Amiga UI Style Guide

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_(computing)

I find it (ribbon interface) better than those toolbar driven interfaces with miniscule 8x8 px icons where you have to make your best guess. In Microsoft Office it works very well.

The ribbon interface totally brain damaged. It Eliminates consistency and logic from interface design.

Want to use a cut and or paste function in excel... It's in one place, probably called review... Want to use the same function in word... It's somewhere else... Perhaps home? Ok, once you have managed to set the ribbons up so you can find everything... Then you have to help a colleague... But you try and use their computer and everything is in the wrong place...

No logical consistency... A total failure of interface design.

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Isn't it up to the GUI designers to put similar functions in different software in the same places in the GUIs of those programs? Don't see how it's the ribbon's fault. It's like saying tool bars are bad because designers put icons all over the place instead of using logical locations, etc.

I'm not convinced ribbons are bad just because designers make a mess when using them.

No, you miss the point. I have no problem with "favourites" or short cut bars/dock... But the ribbon interface eliminates the concept of standard locations to find standard functions. Locations that have never changed since the earliest days of the graphical user interface. The ribbon might be a perfectly acceptable concept (in fact it is quite an old concept of a quick launching dock), but as usual Microsoft have managed to screw up the implementation massively!

-edit- Also you might not know, but the ribbon encourages the user to put the functions they want where they want, there is no other way to find the function!

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@Itix

I'm having difficult following your reasoning here. My point was that before, functions were arrange hierarchically under the same headings regardless of which office Application you were using. They were grouped logically, so even if the heading was vague (like "Project", where "File" might be a better title), once you found one file system related function, you had found them all, for example. This has been removed in favour of a set of customisable quick launch tool bars.  With the ribbon, there is no structure... The spell check is next to the find and replace... Style option are with the cut and paste... Saving, loading and print settings (but not the page layout options!?) have been moved to a completely separate screen!? Also Microsoft have decided that some items can't share a ribbon, so it doesn't even work as well as a quick launch tool bar.

I think the ribbon would be a fine addition to the interface, if they hadn't removed the original (20 year old) interface structure that has worked well on every desktop system since Xerox first put one together!

I'm not saying I don't want change, I'm simply pointing out that this one was a royal screw up... Other changes have come along and been such a step forward I almost didn't notice their addition.

Also Excel 2010 likes to crash a lot... 2003 was rock solid, but this is a personal gripe.

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True statement. However, if Office 2007 was the first MS Office package ever you wouldnt mind about it. But yes, changing user interface is not cool if you are used to old interface.

If office 2007 was the first you had used... It would also be the last... IMNSHO :-p