They have had to revert to Office 2003 as they couldn't afford to waste time retraining and relearning things that they already new how to do.

We'd still be flinging poo at one another from trees.

If Kroc approves you know it's impressive

Yes, you are the "old wave"

The ribbon is a much more functional way to access program features. organizing by the task you are performing and having all the relevant functions visible at the same time is much better than deeply nested menus.

The ribbon is task based UI design. much more efficient and much more pleasing to work with, except for those who are so inflexible as to not be able to make the adjustments.

I really think that 90% of the reasons to hold back on moving forward in design is due to 10% of the users.

This actually gives me hope.
The Ribbon is the first seriously long, hard look at the whole concept of the WIMP interface in 20 years.

The Office team managed to remove the menu, entirely, from one of the worst possible programs that you could have taken as an example. Office had hundreds of menus, approaching a hundred toolbars - it would be the equivalent of redesigning Photoshop to have no menu or toolbars, or Maya, or 3D Studio Max. That is the level of complexity they had to approach, and succeeded.

The Ribbon is proven by user testing to be better. The only users who suffer with it are, guess who, indignant old users who prefer the old model and are unwilling to adapt. It's like MFC runs through their veins..

Using the ribbon for 7 gives me hope it might just make Windows functionality up-front and accessible to all users.

I want to see the WHOLE interface WPF based and using Ribbon everywhere. I want one consistent user experience right through out the operating system rather than the a hodgepodge of the different UI experience so far with the the current operating systems.

One of the companies we support moved to Office 2007 because they were sold on the idea that it really was much easier to use.

They have had to revert to Office 2003 as they couldn't afford to waste time retraining and relearning things that they already new how to do. There was nothing intuitive or easy about 2007 and even simpler tasks became hugely complex as people played the where-in-the-world have they moved this feature now?

So now they plan to do this for all of the Windows interface?

Brilliant, I can't wait for that one.

I really think that 90% of the reasons to hold back on moving forward in design is due to 10% of the users.

For me, I've got Office 2008 on my Mac, and the ribbon work has even found its way in (to some degree) their Office 2008 for Mac - and believe me, having used all the versions prior, it makes a HUGE difference when it comes to usability.

I wish I can be more excited about the new ribbon feature. But my first impression is that this is yet another worthless feature that will eat up valuable Monitor real estate. But I'll stay tuned to test before a final judgment.

For *me*, this smells like a lock-in strategy. Let's get everyone used to Ribbons, so they'll have a hard time working with other UIs elsewhere; from a rational standing point i see no other good reason to do this (the argument of otherwise-just-a-failed-investment doesn't really hold here, because, this is Microsoft, guys, they wouldn't deeply care for a few hundred million lost if they found it's something not worth keeping).

Yes, lets rewrite the linux kernel in c++ because change should be a part of the job.

For *me*, this smells like a lock-in strategy. Let's get everyone used to Ribbons, so they'll have a hard time working with other UIs elsewhere; from a rational standing point i see no other good reason to do this (the argument of otherwise-just-a-failed-investment doesn't really hold here, because, this is Microsoft, guys, they wouldn't deeply care for a few hundred million lost if they found it's something not worth keeping).

They could just bundle Paint.NET, which would be totally awesome.

And for that, there's always Linux and Ubuntu... plus early projects such as ReactOS and Haiku.

"They have had to revert to Office 2003 as they couldn't afford to waste time retraining and relearning things that they already new how to do.

I do not know. Innovation is generally good, but in my opinion, changing things just for the sake of change is stupid.

Office on the Mac uses a variation on the UI concepts Apple introduced with AppleWorks YEARS ago, and that they now use in their iWork suite.

We'd still be flinging poo at one another from trees.

Ribbon UI is the best UI innovation since the overlapping window.

This actually gives me hope.
The Ribbon is the first seriously long, hard look at the whole concept of the WIMP interface in 20 years.

The Office team managed to remove the menu, entirely, from one of the worst possible programs that you could have taken as an example. Office had hundreds of menus, approaching a hundred toolbars - it would be the equivalent of redesigning Photoshop to have no menu or toolbars, or Maya, or 3D Studio Max. That is the level of complexity they had to approach, and succeeded.

The Ribbon is proven by user testing to be better. The only users who suffer with it are, guess who, indignant old users who prefer the old model and are unwilling to adapt. It's like MFC runs through their veins.

Using the ribbon for 7 gives me hope it might just make Windows functionality up-front and accessible to all users.

Interestingly enough that's the argument often used against Linux and alternatives. That people will need to be re-trained, that they arent used to it and that it will cost money. Funny how then the same people (not you Thom) who derided the alternatives are praising when MS does the same.
It's a funny old world, innit.

For Windows to move on, the Registry *has* to go.

If XP/2003 and windows before the Ribbon era are so stupid and copied stupidly, why is there so much shrink wrap and custom software developed there ? I guess everyone in the world making this a popular place to use software are all idiots then.

You're under the mistaken impression that MS cares about accessibility.
In terms of the ribbon (back on topic here) I find that while it is keyboard accessible up to a point, you already have to have a basic idea of what will be there.

Apple has come out with the first truly accessible consumer device--the 4th generation iPod nano.

I believe true accessibility to all platforms is important

MS does enough to comply with section 508 and nothing more.

May I ask why? Registry is much faster than text files. It contains standard API to read and write. And it has been proven many times, that registry *is not* the thing which slows windows down, contrary to what many thinks.

So why does it have to go?!? Just because you would prefer it? I don't think so. Many more people (including me) would complain about if its gone.

Actually using database is a very good idea for system settings storage. Just look at the mess which *nix config files are. Different syntax, random locations, etc.

Registry just makes more sense. If you put all the stuff from registry to text/xml, can you imagine how many megabytes they would take? Can you imagine overhead to read/write? You can? Good.