The only problem I see is the fact that Microsoft never follows the rules of "standards" so the end product they produce will have tons of propriatary stuff that they are hoping to make everyone else adopt. For example it would be great to take a Word document and save it as an html document but if you every try... holy crap! How many propriatry css tags are added to a simple document. They bloat the code way to much. So I am afraid this will lead to more and more propriatary crap that has to be cleaned up.

Thanks for the link Cian,
I have to admit, I cant stand Jakob Nielson - he bugs the hell outta me.

The idea of seeing the results before you button is already in play in a lot of areas (Like the new photobooth app that was released yesterday for iMac G5).

I dont know If I would like the new idea on professional apps, I like simple buttons and clean interfaces that dont show off their own features but let me get on with the task (funny enough... like os x :D )

What's your view on this article?

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Online Portfolio - in progress
jammindesigns.com

I think he may be onto something. Interfaces are groaning under the weight of options these days and ability to view the consequences of any action is definitely a benefit. Photoshop have an element of this with the Filter gallery. Before it was a case of staring at a small preview and hoping for the best.

Peoples comfort or acceptance of the current model means that moving towards a new UI convention will have to be gradual and involve some compromise.

As for Jakob, I bought his book a few years ago and agree with most of what he says. He pisses a lot of people off, especially the Flash crowd, but such is the price of strong convictions.
afterglow.ie - Icons, interfaces, illustration

Just to get it straight: WYGIWYS is, like, models? You know, these pre-formatted templates you get with your average Office programs? If my thinking is right, we´re living the revolution years ago.

It seems to me like MS is trying to find a way to lighten their bloat-ware by coming up with a new UI, rather than cut out all of the extraneous "features" that no one needs or uses.

The UI in Office wouldn't be nearly the problem the author states it is if they wouldn't have tried to make one app do everything.

All their innovation is, at least what I gather from it, is the application of templates after the fact. Reminds me of publishing a page to .mac. I hardly see this as a UI revolution.

I also find his statement about people wanting to use an interface like Office in everything because they use it all day disturbing. He is obviously talking to office drones that use PCs all the time and Windows based software with like commands in differnt places, etc.

It's like Pages version 2!
Pages is wonderfull just needs un update and fix that stupid html export crap of code...

Jakob makes the assumption that WYSIWYG was about having icons on the screen to perform functions. And that's a completely false assumption.

WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get - was a description of how a Mac worked because it was the first mainstream computer that imitated what a document would look like on paper when it was printed. White background and so on. What you saw on screen is what it would look like printed.

Microsoft is simply (and finally!) dropping the idiotic approach that every function has to have its own button on a tool bar. It just pains me to watch as someone very carefully moves the mouse cursor over the "bold" icon (that is 16x16) in order to bold something - when they could just as easily, and much faster choose "bold" from a menu (assuming the menu is in the proper place, at the top of the screen ala Mac) OR use a key command. Trying to point at a 16x16 icon is insane.

My point is that this isn't a change in paradigms as much as it is Microsoft (hopefully) getting it. Having icons for everything isn't ease of use. Ease of use is ease of use.

Sidenote: It drives me nuts that Nielson's site is one of the most unusable on the planet. His insistence on having wide columns of text that is 14 px and not providing any leading makes his writing hard to read. Ironic?

I fail to see how this is at all a paradigm shift like people are making it out to be. You're still getting what you see on the screen, right? How is that any different than WYSIWYG? Office 12 is just a new way of organizing functions based on the task at hand. It is in no way a shift in paradigm; it's just a clever new way to do the same ol' junk.

I think this is an interesting question. I think what MS is trying to get done is a Wizard all the time user experience. You start word and it keeps asking questions and you need to keep choosing between preformatted template elements until you're done. It may be cool if it's done right, but it only works in Office like applications where you have a quite limited number of different things one usually does. I can't see this approach to work in PS for example.

I really like the user interface that Maya has. It probably has 100 times more functions than Microsoft Word, so it was essential to have a good navigation of tools. If you ever used Maya you know what I'm talking about. It's like contextual menus on steriods. Also, I like the fact that you need to use all three mouse buttons to navigate within your space. I think these approaches can be very much adapted to PS to speed up work.

I'd like to be able to be able to zoom in and out by pressing a mouse button and dragging within a PS document. Or move within layers with another mouse button without actually going to the layer palette. Or get all the possible commands around the cursor above the object when I press a certain button.

I think M$ just ripped of and combined the interface in keynote & illustrator/indesign CS2 and made there own horizontal version of it.

who cares what that pompous self-promoter thinks about anything? he's worse than clement mok or dave siegel ...

what a loser. i mean, what losers.