peterme.com

Well-put. I think the comparison to iPhoto is appropriate—though I'm still not entirely clear as to how replacing menus and palettes with the Ribbon suddenly makes things no longer WYSIWYG.

I agree with you that Jakob's logic and reasons for publishing the article in the first place are rather questionable...

The problem is that the ribbon is not a task-based interface, but a half-hearted attempt to graft a task-based interface onto a tool-based one.

I wrote a more detailed piece on the new UI from this perspective.

On further reflection, I should have said more about the above link. My main point is not about tools vs. tasks, but about ability vs. intent, and I think it agrees with and clarifies the confusion you express above with "results-oriented ui" (which is not the same as "task-based ui").

The debate over WYSIWYG, in my mind, should be framed around questioning whether what the user thinks they want is what they really want. I use the example of changing fonts. Sure, you can change the font and see what it looks like, but does the look you've chosen match what you were trying to say? Call software that tries to help you with that "intent-driven ui".

Granted, it's dangerous territory for software to tread on, but experts in various fields make those decisions every day, and it's why we have experts - in many things, there is actually a difference between "doing something" and "doing something right". It's a hard thing to say that software should force you into the latter, but I think it should at least try to encourage it where it can.

Here's one thing that concerns me--it seems like we already struggle with the tendency to develop/produce things that are derivative and that it's very difficult to create things that are truly original. This interface seems to suggest that everything that can be done inside whatever software program you're dealing with is inherently derivative so there isn't a danger/downside to an interface that takes the building blocks principle one step further. *Is that the case?* Microsoft is definitely going down that road--when you work in Visio now there are so many pre-set document types (org charts, maps, flow charts) -- but I haven't been able to decide whether having them do the "thinking" about the nature of an org chart such that I just fill in the blanks is good, in that it frees me up to just think about the roles *or* whether it's problematic, because it encourages me (maybe even limits me) to only think inside the parameters of what is provided.

A pale shadow of the original Anti-Mac.

Samantha - you're seeing the powerpoint problem, of course. It's so easy to make presentations in a particular way that it takes extra effort to not do that.

There's a balance to be struck between having the software encourage you to organize your output and having the software do your thinking for you.

I'm primarily a software architect by trade, and my criteria for judging a good development framework follows similar standards. First, it has to be easy to use. Not necessarily easy to learn, but easy to use. Second, it has to do as much work as it can for me. It has to make the easy simple cases I'm going to use all of the time as little work for me as possible. Third, and most importantly, it has to get out of the way when I know better than it. If I have to break the framework in order to do something complicated that it didn't predict, it's a failure.

WYSIWYG = What you see is what you get. I fail to see how anything in Office 12 has anything to do with what you see on the screen is what you get on your printer.

Yes, the interface is changing, the results, meaning both screen and printer are the same as always and consistant between eachother. Any other use of the term is a really stupid bastardization of something that was never intended.

Death of WSYIWIG didn't quite make sense to me either. When I work on a document in Word and take the time to design it - design it to look online the way I want - for aesthetics and readability I expect the same result printed - and it generally works out that way. Otherwise why spend the time crafting it!?! Give me a manual typewriter with the Courier font ball instead then!

The UI/tools/tasks/results whatever you want to call it gives me the "way" to write and design a document to look and print the way I want it to.

Task based vs Results based - in the end you have to tap into what users want to accomplish - this includes how they "think" about what they need to do and how the interface maps to that. This involves tasks and expected results - how do I do this to get the "result" I want.

UIs also suggest how I might "think" about getting the "result" I want by virtue of the way they work or force me to work.

Hogwash! -- Jakob Nielsen's claimed WYSISYG replacement is WYGIWYS, which more fittingly stands for What You Get Is WoefullY Shortsighted from Nielsen. This man's view of UI is clearly biased towards M$ who has always trailed the leading edge.

You never promote creativity by limiting choices and just because M$ can't figure out what features customers most want, and thus bury them deeply, they are still there for people of normal intelligence to find and use them.

Long live WYSIWYG.

tedd