Pinderkent

Thanks to a submission at Slashdot, I became aware of some recent efforts to prototype a new UI for the OpenOffice.org suite. Since OpenOffice.org isn't exactly known for having the nicest UI around, I thought we might see some significant improvements.

Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. I think this proposed UI is quite a step backwards, and not just because of its similarities to the "Fluent user interface" of Microsoft Office 2007.

My main complaint is that it's quite wasteful of space. It looks like about a quarter of the window space is consumed by the new toolbar or ribbon. This is partially due to the use of larger buttons. Functionality as simple as copying and pasting ends up using significant screen real estate.

So while we have larger monitors these days, we don't actually make better use of the greater screen area that they offer. Instead, it is wasted on unnecessarily large buttons and ribbons. And with smaller-screened netbook computers rapidly gaining popularity, even the slightest bit of wasted screen space becomes a hindrance.

For power users, a design of that sort is typically a step backwards when it comes to increasing their productivity. As some CAD software packages have shown, it often makes sense to get rid of mouse-based interaction. Some go so far as to offer a command prompt built into the bottom of the window, to allow for an experienced user to very rapidly interact with the software, and minimize the role of toolbars. Maybe this is an approach that OpenOffice.org should investigate.

Even for average or casual users, that sort of a design often proves to be confusing. Even now, a few years after Office 2007 has become widely used, there are many people I work with who just don't like it. While similar functionality is grouped, such a grouping may not be natural for all users. Such users have to repeatedly search through tab after tab, looking for how to perform the action they wish to perform. Their productivity ends up dropping significantly, as what should be simple tasks end up taking 10 seconds or more to perform.

I hope that the OpenOffice.org developers don't go ahead and adopt a design like the one that has been proposed. I'd rather see the UI left as it is for the time being, with more emphasis put towards improving the performance of OpenOffice.org, as well as reducing its often-significant memory footprint. Changes like those will, I think, help users out more than such a radical UI change, especially one that itself doesn't really bring any improvement.