To ribbon or not to ribbon? [modified]
-
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 On the other hand traditional menus and toolbars seem increasingly stale and outdated as well.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
John C wrote:
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?You should read some of the discussions going on in the C++ MVP area on this very subject. Of course we will get used to it given enough time, but changing something just for the sake of change is just not right. Microsoft claims to have conducted several usability studies and found that the ribbon proved more productive than not. I've been using Office 2007 for nearly a year now and I'm still trying to find stuff. Keyboard shortcuts that I used to do effortlessly now do all sorts of wonderful things! Oh well...
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine." - William Feather
-
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
John C wrote:
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.
Same here. They'd rather mess around with trying to exact-place the horizontal/vertical scroll bars than to just maximize the window.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine." - William Feather
-
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.
-
Ask your users. I bet most of them have tried Office 2007 or 2010 or Win7 and by now have their opinion about the ribbon. Personaly, I like it. Reduces number of mouse clicks and discovers functionality I did not even know existed.
-
I agree that the ribbon can make things look complicated. I think it's more of an issue with the concept of hiding complexity though. I use Mindjet MindManager, for instance, which uses a ribbon that does not look complex at all. It just has basic functionality visible, sort of like an old toolbar where each button can be pulled down to reveal more options. It really makes it look good, and simple. That's the kind of look I'm going for. I agree that more experienced users tend to make better use of screen space. Every window I open tends to take up about as much space as a piece of letter-sized paper. That works for me, so I tend to resize things like that. Perhaps the younger crowd is used to small devices and feels comfortable with smaller windows because of it. Who knows. Cheers, Drew.
Drew Stainton wrote:
sort of like an old toolbar where each button can be pulled down to reveal more options. It really makes it look good, and simple. That's the kind of look I'm going for.
But that's absolutely not a ribbon control then. One of the main points of the ribbon is that nothing is hidden (from what I understand).
Drew Stainton wrote:
Perhaps the younger crowd is used to small devices and feels comfortable with smaller windows because of it.
Maybe they just have better eyesight! :)
There is no failure only feedback
-
Can't stand the things. Every new UI invention that is supposed to make my life better simply reminds me that I yet again should consider getting out of this f***ed up industry and try and make a living instead teaching non-violent communication to poker players. ;) Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
reminds me that I yet again should consider getting out of this f***ed up industry
I totally know what you're saying. I've recently had to go through the typical thing we all go through if you're in this industry long enough: forget everything you know and start from scratch. Over the last three months I've had to learn xaml / wpf / silverlight / mvvm / Prism / MVC / a new business object framework / JQuery / etc etc etc and forget about windows forms (obsolete) and a slew of other stuff. I learned a lesson though, as you get older in this business you start to not take the time to keep up with stuff and then you pay the price all at once which is harder and harder to do as you get older. I thought I had the luxury of taking a few years off but no, that just doesn't work. Got to keep treading water or swim to shore, there's no floating around on your back in this business.
There is no failure only feedback
-
Drew Stainton wrote:
sort of like an old toolbar where each button can be pulled down to reveal more options. It really makes it look good, and simple. That's the kind of look I'm going for.
But that's absolutely not a ribbon control then. One of the main points of the ribbon is that nothing is hidden (from what I understand).
Drew Stainton wrote:
Perhaps the younger crowd is used to small devices and feels comfortable with smaller windows because of it.
Maybe they just have better eyesight! :)
There is no failure only feedback
John C wrote:
But that's absolutely not a ribbon control then. One of the main points of the ribbon is that nothing is hidden (from what I understand).
Could be, but that's not exactly how I'd implement it. We'll see how it goes!
John C wrote:
Maybe they just have better eyesight!
Probably! Cheers, Drew.
-
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
John C wrote:
new computer users have no problem with it and find it better and experienced users more used to the old menu system hate it
...and of course you'd buy a car that new drivers liked, but experienced motorists hated.
-
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
Ribbon is suitable for editing a large context. For example, Word, Paint, etc. However, for a screen displaying database detail with 10+ controls, ribbon is not suitable. If you really need a ribbon in this case, you need to move those controls to ribbon as well. So what’s left in the main region of the screen?
-
Interesting. Do you feel that it takes up too much screen space?
There is no failure only feedback
It doesn't really consume _that_ much space.. Look here: http://zipdot.net/shared/ribbon_vs_toolbar.png[^] Frontpage 2003 (equal to Word 2003) http://www.filebuzz.com/software_screenshot/full/281287-Microsoft_Office_FrontPage.png[^] 110px on Office 2010 on Win7 90px on LibreOffice Writer on Win7 110px on OpenOffice Writer on Ubuntu 76px on Office 2003 on XP 34px (approx. toolbar height) difference between Office 2010 and Office 2003 - I can live with that (and I do).
-
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've seen ribbons contributing positively and negatively to applications. Generally I feel that if you are going to have many menu items ribbons can be great if they are done intuitively. If you only have a handful of options ribbons will do nothing other than look like a desperate attempt to 'be like MS Office'. At first I disliked ribbons, I have now gotten use to them and prefer them. As for screen space, I don't find them too hungry but if I do need ALL the space I minimize the ribbon. Older versions of Great Plains (now part of MS Dynamics) used palettes, basically menus that can be opened in small tool windows, I liked those as you would often do a number of tasks on the same menu and it would stay open for that, MS discontinued the palettes but I believe a 3rd party developer re-introduced them shortly after. In a way the palettes are similar to ribbon groups but you can move them around like a tool window, maybe with a nice docking solution you can do a hybrid of menus, ribbons and dockable tool windows and give the user the maximum customisability, but that also comes with it's own risks for 'some' users (also has potential to increase support call counts)...
____________________________________________________________ Be brave little warrior, be VERY brave
-
Oh, no question at all, if I asked our existing users they'd be dead set against it. But we decided we are firmly targeting new users only so it's a bit more up in the air.
There is no failure only feedback
Remember the old adage about asking your usage about design:
'If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".' Henry Ford[^]
You are not your user. You are trying to find out what users need - not asking them to design the interface. The Ribbon-style interface can work well for certain applications, usually those that use document editing metaphors. It wouldn't work well for form-style applications.
/* Charles Oppermann */ http://weblogs.asp.net/chuckop
-
While I will not suggest using the ribbon or not (although I have seen it used quite well), if you do choose to use it, be sure to get a license for it from MS. Search for "Microsoft License Agreement: 2010 Office Fluent User Interface" for more info.
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFilesI'm pretty sure you don't have to do that anymore. This thread and some comments at: Stack Overflow - How to implement “Mega Menus” in WPF?[^] inspired me to download the MSI from Microsoft Ribbon for WPF October 2010[^] which when run, first pops up the license agreement, which after some careful perusal appears to grant you the right to use the control without any special licenses. I am not a lawyer, though. Edit: Via the Office UI Licensing page[^]: There are currently three primary categories of ways for a software developer to implement the Office UI in their own application or component. Use the Microsoft Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon implementation Details about the Scenic Ribbon can be found on the MSDN Code Gallery[^]. Use of the Scenic Ribbon implementation is governed by the Microsoft Windows SDK EULA and does not require a developer to accept the terms of the Office UI license on this site. Use the Microsoft Ribbon for WPF Implementation Details about the Microsoft Ribbon for WPF Implementation (delivered via MS Downloads[^]) can be found in the MSDN Library[^]. Use of the Microsoft Ribbon for WPF is governed by a EULA similar to that of the .NET Framework. This release does not require developers to a
-
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 also hated the ribbon when it first came out - I expect most experienced users did. However, for the most part I now prefer it. I say "for the most part" because I don't think it is well suited to all applications (though this may have more to do with how the developers have chosen to arrange the ribbon items as opposed to issues with the ribbon itself). It does take up more screen space, but today everyone has 20" and larger screens running 1280x1024 or higher - at those screen sizes and resolutions we have a lot more screen real estate to play with then we did when traditional menus and toolbars were implemented on 640x480 screens. Having two different navigation tools (menu and toolbar) combined into one makes sense to me. The larger icons available on the ribbon can be more descriptive to the user than their small toolbar counterparts and they are easier to click on requiring less need to be precise than the smaller toolbar icons (which is also important given that current screen size and resolution would otherwise require a greater degree of accuracy - it may only shave a fraction of a second for users, but that time does add up). What I hate about ribbons is the contextual ribbons - I hate having to select the contextual tab every time I've selected a related item. They have to find a better way of handling that. My suggestion would be to make the contextual tabs appear seperately - either to the far right of the ribbon or even allow them to be undocked. This is one of those situations where having the contextual toolbar was much quicker because the contextual tab now forces me to make an EXTRA click that I didn't have previously. I have played around with numerous menu/toolbar interfaces over the years and still use numerous types based on the application needs. I don't think that the ribbon is the "ultimate" interface, but I think it is reasonably good at what it does and has more positives than negatives. That's my two cents...
-
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've gotten used to it in MSOffice, but I never really moused through the old menu system either. I use the keyboard to navigate more often than mouse. One saving grace of the new Office ribbon is that all the keyboard shortcuts I have hardwired into the old grey cells still work. Another and more important one is that I can see the new keyboard shortcuts by holding the alt key down. This is occasionally a bit confusing since I'm still using Office 2003 at work but not something that bothers me. I've learned so many editorsand word processors in my life that one more UI does no harm. As far as choosing what system to use for your application you have to first consider your market. What sort of users are you addressing? What do they expect to see? Is this a commercial product and, if so, do appearance, fashion, and critical review matter? Ask yourself all the other questions you always have to ask. when designing software.
-
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
Thanks for the links!
-
While I will not suggest using the ribbon or not (although I have seen it used quite well), if you do choose to use it, be sure to get a license for it from MS. Search for "Microsoft License Agreement: 2010 Office Fluent User Interface" for more info.
-=- James
Please rate this message - let me know if I helped or not! * * *If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Remember that Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
See DeleteFXPFilesJames R. Twine wrote:
Search for "Microsoft License Agreement: 2010 Office Fluent User Interface" for more info.
The "Office Phooey (FUI)"???
-
Remember the old adage about asking your usage about design:
'If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".' Henry Ford[^]
You are not your user. You are trying to find out what users need - not asking them to design the interface. The Ribbon-style interface can work well for certain applications, usually those that use document editing metaphors. It wouldn't work well for form-style applications.
/* Charles Oppermann */ http://weblogs.asp.net/chuckop
I love that quote, have never heard it but I fully subscribe to that method of design. Actually anyone would if they have dealt with users for long enough. I take what users say with a huge grain of salt. Our first question whenever they request a specific change to an app is "what task are you actually trying to accomplish overall".
Charles Oppermann wrote:
It wouldn't work well for form-style applications.
That's what Microsoft say in their guidance however take a look at some Dynamics 2011[^] screenshots. Dynamics is a typical line of business forms application and uses the ribbon exclusively in both the web and windows interface and it seems to work. I'm not sure how the idea that a ribbon is only for document editors came about but Microsoft doesn't heed their own advice clearly. What would be wrong with using it in a form style application? (which is what I'm writing and I can't think of anything specific so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it)
There is no failure only feedback
-
I've seen ribbons contributing positively and negatively to applications. Generally I feel that if you are going to have many menu items ribbons can be great if they are done intuitively. If you only have a handful of options ribbons will do nothing other than look like a desperate attempt to 'be like MS Office'. At first I disliked ribbons, I have now gotten use to them and prefer them. As for screen space, I don't find them too hungry but if I do need ALL the space I minimize the ribbon. Older versions of Great Plains (now part of MS Dynamics) used palettes, basically menus that can be opened in small tool windows, I liked those as you would often do a number of tasks on the same menu and it would stay open for that, MS discontinued the palettes but I believe a 3rd party developer re-introduced them shortly after. In a way the palettes are similar to ribbon groups but you can move them around like a tool window, maybe with a nice docking solution you can do a hybrid of menus, ribbons and dockable tool windows and give the user the maximum customisability, but that also comes with it's own risks for 'some' users (also has potential to increase support call counts)...
____________________________________________________________ Be brave little warrior, be VERY brave
Funny you should mention Dynamics, Dynamics 2011 is one of my samples of a forms app that *does* use the Ribbon, see screenshots here: http://www.concentrix.co.uk/software/crm/crm-software/microsoft-dynamics-crm/screenshots/[^] I never saw the palette thing but I guess the ribbon might be a similar concept. They use it in both the web and desktop interface everywhere.
There is no failure only feedback
-
It doesn't really consume _that_ much space.. Look here: http://zipdot.net/shared/ribbon_vs_toolbar.png[^] Frontpage 2003 (equal to Word 2003) http://www.filebuzz.com/software_screenshot/full/281287-Microsoft_Office_FrontPage.png[^] 110px on Office 2010 on Win7 90px on LibreOffice Writer on Win7 110px on OpenOffice Writer on Ubuntu 76px on Office 2003 on XP 34px (approx. toolbar height) difference between Office 2010 and Office 2003 - I can live with that (and I do).
Nice screenshots for comparison. The thing is I have always hated double toolbars like that and always hide everything to the point I can get down to one toolbar but I guess I'm in the minority, it seems no one cares about aesthetics as I do because to me it just automatically makes an app look complicated and hard to use when I see that many options. Maybe others think "cool look at all the things I can do". One thing I love about the newest Firefox is that the entire menu is gone completely and is just a single button in the upper left corner to drop it down. I know a browser is a very different beast but still it's nice to have a clean uncluttered UI. I definitely prefer a minimalist approach. All those options and buttons remind me of audio components from the 80's: the cheaper they were the more buttons and lights they had on them, conversely the really super high quality expensive stuff was clean and uncluttered and had as few buttons and knobs as possible.
There is no failure only feedback
