Microsoft Office 2010 Preview
This is impenetrable. It’s UI salad. I realize this is not (yet) shipping software, but my god. If you sat me down in front of this, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin.
Update (2009-04-30):
So in short, if Steven Frank wants to call the Ribbon “UI salad”, it is fine by me since I’ve found its use in its original habitat a very desirable and nutritious salad.
Part of the reason my reaction was so negative was that, in my mind, I was trying to walk through a phone conversation with a hypothetical family member who was struggling with that window.
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And if he had used Office post-Ribbon, he would have known that the tooltips are actually massively helpful. Most tools contain a paragraph of disambiguating description, if not a small image detailing which change the button will effect, and at least for the most part the language used is clear and low on jargon.
With the one reservation of the 16x16 toolbar icons sitting right next to the 16x16 system menu (minimize, maximize, move, close) icon, I'm more worried about anything below the Ribbon in that screenshot in terms of teletranscribability.
