Microsoft Strikes the Right Balance with Simplified Ribbon (Premium)

After digging its heels in for over a decade on the reviled Office ribbon, Microsoft is finally doing the right thing. It's making a more scalable user interface that looks great and works better.

Ironically, Microsoft has achieved its original goals for the ribbon in doing so.

I wrote earlier today about Microsoft's plans to bring a "simplified ribbon"---really a tabbed toolbar---to its Office applications across platforms. And I also discussed the early history of the original ribbon, which was created to overcome the command density problem that had overwhelmed the old menu- and toolbars-based interfaces from Office past.

The Office ribbon has its supporters, of course. I'm not one of them, exactly, though I've defended Microsoft's work and why they did it. Put simply, the ribbon is better than the old-fashioned UIs that predated it. But it has always been too big, heavy, and unwieldy for users. And even if you think that it's "simpler" than the old hunt and peck method of finding commands, which it is, it's still too daunting and confusing for most users.

So it was with great interest that Microsoft pioneered what is now being called a new UI when it created the Office Mobile apps. These apps appeared first on Windows phone, as a hub of sorts, but over time they evolved into the form we're now familiar with, utilizing a tabbed toolbar UI. And they've moved across platforms, to Android and iOS.

This simplified ribbon, as Microsoft calls it, is the right approach. It looks simpler---is simpler---than the full ribbon, and it doesn't take up as much on-screen real estate, a huge advantage in today's mobile computing-dominated world. In fact, this UI more closely resembles the Google Docs UI than it does the old ribbon UI. I'm sure that's by design.

But it's not just simpler, it's better: The new simplified ribbon is also more scalable from a UI perspective. This is an issue today with the Office mobile apps on the desktop. If you look at the button sizes on OneNote for Windows 10's ribbon/toolbar, you'll see that they are humongous and touch-friendly. But for the new UI, Microsoft is scaling them correctly. This UI will look right on the desktop. That's overdue.

The other big change from the past is that Microsoft will allow power users and others to instantly revert to the classic ribbon. There's a switch right in the app for that change, and that should silence any complaints. This flexibility was notably missing back in 2005 when Microsoft was implementing the original ribbon.

Microsoft is still apparently struggling to determine which commands---button/icons---should appear by default in the core Office applications, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This is smart, however: Given the overly-sensitive reaction to the original ribbon over a decade ago, it's not wise to mess with your most experienced users again. Listening to feedback? What a concept.

But I do have some advice: One thing that Office still doesn't d...