The Story of the Ribbon
I was reading through commentary from people who attended last week's MIX conference in Las Vegas. Running across Miguel de Icaza's kind words reminded me that I hadn't posted a follow-up about my MIX talk yet.
Last week, I presented a session at MIX called "The Story of the Ribbon." I talked a bit about the general design process we used to come up with the Office 2007 user interface, to iterate on it, and to evaluate it. As part of the discussion, I showed for the first time some of the early prototypes we worked on (and abandoned or refined) along the way.
It's always fun to present substantially new content, and this was my first time giving large portions of this talk. The audience was great and, although you can't hear them on the video, they seemed to be into it and enjoying the presentation. It was a lot of fun!
Watch "The Story of the Ribbon"
(Video, audio, and slides)
Download "The Story of the Ribbon"
(Slides and audio only, Windows Media, 146 MB)
Alternate Formats:
Download for iPod
(.mp4, 121 MB)
Download the PowerPoint slides only
(.pptx, 20 MB)
Dowload the slides only as a PDF
(.pdf, 19 MB)
Although I showed a few prototypes, I truly only scratched the surface of what the team created during the design phase of Office 2007. I spent a weekend painstakingly going through thousands of pictures to choose a few representative samples to show. Because I only had 75 minutes, I knew clicking through 25,000 pictures probably wasn't going to work.
Here are photos of the beginning and the end of the talk courtesy of Long Zheng. (You'll have to watch the presentation to see what's in-between!)
Over the last few days, the screenshots of the evolution of Word from version 1.0 to 2003 have been lifted from this presentation and subsequently posted and reposted all over the web.
That's OK, but if you want to see the full, original screenshots along with the commentary and discussion, please read parts 2, 3, and 4 of the Why the UI? series of posts.
While at MIX, I also participated in a panel discussion called "What's the Secret Formula?" along with Mike Schroepfer from Mozilla, Dan Harrelson from Adaptive Path, and Daniel Makoski from the Surface team at Microsoft. This was an interesting discussion about some of the challenges inherent in delivering on great user experiences.
Watch "What's the Secret Formula?"
Thanks to everyone who came up and introduced themselves after the session and throughout MIX. I enjoyed talking to you and meeting so many of you face-to-face!
Comments
Anonymous
March 11, 2008
Excellent, very intersting talk... I'll definitely be recommending this video to my design team.Anonymous
March 12, 2008
Great and very informative presentation! I switched to Office 2007 back with Beta 2 and haven't looked back ever since.Anonymous
March 12, 2008
Really interesting!Anonymous
March 12, 2008
What about uploading the slides in a format I can read whithout having to buy the latest MS Office? (I've Office XP installed btw.) PDF would be prefect though. Thanks!Anonymous
March 12, 2008
Thanks a lot, Jensen! Again, great presentation, and what a nice thing we can also download the ppt! I sure am going to use some of those style masters ;) So long, martinAnonymous
March 12, 2008
dre, You can open .pptx files in Office XP, but you'll need to have the Compatibility Pack installed first. (Same goes for people who have Office 2003.) Here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en I will try to put them up in PDF format if I get time later today.Anonymous
March 12, 2008
Hello Jensen, As a OpenOffice user - I'll be happy to be able to download the slides in pdf or ppt-format. I really hope that format-issues wouldn't happen to user beyond 2010. It is annoying and not quite a usability and user experience booster.Anonymous
March 12, 2008
I have just picked up this TED talk where Nicholas Negroponte describes the foundation of a system thatAnonymous
March 12, 2008
Thank you, i really enjoyed this presentation, very informative! I really wonder why the mac version of office doesn't have the full ribbon interface and other extremely usefull features like live preview for example. After i tried the beta 2 and final of office07 i couldn't wait to get this on office for mac and i was quite disappointed when office08 for mac came out (clunky, slow, buggy, many missing features...dare i say.. bloated?) Its like all of the new cognitions your team made didn't reach the mac office team. At the moment im still using office07 on xp with virtualization. Thanks anyway for your presentation, Alex.Anonymous
March 12, 2008
I watched this talk a few days ago when it was posted and loved it. Having read the blog I knew what was coming (and loved the 'Myth' gameshow bit, wish I could of seen the audience react to that!) but the new parts were very interesting! Since I lacked some currently, I've written up some 'Design Tenets' and Goals for my own project and they are already starting to help. Looking forward to when you can start to post again about what ever new stuff you are working on. :) Long live the Ribbon!Anonymous
March 12, 2008
You don't have to buy Office to open .pptx: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=enAnonymous
March 12, 2008
jensen, thanks for the info. didn't know that. pdf would still be preferred as I wouldn't have to download and install additional software. cheers + thanks for looking into that, dréAnonymous
March 12, 2008
Thanks for sharing this. It's a rare insight into the development of a UI for a complex product. The Office 2007 UI is nice but I also like the Fluent UI in Mindjet MindManagerAnonymous
March 13, 2008
I put up a PDF version of the slides this morning. I do recommend watching the video however if you have a chance, as a lot of the content and context isn't present in the slides. (The deck itself is probably only marginally useful.)Anonymous
March 13, 2008
Thank you for providing the video and the slides to your talk. I am using linux as operating system and studying computer science. I would appreciate if you could provide the video in a non-proprietary format which is not burried under a mountain of software patents. I think with only have seen the slides that many open source developers can learn from your experiences at Microsoft. Keep up the great work.Anonymous
March 13, 2008
Some of you may have already seen this posted in Jensen’s blog.  Jensen is the GPM of theAnonymous
March 13, 2008
Microsoft Studios did the video and it looks like they only encoded in WMV and MP4 formats. I'd recommend using something like Xine to play the .wmv file in Linux. Here is the link: http://www.xinehq.de/. I've had good success with Xine + totem in the past.Anonymous
March 13, 2008
Some of you may have already seen this posted in Jensen’s blog.  Jensen is the GPM of theAnonymous
March 13, 2008
Jensen, Great stuff. It's definitely interesting to see the early prototypes, but I'm glad that you guys went with the Ribbon for the final version. Over the past year and a half, I've grown very accustomed to it and actually miss it when I'm in Publisher, OneNote, and Outlook. I really hope you guys implement it throughout the suite in the next version! Incidentally, over the past couple months I've been deploying it company-wide where I work. I've used a lot of the material on this blog to support my case that it's worth the learning curve. Universally, people are happy with it once they get the hang of it, but the first impression is, of course, mixed. Regards, AaronAnonymous
March 13, 2008
Wow, wonderful presentation. I recommend watching the video clip. Thanks!Anonymous
March 14, 2008
This is a very good video to show the design process. I have liked office 07 from the time of Beta testing it. When there was a chance at work to have it installed I jumped on it and now I'm the office expert. I completely agree with the Mastery idea as the difference from 03 to 07 is overwhelming at first but I would and will never go back. The product is solid. (I Ringer prototype looked fun, maybe called it the hobbit though) Congrads on the product and best wishing for improving on the next version of office this is going to be hard to make better, but as always our creations can find a good place here and there to tweak. CheerioAnonymous
March 15, 2008
Nice flashback. Thank you for the presentation.Anonymous
March 17, 2008
Your presentation was excellent; I wish I had seen it when I purchased MS 2007. I have to admit the ribbon was overwhelming when I first started to use Word and Access, however, I am amazed at how logical the tabs become as you have functions with new projects. Thanks so much.Anonymous
March 17, 2008
Ribbon Interface = Worst. Idea. Evar. How can I turn it off and get back to my menus and button bars?Anonymous
March 17, 2008
I don't want to spoil the general back paddling, but you managed to irritate most of my office with MSo2007. After working with excel for more than 10 years you learn how to do things. And with the new UI I would have to spend at least 1-2 months to have the same productivity. And all the customizations - gone... Its not worth it, rolling back to 2003.Anonymous
March 18, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
March 20, 2008
Great video. However, I'm curious about Outlook. It's part of the Office suite, but it doesn't look or feel like Word, Excel and Powerpoint. What's the story there?Anonymous
March 20, 2008
BoltBait, unfortunately there's no way to "turn off" the Ribbon and get back the old UI, despite there being many calls from long time users for it. You can, however, get a plug-in from www.addintools.com. You can download a trial version. The actual one costs about $30, if memory serves me right. ehhh, yours isn't the first case I've heard. However, it appears MS is desperately trying to increase the number of Office 2007 users. Recently, I found out from a VERY reliable source that a major financial institution has advised their employees that they can purchase the Enterprise edition of Office 2007 for $19.95!Anonymous
March 23, 2008
Free (?) alternative for classic UI is: http://pschmid.net/blog/2007/04/20/111 http://pschmid.net/blog/2007/04/21/112 http://pschmid.net/blog/2007/04/24/113 Haven't tried them out though as I think an UI that probably millions of people want back, really should be provided by MS. Btw: How much money makes MS with a million of Office 2007 licenses? Not enough to give them the option to use the classic UI they want?Anonymous
March 25, 2008
Hi Jensen, great presentation, thank you for sharing this, I really enjoyed watching it! I'd like to ask you a question about the Print menu item, why didn't it made its way to the Home Ribbon or to the Quick Access Toolbar? Usage statistics as well or something else? I don't think it's a big deal, but I've heard some people arguing about this.Anonymous
March 26, 2008
Le moins que l'on puisse dire, c'est que l'introduction, par Microsoft, de sa nouvelle interface utilisateur (UI) dans ses logciels phares (Ms-Office), le ruban (the Ribbon), n'est pas passée inaperçue. En règle générale, les "power utilisateurs&quoAnonymous
March 26, 2008
Le moins que l'on puisse dire, c'est que l'introduction, par Microsoft, de sa nouvelle interface utilisateur (UI) dans ses logciels phares (Ms-Office), le ruban (the Ribbon), n'est pas passée inaperçue. En règle générale, les "power utilisateurs&quoAnonymous
March 26, 2008
Le moins que l'on puisse dire, c'est que l'introduction, par Microsoft, de sa nouvelle interface utilisateur (UI) dans ses logciels phares (Ms-Office), le ruban (the Ribbon), n'est pas passée inaperçue. En règle générale, les "power utilisateurs&quoAnonymous
March 31, 2008
First of all, thanks for the presentation, I really enjoyed it. Here's my problem: I have a simple question that seems to have no answer. I tried the Word Team Blog and the Discussion Groups, but with no result at all. It's related to the Table of Authorities feature in Word 2007. I just want to know why cann't I replace the category of a TOA entry using the replace feature? If the feature doesn't work, or this a bug or something like that.. it's ok. I just want to make sure that it's not something wrong in the steps I follow. Thanks in advance for your helpAnonymous
April 01, 2008
Revisando las estadísticas de mi blog veo que la historia de la interfaz de Office 2007 se ha convertidoAnonymous
April 18, 2008
Have you began to work on the next version of Office, yet?Anonymous
April 29, 2008
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May 08, 2008
Anyone who's been to any of my recent presentations knows that I'm a passionate advocate of developingAnonymous
May 26, 2008
One of the common questions I get asked when I do sessions on VSTO / OBA development is "how canAnonymous
July 26, 2008
By Don Burnett Microsoft has a great history of being a great listener to it's customers. After the launches of new versions of their productivity software, came out some people started to wonder where that great responsiveness was. It's now clear thatAnonymous
August 09, 2008
Office 2007 User interface - The story of the RibbonAnonymous
November 18, 2008
Microsoft Office Word a fait du chemin depuis sa première version lancée pour Xenix et MS-DOS en octobreAnonymous
November 18, 2008
Microsoft Office Word a fait du chemin depuis sa première version lancée pour Xenix et MS-DOS en octobreAnonymous
December 10, 2008
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December 13, 2008
Why reading Luis Villa's recent post about why he uses MS Office 2007, over OpenOffice.org makes me want to upgrade to MS Office 2007.Anonymous
December 14, 2008
From Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog : I was reading through commentary from people whoAnonymous
January 02, 2009
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March 10, 2009
The more I talk about SharePoint to customers, the more I end up talking about Office 2007 and, inevitably,Anonymous
March 29, 2009
Functioning Form is one of my favorite design blogs, last Friday author Luke Wroblewski summarized DesignAnonymous
April 06, 2009
Did you know the interface used in Office programs before 2007 was designed way back in 1992? That's