull crap. you can’t measure efficiency based on just the number of clicks.
it may take fewer clicks for most tasks but that does not make ir more efficient at all such as, for example letss compare office 2005 to 2007.
ok it takes me a about a minuite to find a single button in the Ribbon UI say – “new header button”
now in 2005 it would take me 10 – 30 sec to look across about 3 command bars and find – “insert new header”
thus I lost a good amount of time just finding a button then after more typing I have to find say – “new paragraph”.
and not only this but you can sometimes get lost in the Ribbon UI, its true for both that the more you use it the easier it is to use, but the difference is.
Ribbon you have to remember the “Tab” plus the location of the button.
on 2005 you only have to remember the location of the button.
plus having past button at the top of the screen is useless because a right-click paste would leave the mouse closer to your work.

so I agree with Niels the Ribbon UI needs to go, I learned how to use shortcuts like Crtl+C/V myself by using programs like office 2005 which display a shortcut next to the command, like right now if you pressed Alt in IE or FF and then clicked “edit” you would see (cut/copy/paste) with Crtl+X/C/V next to it.

Need to try and get people to learn shortcuts to make work and such easier.
NOT make it easier my putting a pretty little button as a shortcut.

john3347

“And yes… you need to make less clicks to do the same thing. Which means some time savings for users.”

This does not hold true because the “mouse user” loses a lot of time hunting for the unintuitively hidden selection in the current ribbon system. The menu system is FAR more intuitive and therefore does not waste time hunting for the command that they need. I can type a letter in less time in Zoho than I can in Word 2007 or Word 2010 because of the inefficient ribbon. Mouse clicks is not the only factor in efficiency. I submit that the average ‘susan secretary’ will do more work in a given amount of time with a menu system than with a ribbon system. This is the test of efficiency.

Margaret Bartley

” At some point … your brain should have realized CTRL C and CTRL V are for Copy and Paste … but there is no such thing in Windows 8 … its just buttons.. how would you know that CTRL C & V do what they do? ”

I believe that is the point. If you are using a browser to do your work (everything is stored on MS cloud, and you have a subscription to your Office apps, accessing through the web) keyboard shortcuts don’t work.

MS is training their users – training them to use the browser as everything, including creating content,moves from your desktop to the web.

john3347

I was not going to even comment on these latest “findings”, however I do wish to take one point in your response to TG2 to task. “Only “power users” such as you or me will use many keyboard shortcuts. And, for people who are not like us, the ribbon works better.” In my experience, the exact opposite is true. It is true that the typical user uses the mouse rather than keyboard shortcuts, but that is the end of the accuracy of this statement. I am a 70 year old who has used personal computers to perform certain functions since the mid ’80s. The computer has primarily been nothing but a tool and has been not the end product, but only a means to the end product. I am not a power user (aka computer geek) and do not use command lines and use very few keyboard shortcuts. My mind does not do pure memory work well and needs to proceed via a logical path from the beginning to the end of a process. I do believe that I am in the vast MAJORITY of computer users and far more typical in overall skill level. I spend much time with the ribbon searching for some given function that is hidden by “power user” developers who developed the application for “power users” and have ignored the needs of the typical “non power user”. The ribbon, tho improved from the original Office 2007 ribbon, is still anything in the world BUT intuitive in comparison with the old drop down menu format and one step DOES NOT logically lead to the next step for the typical logically thinking user. It is only the power user who has better than typical pure memory capacity who can even claim to effectively use the ribbon.

I assume that the empirical data in your testing to be accurate, but I also assume that personal preference has considerably influenced your conclusion. While I have not conducted such a test as you describe here, and do not use Paint or Notepad due to the adoption of the inefficient and non-intuitive ribbon, I find that I can produce a Publisher document consisting of photographs, various text boxes, word art, etc. (for instance), much quicker in Publisher 2003 (or Publisher 97) than in Publisher 2010 due to the inefficient, non-intuitive “memory-intensive” ribbon.

Microsoft has left us more typical users out in the cold with their “power user” influenced, screen robbing ribbon.

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

The conclusion of the article is based on the numbers I’ve seen when making the tests. There are savings in number of clicks you make when working only with the mouse. That’s all. I did my best to be as less biased as possible.

I did not evaluate if the ribbon is organized in a more “logical” manner or not.

Also, most people keep referring to Microsoft Office. I think that the ribbon in Microsoft Office is a different story than that from Windows 8. In Windows 8 you have relatively simple applications with a limited number of options and features. This means that on the ribbon you will have all the options visible, accessible and split into a small (and mostly more logical) number of tabs.

While in Microsoft Office you have a plethora of options and features crammed in a limited ribbon space. This means that Microsoft had to “cut corners” in this product, more than it did in Windows 8. Therefore while you might be frustrated by the ribbon in Microsoft Office, you might not be as much in Windows 8.

Now… regarding the logical split of options… that’s a very subjective evaluation. To me it is logical while to other people it is not. Here I don’t think we will ever agree. There is no conclusion that applies to all use-cases & users.

josil

My ribbon experience is mostly with Word, and for that it has been grossly inefficient. I find the number of keystrokes to be a meaningless measure compared to the time spent searching for the functions needed to perform certain tasks…or, more often, to overcome keystroke errors. This is no criticism about what the article set out to do. Of course, what is easy to measure is often not what counts, and what counts is difficult to measure.

Dario D.

Nice article! Ciprian, you might also be interested in one that I did, on Windows 7, taking a similar look at the taskbar (and other things):
http://www.alphaila.com/articles/failure/how-windows-7-is-epic-fail/

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

I’m sorry but the article you reference is only a collection of frustrations, not a true analysis. Also, some of your frustrations are generated by the fact that you did not really understand certain features and how they work. They are not necessarily broken. Just your understanding of them is.

Dario D.

Nice comparison. 🙂
Have you considered giving more frequently-used features more “weight” in determining the final score? (for example, in the ribbon comparison, “Go back” would have more weight than some of the features that are hardly used.) Such a thing would show the actual, real-world value of each interface even better. 🙂
Great job, regardless.

Ciprian Adrian Rusen

That would have complicated things a lot and would have introduced bias. My weight assigning might not be considered relevant by others therefore diminishing the relevance of the whole analysis effort.

marni

“But you can *minimize* the ribbon” [so why complain?].
Some of us are distractable and need the cleanest possible interface.
Minimize doesn’t cut it.
The Ribbon reminds me of Metro- perhaps a great thing, if made a choice.
If not, well, i’ll hang to my boring old XP another decade or two….

Philippe Wathelet

1. The ribbon is only good for learners. Let them have it.
2. At a time where screens are becoming smaller and smaller (think tablets and smart watches), these ribbons occupy a whole lot more real estate on screen. But why do we need to see ALL possible options, e.g. themes, when we are not even interested in one.
3. There are icons everywhere. Nobody studies and memorises any of them and nobody cares. So why have EVERY SINGLE item with a space-consuming icon we don’t even want to see. Let the kids have icons (I remember hanging my coat under a white rabbit at pre-school).
4. Why was the ribbon FORCED onto us? Why isn’t it optional? The old menus were already there, why suppress them?

Clairvaux

This is one way to compare the ribbon to classical menus. Numbers have a sort of objective look to them. Of course, you realise this is a very partial view of the problem.

1. You used WordPad and Paint, two programs which have a very limited set of functions. The issue is different with most programs which have a huge number of functions, such as the Office components, PDF viewers and editors, etc. As it happens, it is Office users who cried murder, for many of them, when they were forced off their beloved menus and onto the ribbon.

2. A small number of clicks is not enough to warrant easy interaction. If I have to look all over the place to find where the next click should happen, maybe I’m better off with a greater number of clicks. That’s precisely what the ribbon-haters are saying : old-style menus were logical. There was structure. You knew where you had to go down the menu hierarchy (provided the software was properly designed), because choices were mutually exclusive. With the ribbon, everything gets dumped together with no graphical order, so you have to visually rummage through icons (whose function might be obscure, as opposed to text in a menu) in order to find what you need.

3. Just counting clicks does not take into account the fact that many people (and classical menu aficionados) use a mixture of menu clicks and keyboard shortcuts. Indeed, the classical menu has this great virtue that all its commands can display the corresponding shortcut next to the text — which makes learning easy. It’s also very adaptable : it adresses the whole range of users, from keyboard fanatics to mouse purists.

4. Menus used to be very customisable, especially when coupled with toolbars. Ribbons, much less so. Indeed, the combination of menus and toolbars was probably the height of ease of use, customisability, and adaptability to a wide range of users.

5. Ribbons eat up vertical pixels, on screens which are already much too wide and not high enough, just to accomodate flat panel makers, not users.

But… ribbons are cute, pretty and it’s the shiny new thing.

BryaninSoCal

Ribbon not faster then old style CUI (Common User Interface)

I’ve been a power user since windows 3.1 and this whole issue of the Ribbon being more efficient is B.S.

What originally made Windows popular was that fact that all applications whether it was Word or Word Perfect used Windows to provide a common way to open, save, close, edit, and paste via the the “Common User Interface”.

That Philosophy is why Windows became so popular e.g. all applications across all windows versions used the same user Interface for the most used commands.

The Ribbon does not provide better Common User Interface as the menu/toolbar system did, period.

Windows explorer was the first to suffer from the implimentation of the ribbon. Losing the programmable toolbar was the first setback in an attempt to make it easier for computer challenged people to use the windows operating system.

The point I’m making is that whuke the ribbon may make it easier for them to use Windows it makes window harder for the rest of us that have been using Windows for decades.

Apparently Microsoft wants to keep people off balance by redesigning the user interface periodically as a means to offset the fact that they hold a monopoly on the OS and Software market and really still need to be broken up into 2 seperate entities e.g. an Operating System Provider and and Applications Provider.

Until that happen all of us will suffer from these stupid User Interface changes.

As far as your made up test to prove the ribbon more efficient again it’s B.S. because nobody really uses the Paint program and as fas a Windows Explorer why would you use the ribbon when right clicking is so much faster.

How about a real world comparison like Word 2003 and Word 2007.

Your test was really a very infantile attempt to support the Ribbon interface. HOw about a real comparison between an older version of Word 2003 to a new versiin of Word 2013. Same for Excel and old version compared to a new version.

The thing that really bothers me about your results is that it’s not a real world example and thus your results, really just your opinions, have no real bearing on the effeiciency of the ribbon. Only a novice would use those windows applications. So your opinion as to the ribbon being more efficient is bogus.

BrianInNoJersey

I like the idea of doing a test. However it seems like a more real world test is something like a timed test. As always with these kinds of test its just a pain to set up, rather than just doing some quick calculations.

Take a representative sample in groups e.g.: keyboard command ‘power users’, traditional menu bar experienced users, experienced ribbon bar users, novice users (split those into “use menu bar” / “use ribbon bar” style groups)
all together you’ve got to manage like 50-100 people for even a modest sized test.

What would be interesting if there was telemetry that could be put in place to test that (I would hope MS has at least worked on that internally)
anyway, got people talking about it here. I still just don’t see many people saying – OMG I love the ribbon bar – too much cognitive drift while using it(?)

Hugh

The ribbon is thick and shows lots of stuff. Fewer clicks if you know where to go. A power user like me has many windows open at one time and the space taken up by the ribbon creates more mental turmoil that the so called efficiency, i.e. number of clicks, is worth. I deal with the data most of the time, not the number of clicks it takes to get it. A streamlined ribbon without all the big “friendly” pictures and icons would be much bettter.