To ribbon or not to ribbon? [modified]
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I'm looking at designing the shell for a new application and the menu system is the topic of the day. I had looked at the ribbon UI years ago when it was new and my initial impression was that it was ugly, took up too much screen space and appeared to be more complicated to use and un-intuitive. I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later. Yet it *is* being adopted and used quite widely in MS stuff and supposedly Open Office is looking at something similar as well. While it's goals are worthy it just still seems wrong to me. I can see where it avoids clicks and improves feature discovery but was that really ever a problem worth trading off for such an ugly space eating UI? On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well. I'm thinking of looking more towards smart phone navigation / menu systems for inspiration as people are increasingly more familiar with them and one thing they excel at is limiting screen real estate. Also finding every possible way to eliminate menu items where possible might be a good idea as well if I can find a way to do it. I notice Microsoft Dynamics uses an outlook style for all navigation and nothing navigation related on the ribbon bar, something to consider splitting navigation away from commands perhaps. Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately? UPDATE Here's some info on the ribbon worth reading that I found after I made this post: A good critical post on the ribbon: http://interactiveasp.net/blogs/spgilmore/archive/2010/03/25/to-ribbon-or-not-to-ribbon-considering-the-microsoft-fluent-interface.aspx[^] A study of the user acceptance of the ribbon: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/DNCOCO-25.pdf[^]
There is no failure only feedback
modified on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:40 PM
The win8 screenshot leaks imply that MS has decided to ribbonify the entire OS. If you want to get ahead of the UI curve now'd be the time to ribbonize your software. Love or hate the ribbon this does make more sense then their strained explanations in Weven that only certain types of apps (IIRC content edit/creation) should have ribbons while the rest should stay menu/toolbar. :rolleyes:
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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John C wrote:
I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later.
I agree!
John C wrote:
Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately?
It depends... on if you want to annoy the hell out of 90% of the users or not. No one I know likes the ribbon bar, and a lot of the people I know find the traditional menu much easier to use.
See if you can crack this: b749f6c269a746243debc6488046e33f
So far, no one seems to have cracked this!The unofficial awesome history of Code Project's Bob! "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
There is a study that has been done that basically shows that new computer users have no problem with it and find it better and experienced users more used to the old menu system hate it. I dislike it from an aesthetic point of view more than anything else: it's ugly and makes any app that uses it look instantly more complicated that it probably is.
There is no failure only feedback
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The win8 screenshot leaks imply that MS has decided to ribbonify the entire OS. If you want to get ahead of the UI curve now'd be the time to ribbonize your software. Love or hate the ribbon this does make more sense then their strained explanations in Weven that only certain types of apps (IIRC content edit/creation) should have ribbons while the rest should stay menu/toolbar. :rolleyes:
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
Dan Neely wrote:
If you want to get ahead of the UI curve now'd be the time to ribbonize your software.
X| Maybe if I could hide the whole damn thing and people would have to click once to reveal it. :)
Dan Neely wrote:
Love or hate the ribbon this does make more sense then their strained explanations in Weven that only certain types of apps (IIRC content edit/creation) should have ribbons while the rest should stay menu/toolbar.
I saw that for Vista, I didn't realize they had stuck to that for windows 7. Apple has shown us that people care a lot more about aesthetics than perhaps was realized before. The ribbon is just plain ugly and makes any app that uses it look instantly complicated and hard to use in my opinion. I'm going to try to transcend the ribbon if I can.
There is no failure only feedback
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I'm looking at designing the shell for a new application and the menu system is the topic of the day. I had looked at the ribbon UI years ago when it was new and my initial impression was that it was ugly, took up too much screen space and appeared to be more complicated to use and un-intuitive. I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later. Yet it *is* being adopted and used quite widely in MS stuff and supposedly Open Office is looking at something similar as well. While it's goals are worthy it just still seems wrong to me. I can see where it avoids clicks and improves feature discovery but was that really ever a problem worth trading off for such an ugly space eating UI? On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well. I'm thinking of looking more towards smart phone navigation / menu systems for inspiration as people are increasingly more familiar with them and one thing they excel at is limiting screen real estate. Also finding every possible way to eliminate menu items where possible might be a good idea as well if I can find a way to do it. I notice Microsoft Dynamics uses an outlook style for all navigation and nothing navigation related on the ribbon bar, something to consider splitting navigation away from commands perhaps. Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately? UPDATE Here's some info on the ribbon worth reading that I found after I made this post: A good critical post on the ribbon: http://interactiveasp.net/blogs/spgilmore/archive/2010/03/25/to-ribbon-or-not-to-ribbon-considering-the-microsoft-fluent-interface.aspx[^] A study of the user acceptance of the ribbon: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/DNCOCO-25.pdf[^]
There is no failure only feedback
modified on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:40 PM
Don't forget to think about the input mechanism. Smart Phone interaction and UI work well with touch sensitive input device, but might be hell on earth with a mouse or a trackpad (but that is changing with multi-touch trackpad).
Watched code never compiles.
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I'm looking at designing the shell for a new application and the menu system is the topic of the day. I had looked at the ribbon UI years ago when it was new and my initial impression was that it was ugly, took up too much screen space and appeared to be more complicated to use and un-intuitive. I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later. Yet it *is* being adopted and used quite widely in MS stuff and supposedly Open Office is looking at something similar as well. While it's goals are worthy it just still seems wrong to me. I can see where it avoids clicks and improves feature discovery but was that really ever a problem worth trading off for such an ugly space eating UI? On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well. I'm thinking of looking more towards smart phone navigation / menu systems for inspiration as people are increasingly more familiar with them and one thing they excel at is limiting screen real estate. Also finding every possible way to eliminate menu items where possible might be a good idea as well if I can find a way to do it. I notice Microsoft Dynamics uses an outlook style for all navigation and nothing navigation related on the ribbon bar, something to consider splitting navigation away from commands perhaps. Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately? UPDATE Here's some info on the ribbon worth reading that I found after I made this post: A good critical post on the ribbon: http://interactiveasp.net/blogs/spgilmore/archive/2010/03/25/to-ribbon-or-not-to-ribbon-considering-the-microsoft-fluent-interface.aspx[^] A study of the user acceptance of the ribbon: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/DNCOCO-25.pdf[^]
There is no failure only feedback
modified on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:40 PM
I actually feel the same way about the ribbon, but really haven't given much thought to alternatives. I'll prob go though all the replies you got to this later when I get home, its an interesting topic.
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gavindon wrote:
Do I smell an article?
Oh sorry about that ... Mexican for lunch! :-O
The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa. - Orson Scott Card
Would that make it a farticle?
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John C wrote:
I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later.
I agree!
John C wrote:
Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately?
It depends... on if you want to annoy the hell out of 90% of the users or not. No one I know likes the ribbon bar, and a lot of the people I know find the traditional menu much easier to use.
See if you can crack this: b749f6c269a746243debc6488046e33f
So far, no one seems to have cracked this!The unofficial awesome history of Code Project's Bob! "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
I disliked it at first, but have grown to like it as I've used it more.
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Dan Neely wrote:
If you want to get ahead of the UI curve now'd be the time to ribbonize your software.
X| Maybe if I could hide the whole damn thing and people would have to click once to reveal it. :)
Dan Neely wrote:
Love or hate the ribbon this does make more sense then their strained explanations in Weven that only certain types of apps (IIRC content edit/creation) should have ribbons while the rest should stay menu/toolbar.
I saw that for Vista, I didn't realize they had stuck to that for windows 7. Apple has shown us that people care a lot more about aesthetics than perhaps was realized before. The ribbon is just plain ugly and makes any app that uses it look instantly complicated and hard to use in my opinion. I'm going to try to transcend the ribbon if I can.
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
Maybe if I could hide the whole damn thing and people would have to click once to reveal it.
Any reason you couldn't? You can do something like that in Office. On the Quick Access Toolbar menu, select "Minimize the Ribbon" and it only shows the tabs. You then click on a tab to display it. Don't know whether that's available out of the box with the ribbon tool you can use in your apps, but if it's not you might be able to write code to fake it.
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Don't forget to think about the input mechanism. Smart Phone interaction and UI work well with touch sensitive input device, but might be hell on earth with a mouse or a trackpad (but that is changing with multi-touch trackpad).
Watched code never compiles.
-
I'm looking at designing the shell for a new application and the menu system is the topic of the day. I had looked at the ribbon UI years ago when it was new and my initial impression was that it was ugly, took up too much screen space and appeared to be more complicated to use and un-intuitive. I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later. Yet it *is* being adopted and used quite widely in MS stuff and supposedly Open Office is looking at something similar as well. While it's goals are worthy it just still seems wrong to me. I can see where it avoids clicks and improves feature discovery but was that really ever a problem worth trading off for such an ugly space eating UI? On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well. I'm thinking of looking more towards smart phone navigation / menu systems for inspiration as people are increasingly more familiar with them and one thing they excel at is limiting screen real estate. Also finding every possible way to eliminate menu items where possible might be a good idea as well if I can find a way to do it. I notice Microsoft Dynamics uses an outlook style for all navigation and nothing navigation related on the ribbon bar, something to consider splitting navigation away from commands perhaps. Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately? UPDATE Here's some info on the ribbon worth reading that I found after I made this post: A good critical post on the ribbon: http://interactiveasp.net/blogs/spgilmore/archive/2010/03/25/to-ribbon-or-not-to-ribbon-considering-the-microsoft-fluent-interface.aspx[^] A study of the user acceptance of the ribbon: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/DNCOCO-25.pdf[^]
There is no failure only feedback
modified on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:40 PM
I'm working on the same dillema too. I'm looking at an approach that would allow it to auto-hide and pull down when needed. That would alleviate the screen space issue. Unfortunately I also need it to be cross-platform, so I'll have to delve into the details of how wxWidgets handles their ribbon to see if auto-hide is a possibility. Cheers, Drew.
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I disliked it at first, but have grown to like it as I've used it more.
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John C wrote:
Maybe if I could hide the whole damn thing and people would have to click once to reveal it.
Any reason you couldn't? You can do something like that in Office. On the Quick Access Toolbar menu, select "Minimize the Ribbon" and it only shows the tabs. You then click on a tab to display it. Don't know whether that's available out of the box with the ribbon tool you can use in your apps, but if it's not you might be able to write code to fake it.
Oh I definitely *could* do it, it goes against the spirit of it though since it's supposed to be one click to do common tasks. I'd hide it like Firefox does their menu in the latest browser, it's only a button in the corner taking up almost no space.
There is no failure only feedback
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I'm looking at designing the shell for a new application and the menu system is the topic of the day. I had looked at the ribbon UI years ago when it was new and my initial impression was that it was ugly, took up too much screen space and appeared to be more complicated to use and un-intuitive. I just looked at it again and I still feel the same way 4 years later. Yet it *is* being adopted and used quite widely in MS stuff and supposedly Open Office is looking at something similar as well. While it's goals are worthy it just still seems wrong to me. I can see where it avoids clicks and improves feature discovery but was that really ever a problem worth trading off for such an ugly space eating UI? On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well. I'm thinking of looking more towards smart phone navigation / menu systems for inspiration as people are increasingly more familiar with them and one thing they excel at is limiting screen real estate. Also finding every possible way to eliminate menu items where possible might be a good idea as well if I can find a way to do it. I notice Microsoft Dynamics uses an outlook style for all navigation and nothing navigation related on the ribbon bar, something to consider splitting navigation away from commands perhaps. Thoughts on the ribbon or anything else menu nav related and interesting that you might have seen lately? UPDATE Here's some info on the ribbon worth reading that I found after I made this post: A good critical post on the ribbon: http://interactiveasp.net/blogs/spgilmore/archive/2010/03/25/to-ribbon-or-not-to-ribbon-considering-the-microsoft-fluent-interface.aspx[^] A study of the user acceptance of the ribbon: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Faro/DNCOCO/DNCOCO-25.pdf[^]
There is no failure only feedback
modified on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 2:40 PM
I find multiple toolbars (I use 3-4) much easier to use than a ribbon, simply because I can always see all controls available to me at all times. It's fine if some of those controls are context disabled, but at least I know what's in my toolkit. The day Visual Studio switches to a ribbon is when I switch to writing code in Notepad. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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I find multiple toolbars (I use 3-4) much easier to use than a ribbon, simply because I can always see all controls available to me at all times. It's fine if some of those controls are context disabled, but at least I know what's in my toolkit. The day Visual Studio switches to a ribbon is when I switch to writing code in Notepad. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Would that make it a farticle?
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Interesting. Do you feel that it takes up too much screen space?
There is no failure only feedback
On my notebook, sometimes it does (widescreen notebook @ 15.6"), but in those cases I minimize the ribbon. Most of the time the real estate it takes doesn't bother me.
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I'm working on the same dillema too. I'm looking at an approach that would allow it to auto-hide and pull down when needed. That would alleviate the screen space issue. Unfortunately I also need it to be cross-platform, so I'll have to delve into the details of how wxWidgets handles their ribbon to see if auto-hide is a possibility. Cheers, Drew.
Is it just more experienced users that care about screen space? I watch newbies use a computer and they never maximize windows, everything's floating around and there are hundreds of windows open at the same time. It drives me nuts, I want to reach over their shoulder and close everything and maximize the window they are working in. I'm want new users of our software to think simplicity and ease of use when they first set eyes on it. To me the ribbon eating up all that space and with all it's options right in your face makes the app look crowded and confusing and hard to use right off the bat but maybe a newer user would not think that?
There is no failure only feedback
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Oh I definitely *could* do it, it goes against the spirit of it though since it's supposed to be one click to do common tasks. I'd hide it like Firefox does their menu in the latest browser, it's only a button in the corner taking up almost no space.
There is no failure only feedback
Fair enough. I'd prefer to have it reveal when you hover over a tab, when you've got it minimized which would get it back to the one-click stage.
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On my notebook, sometimes it does (widescreen notebook @ 15.6"), but in those cases I minimize the ribbon. Most of the time the real estate it takes doesn't bother me.
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Marc A. Brown wrote:
Would that make it a farticle?
Wipe my erse and call it a shiticle! :laugh:
The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa. - Orson Scott Card
You'll get a lot of 1-votes writing crap like that. :laugh: