Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
38,743
I don't know what build of Office 365 my organization is on, and can't even seem to figure out how to check, (Seriously, where is the "About" button?) so I don't know if this last update I just got the other day is new, or old news because of my IT department holding things back, but I have to ask this. WTF are the people at Microsoft smoking?

Every single time they touch the user interface they make it objectively worse.

After the update was installed, and I tried to send an email I was greeted by this comically oversized email user interface:


email-pix.png


Comically oversized buttons and fields to enter information wasting a huge amount of desktop real estate compared to the reasonable old school way of doing things. For what purpose? Why does this shit need to be so large? It's not just a scaling issue. The icons and fields have grown excessively compared to everything else. I could scale my interface down, but now everything else would be to small and the email interface would still be huge.

Is this a touch interface thing? Well fuck that. This is a computer, not a tablet. 0% of the software on my computer should be designed with touch in mind. It should be optimized for a mouse and keyboard and a mouse and keyboard only.


Try to reschedule a meeting, and the ridiculousness continues. Everything is not ENORMOUS. it's like I opened a a version of office intended for toddlers, where everything is made larger for the little children. What the hell is up with this?

schedule-pix.png


Oh, and where the hell did the button in the ribbon go I used to click on to see who accepted, declined or failed to respond to my meeting invitation? I used to use that all the time, and now I can't find that shit anywhere.

Is no one else bothered by this?

It is really getting old with absolutely everything on the desktop morphing into something that resembles a mobile interface. First it was web pages only, with stupid amounts of dead space and huge buttons to accommodate for fat fingered fools on phones. Now its Office as well? They claim these things are "scalable interfaces" so they can be used on all platforms, but that is either an outright lie, or just the worst execution in history.

And if they could just stop arbitrarily moving things for no fucking reason, that would be great. The whole ribbon interface thing made no fucking sense to begin with, but at least you can memorize what stupid place they put something in if they stopped fucking moving it. I would do almost anything to have the menu interface from Office 2003 and earlier back.

Mobile is great and all. I have a phone, and I use it all the time when I am on the go. But the mobile interface is absolutely horrible on the desktop, and the desktop is still where 99% of all productivity happens, and I don't see that changing.

I feel like Microsoft is still hurting from having missed the mobile explosion and trying to make up for it, but making up for it in the dumbest possible of ways.

I want a desktop-centric web experience, with desktop-centric applications all designed and optimized around an environment where keyboard and mouse are the ONLY input options, with no sacrifices made for any other method of input.

Don't get me wrong, I like mobile, and mobile serves a purpose for temporary remote access when on those occasions when I am away from my desktop, but mobile needs to be a "yes, and" not a "merge everything together" solution. We cannot continue to dumb down and sacrifice the superior desktop interface in order to accommodate the lowest common denominator on a dumbass phone or tablet.

I fucking hate what has happened to computing in the 2010's and I have a feeling I'm going to hate the 2020's even more.

The inflection point seems to have been approximately 2005-2007 somewhere. Apart from more capable hardware running faster and cooler, everything else has become objectively worse since then. Cloud bullshit, mobile nonsense, spying for profit. I wish it would all just go away, and get back to when everything was static, local and desktop oriented.


Is no one else bothered by this shit?
 
I was greeted by that garbage today in Outlook. Worse than just the email reply is that is reduced the amount of mail shown. I immediately found the VIew->Use Tighter Spacing option. I am so sick of this Fisher Price Windows garbage. For word and excel, I still use 2010 and I'm leaving it installed. If there is ever a way to get Outlook 2010 to work with our new email system I'll gladly switch back to it.
 
I was greeted by that garbage today in Outlook. Worse than just the email reply is that is reduced the amount of mail shown. I immediately found the VIew->Use Tighter Spacing option. I am so sick of this Fisher Price Windows garbage. For word and excel, I still use 2010 and I'm leaving it installed. If there is ever a way to get Outlook 2010 to work with our new email system I'll gladly switch back to it.

I'll have to try that view setting.


Thank you.
 
This is why I'm still on Office 2007 lol

Microsoft's interfaces have gone to shite for quite some time now. Oversize icons to say the least and the most unused stuff shown by default lol.
 
This is why I'm also on 2013, it still has some of the gimped ribbon horseshit with many newer features but not as bad as that, those screenshots are horrific.
2010 was my favourite word.
 
office has become more stupidified with every release. that is fine, the bigger issue for me is windows 10 updates that leave my laptop hanging on boot until I eventually get it to where it can do a repair rollback
 
Well, the incompetent designers/engineers have to show they're doing something for that paycheck lol
 
I saw the collapsed or minimal ribbon interface pop up today as well. That actually ain't too bad compared to the larger ribbon. It's a worth a shot to get back some real estate.
 
I would kill to get a traditional file menu back. This is why I'm refusing to move from Waterfox with Classic Theme Restorer.

But, you do know you can minimize the ribbon, right? There's even an option to get rid of the tabs, although that forces it to switch to full screen mode. I mean, it still takes up half the screen while you're using it, but it's better than nothing.


Ribbon.png

Waterfox with CTR:
waterfox.png
 
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They're converting the Windows UI to be more friendly with tablet and touch screen users. They learned about their mistake with W8 and now instead of changing the whole system UI in a single update, they're making little changes here and there with every update (even without announcing them) so the change process doesn't overwhelm users.
 
They're converting the Windows UI to be more friendly with tablet and touch screen users. They learned about their mistake with W8 and now instead of changing the whole system UI in a single update, they're making little changes here and there with every update (even without announcing them) so the change process doesn't overwhelm users.

And it is absolutely terrible.

Doing it piecemeal or all at once doesn't matter, it's still making it worse.

If they want to make a touch compatible product that is great I guess, but keep it as a separate product, or allow people to switch between the interfaces using the "tablet mode" feature.

Touch interfaces simply are not good for productivity. Only casual users will ever willingly switch over full time to touch. They should realize that their most serious users do not want this at all.
 
The new interface is absolutely awful!

Just switch to something other than Outlook...

It's not that bad.
 
right click the far right end of the "ribbon" & select "Use Simplified Ribbon". Removes the oversize icons on the ribbon. Cannot say I have noticed too much as the resolution I have the 4K monitors set to makes things look smaller than what they usually are even with 150% zoom set in Windows itself.
 
This has made me wonder though.

Am I really in the minority in thinking that touch and other alternative interfaces (like voice commands) are never going to take over in the office/productivity world?

Or are there people out there who actually like this stuff?

I'm not talking about the at home casuals who may occasionally use the stuff. I'm talking about those of us who use the office package or other productivity tools all day every day for work.
 
right click the far right end of the "ribbon" & select "Use Simplified Ribbon". Removes the oversize icons on the ribbon. Cannot say I have noticed too much as the resolution I have the 4K monitors set to makes things look smaller than what they usually are even with 150% zoom set in Windows itself.

I'd give you more than a like if I could for that tip...
 
I looked, 20 seconds and I found it. Not bragging as it is in an odd place under Office Account.
 
right click the far right end of the "ribbon" & select "Use Simplified Ribbon". Removes the oversize icons on the ribbon. Cannot say I have noticed too much as the resolution I have the 4K monitors set to makes things look smaller than what they usually are even with 150% zoom set in Windows itself.

That is awesome, thank you.
 
They have made the same issue with File Explorer in the very last Windows 10 build. Probably it going to be even worse.

1582629846634.png
 
Glad I found this thread. Saves me the trouble of writing up the same rant as I couldn’t have written it better than in here myself. Glad to see I’m not the only one disgusted with the windows/office UI changes. I’ve been using Office 2010 for several years now but my hard disk just crashed and now I’m exposed to all this non-sense with the latest Office 365 and Outlook. Fortunately I’m retiring in two weeks and if I never have to see Microsoft Office again it will be just fine with me. I have OpenOffice running on my home computers which suits me just fine. And I’ve installed OpenShell so I don’t have to deal with the miserable Windows 10 shell and start menu. I don’t know who’s bright idea it was to take things off of standard menu locations. Google is fine for the unknown internet but I shouldn’t have to run a search to find standard operation system features and functions or have to make my own shortcuts. Seems like designers are just getting lazy, instead of designing a useable UI they just expect users to search for what they are looking for. Case in point that stupid Tell me what you want to do wasting space on the Outlook ribbon that usefully can’t figure out what I want to do. If I get bored in the future I may just go with full blown Linux.
 
Ugh.

I just got a beta preview of the new Facebook interface coming down the pike.

Toddler sized HUGE interface elements.

Flat flat flat

Disgusting amounts of dead space

I hope they don't make it mandatory.

I mean, you can use your browser to zoom out, but that still doesn't address the awful amount of dead space.

It's barely usable on my 1366x768 laptop as the dead space wastes so much crucial desktop real estate.

At least Facebook is not an essential productivity tool like Office is...
 
I mean, just look at this horrific nonsense.

1585762301740.png



If you try to improve things by zooming out, it just gets WORSE.

Here it is at 67%, where the font size makes sense for me:

1585762673857.png


I don't understand the desire to dumb down every user interface today. What the hell is wrong with user interface designers? Are they all smoking crack?

I want my user interfaces as compact and information dense as possible so I can fit as much as possible on my desktop at one time. That is the best configuration from a usability perspective. It is context switching which is the killer, and when ever you have to scroll or switch windows, you wind up having to context switch, so we should be treating each and every pixel like it is a precious piece of real estate which cannot be wasted under any circumstance.
 
Unfortunately "MOAR Whitespace" took off faster and seems to have taken hold even stronger than "MOAR COREZ".

I usually just blame me becoming an old man, but I can't think of any GUI changes in the last ~10 years I felt was an actual improvement in terms of usability.

Soon everyone is going to have 3 screens just to display the content they used to be able to fit on one lol.
 
a man once said
"Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Just ask
I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
People just submitted it.
I don't know why.
They "trust me"
Dumb fucks "

that's all i need to know about facebook.
 
Lol, gripping about Facebook!

As I mentioned in my post above, at least it's not an essential tool, but it is still a relevant part of the conversation.

It is indicative of a greater trend in UI design that is spreading across everything we use with screens, and it is bloody awful.

Unfortunately "MOAR Whitespace" took off faster and seems to have taken hold even stronger than "MOAR COREZ".

I usually just blame me becoming an old man, but I can't think of any GUI changes in the last ~10 years I felt was an actual improvement in terms of usability.

Soon everyone is going to have 3 screens just to display the content they used to be able to fit on one lol.

Agreed. I cannot think of a single UI trend that has been positive since the late 90's.

At first I thought it was just because mobile had taken over as the dominant platform, and no one wanted to design multiple interfaces, so desktop users got the mobile scraps, even if they didn't make sense on the desktop.

Thes latest designs don't even make sense on mobile though. My only remaining theory is that these people, the greater community of UI designers must be smoking crack.
 
Changing UI is one of the main reasons I HATE subscription services with enforced updates. Office 2007/10 and Windows 7 are the best combo for me for working. Windows 10 loses a lot of compatibility without a ton of fighting, but I use both 7 & 10 for gaming....
 
Changing UI is one of the main reasons I HATE subscription services with enforced updates. Office 2007/10 and Windows 7 are the best combo for me for working. Windows 10 loses a lot of compatibility without a ton of fighting, but I use both 7 & 10 for gaming....

If I had my druthers I'd still be using Office 2003 with the old style menus.

I don't see the static software license solving this issue though. Yes, you can keep using old versions of software and operating systems, but then over time you wind up with file format incompatibilities and known security vulnerabilities that are problematic, so it is absolutely crucial to stay up to date with a patched product either way.

All this accomplishes is kicking the can down the road until the software is EOL and no longer patched. (I sure hope you are planning on Moving away from Windows 7 now that it has been EOL and not received security patches since January)

The real problem is idiotic UI design (and other changes) moving forward.

The mantra right now seems to be "simplify everything and add huge buttons and tons of whitespace". I don't necessarily disagree that if something can be done in a simpler fashion it should, but this is only true if you don't lose something in the process.

With the current design process you definitely lose something in the process.

By all means, introduce an alternate "preschool mode" for the lowest common denominator, but don't ruin everything for those of us who are more capable.
 
If I had my druthers I'd still be using Office 2003 with the old style menus.

I don't see the static software license solving this issue though. Yes, you can keep using old versions of software and operating systems, but then over time you wind up with file format incompatibilities and known security vulnerabilities that are problematic, so it is absolutely crucial to stay up to date with a patched product either way.

All this accomplishes is kicking the can down the road until the software is EOL and no longer patched. (I sure hope you are planning on Moving away from Windows 7 now that it has been EOL and not received security patches since January)

The real problem is idiotic UI design (and other changes) moving forward.

The mantra right now seems to be "simplify everything and add huge buttons and tons of whitespace". I don't necessarily disagree that if something can be done in a simpler fashion it should, but this is only true if you don't lose something in the process.

With the current design process you definitely lose something in the process.

By all means, introduce an alternate "preschool mode" for the lowest common denominator, but don't ruin everything for those of us who are more capable.
Unfortunately, the lowest common denominator is what everyone is catering to now, not just software.
 
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