Office 2007 Part 1 - Interface

I got a copy of the new Microsoft Office suite. Office is the one product in Microsoft's catalog that stands heads and shoulders above the rest. Office on the PC is hands down better than anything else out there. Office on the Mac is even better than on the PC and is in a much less crowded market. I used to think that Office 2004 for the Mac is still far and away better than the version of Office for the PC in terms of usability.

That is, until today.

Today I got a copy of Office 2007 to install on my work computer. I haven't had a chance to put it fully through its paces yet which is why this is a "part 1" entry. In terms of the interface, Office 2007 will blow you away. The "ribbon" sets up a dynamic interface based on what menu you have selected and shows all of the options with many of the unique settings for each option displayed neatly across the top of the page. The ribbon replaces all of the menus from the previous versions of Office. All file manipulation tasks are accessed through a button in the top left similar to the apple menu in MacOS (all versions if memory serves).

The ribbon is a dynamic tool bar which resides under the main menu bar. The names of the main menu options have changed a little with "home" replacing "file" (the file menu is in the upper right corner with the Office logo). The ribbon is then ordered from left to right in a common workflow order to assist users in completing common tasks. This is apparent especially in the "Mailings" tool bar. You can use the buttons from left to right to create mass mailings, and envelopes or address stickers. The menu bar above the ribbon highlights which ribbon you are currently working with. The ribbon is broken down further into themed regions (e.g. Font, Paragraph, etc.) Hovering over each tool gives a definition of what the tool is and the keyboard shortcut.

Then we add to that some great improvements to the context menus. For those who don't know, most software provides for context menus which provide common options in a quick distilled format. These menus are accessed by clicking the right mouse button in Windows and clicking while holding down the control button on the Mac. Office 2007 provides formatting options as well as spell checking options within the context menu. This improvement eliminates the need to move the mouse back to the top of the screen to make a formatting change to an item near the bottom of the screen.

In short, this new interface is amazing. It is a very well thought out design from a company that has put quantity of features available ahead of usability of the interface. The new design also better matches professional applications like Dreamweaver, and Flash which makes it all the more familiar to professionals like me. While the interface is a marked improvement, it is the drastic nature of the change to the interface that could be Office 2007's biggest detriment in providing Microsoft with a return on its investment. Office 2007 has a wonderful interface, but there is no "classic mode" option to allow users to switch back to what they are familiar with.

I teach a basic computers class at the school I work my full time job for. In the three years I've taught the course, I have had an assignment that has shed a great deal of light into the average computer user's attitude about software interfaces. In this assignment, I ask students to download Firefox and spend a week running that instead of Internet Explorer. I then ask the students to write up their impressions. I do this in the first week of my online course to be as much an assignment to verify that the student has Office installed on their computer as it is an assignment about web browsers.

It never fails that every time I teach this class, I get the majority of students responding that they wouldn't switch to Firefox. This is hardly surprising as all of us like to stick with the familiar. What surprises me is the reason for not switching. The overwhelming majority of my students state that the two interfaces are too different. I've studied interface design a little and Internet Explorer and Firefox have nearly identical interfaces.

If people won't switch to Firefox because it looks too different from Internet Explorer, Microsoft faces a severe uphill battle getting people to switch from Office 2003 to Office 2007. People will switch eventually, mostly because with Microsoft's products you end up having to but in the short term, I would look to see sales of Office 2007 to be somewhat sluggish despite the marked improvement in the software itself.

Sluggish Office 2007 sales would be a serious problem for Microsoft. Their two flagship products are supposed to ship this year. Office 2007 is one, and Windows Vista is the other. Both have major changes to the interface. Compounding things for Vista is that it is shipping with a lot of promised features missing and also some steep hardware requirements forcing many users to need to upgrade hardware first. Microsoft has not released a major version of either Windows or Office since 2002 and 2003 respectively. Questions concerning Microsoft's ability to remain an industry leader will be spoken more widely if these two product launches are not immediate successes. In the end, this hurts Microsoft's all important stock evaluation.

All in all, Office 2007's interface is a marked improvement from 2003 and while it may take some users a while to get used to it, I would strongly urge them to expend the effort to learn.

We'll talk about the data integration piece in a later episode.

College Football

That's it, I'm done with the whole thing.

First, hats off to Florida for showing us once again that the ranking system in college football is really just a popularity contest (beating the crap out of Ohio State is a plus too). OSU and Michigan should both be ashamed of their performance in their respective bowl games. Troy Smith should give back his Heisman after going 4 for 14 in the championship game. Florida was flat out the better team and proved it.

Then I read this. You'll need to read much of for the rest of what follows to make sense.

I'm done with NCAA Division I-A football. I've had it and I won't participate in it anymore. No more merchandising, no more Saturday afternoon games, no more Rose Bowl...nothing. This is nothing against the student athletes (though the term student in many cases is laughable). This has a little to do with the coaches and college presidents. But most of this is on the conference management and the TV networks.

If you SEC fans who claim to have the strongest conference in the nation take anything from the bowl games this year, take the record you have in your bowl games and throw it in the face of Big-10 Commissioner Jim Delany. The undefeated record in the bowl games for the Big East conference is likewise a testament to their skill and ability. How did the Big-10 do? 2-5 this year and 18-23 for the last five years? Kick the Big-10 and Pac-10 out of the running for the BCS. Forget about the Rose Bowl. Let those two conferences have that game and let them play for a meaningless title. Let them take their ball and go home. You don't need us and what appears to be our sub-standard performance. I know the press will miss having Michigan and Ohio State to talk about, but you guys really don't need us. I'd rather watch Florida get crowned national champion after a playoff than watch Michigan get crowned a meaningless title after winning the BCS championship game. As a Michigan fan, I'm glad they've never won it.

I don't care if I have to watch the all day anime marathon on cartoon network, I won't watch the Rose Bowl until a playoff is initiated in Division I-A football. I don't care if Michigan plays Ohio State for a national championship at the Rose Bowl and its all tied up with 30 seconds to play with Michigan on the 1 yard line. Jim Delany (Big-10 Commissioner) is more about protecting the money flowing into Big-10 football than he is about wins and losses. As a Michigan resident, I need look only as far as Detroit for what happens to a football organization that runs with that mindset.

Delaney even brokers the TV rights for the Rose Bowl (the most watched college football game). While all the other big games play on Fox, ABC has the rights to the Rose Bowl until 2014. So don't expect any changes to the BCS until at least 2015. College football fans will continue to have to put up with tainted champions and never ending controversy. All so Jim Delaney can continue to line the Big-10's pockets.

What I fear the real problem that plagues college football is the same one keeping the Detroit Lions from actually fielding a team worth watching. Football fans simply will not rise up against the football powers and demand change.

"If the public walks away from our games during the regular season and walks away from television during the regular season and walks away from the bowls, they're saying, We won't support this anymore. We want something else.' But I don't see them walking away from anything." - Jim Delaney. He understands the nature of football fans and sports fans in general and is using it against them.

Until you hurt people like Delaney where it hurts them the most, their pocketbook, they'll never change.

Oh, but what can the commissioner of the Big-10 conference actually do? Apparently he is the voice to which everyone in the college football world listens. He's the guy who got Penn State in the Big-10 and the other coaches and presidents didn't know a thing about it until they read it in the papers. He's the guy who brokered the $300 Million deal with ABC for the rights to the Rose Bowl until 2014. He's the guy who gave the Rose Bowl an automatic spot in the BCS rotation where the other bowl games have to pay to be in the rotation. He's the guy who protected the New Years day time slot for the Rose Bowl so it can continue to be a New Years day tradition. He's the guy who thought of the idea to give the six "BCS conferences" (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC) automatic spots in the BCS bowl games while the other five conferences have to fight for whats left over. He's the guy who champions the BCS system and simply shrugs off the controversy.

The reality is that sports fans in general refuse to push back. They refuse to hold players accountable for their off court behavior. They refuse to hold owners and commissioners accountable for providing quality entertainment (William Ford, please call your office). They refuse to hold the athletic press accountable for not asking hard questions of players, coaches, owners, and commissioners and allow their personal biases (Brent Musburger please call your office) to be reflected in their color commentary and their Monday morning quarterbacking. They simply turn on their TV sets and buy the occasional t-shirt or sweatshirt. As long as the games come on when they're scheduled, they're happy.

And that's fine. If you like the way the current system works, by all means, continue to support it. If you're a Detroit fan, keep watching, buying merchandise, and buying tickets to games. If you're a college football fan, keep watching, keep supporting it with your viewership, and keep going to the games. Keep supporting a system that creates both the supply and the demand and views you as an irrelevant inconvenience.

I choose to no longer participate.