http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/04/07/570798.aspx - the post on the most used commands in Office
From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Ken Schaefer Sent: Monday, 13 May 2013 5:17 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: Is Surface really failing? (tangent # 99) a) Threaded comments are a killer feature for me, and auto-object spacing in Visio. I guess one person’s killer feature is another person’s ‘meh’. I’m sure that Jensen Harris posted some usage stats from Office 2003 that showed that beyond the first 10 or so features, the next 100 are only used by 1-2% of the population, but different 1%s, so eliminating a feature isn’t really possible b) In terms of surfacing features to the user, the Ribbon is pretty good. Much better and scalable than the toolbars, menus, task panes and all the other stuff that pre-dated it. I’m pretty sure Jensen also had some graphs showing the growth in features (and the concurrent increase in toolbars etc and how unsustainable it was going to be) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/table-of-contents.aspx makes for fascinating reading (showing the depth of analysis and work that went into rethinking the UI) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/04/04/568249.aspx feature bloat in Office Cheers Ken From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com<mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com> [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Nathan Chere Sent: Monday, 13 May 2013 4:20 PM To: ozDotNet Subject: RE: Is Surface really failing? (tangent # 99) If you use Powerpoint and Access extensively your mileage may vary but other than for a few minor niceties in Outlook I can’t think of a single ‘killer feature’ added to the core Office programs (ie Word, Excel and Outlook) between Office 2003 and Office 2013 which even remotely compels me to upgrade if the licenses weren’t included anyway with my MSDN subscription (maybe faster large file handling in 64 bit versions?). The only significant reason that I upgrade is OneNote. Other than for that I’d be perfectly happy sticking with 2003, ‘supported’ or not (and when’s the last time Microsoft consumer-level support provided anything of value anyway?) Speaking solely from a user perspective, it’s not that dissimilar to the Win8 situation. Why expect people to re-learn what they already know how to do more efficiently for the sole sake of ‘keeping up’? Where’s the benefit to the user?
