PDC: Microsoft replaces menu bar with feature docks

Los Angeles (CA) - Microsoft chairman Bill gates announced at the PDC conference a major shift in how users will navigate through the firm’s core applications. The menu and icon bar as we know them today are gone. They are substituted by what Microsoft calls "ribbon" - docks providing more transparent access to the functionality of software.

Lack of functionality never was a usability problem in modern software. For years, however, the industry has been quoting research findings that users are not able finding certain features in applications and in fact used as little as 10 percent of the functionalities some programs offered. Microsoft came up with a new concept that aims to make embedded features more visible and accessible to users - rather than hiding them in the deep structures of sub-menus and folders.

Instead of the menu and icon bar, users of Microsoft’s core applications - such as the upcoming Office 12 - will find a new user interface that currently is named "ribbon." This new navigation bar consists of a tabbed command bar, which will open "galleries" in the location of today’s icon bar, simply by hovering over entries. The look and feel is reminiscent of the docks that have been used by software developers in the vector graphics and image editing segment for years - including Adobe and Corel. However, Microsoft’s approach is more dynamic, more graphic-intensive and more intuitive.

According to Microsoft, galleries provide "a visual representation of the kinds of formatting choices users can make in your document without needing to set a number of individual elements to achieve it." For example, if users want your margins to be wide or narrow or short or tall, you can go to a gallery for a visual image of what that would look like all at once instead of needing to changes several items in a dialog box, explained Julie Larson-Green, group program manager for the Office User Experience at Microsoft.

Bill Gates also demonstrated a new, more dynamic "flip" feature for switching from one application to another. While users typically use the [ALT]+[TAB] shortcut to change their currently used software, Windows Vista - which was shown in a new "post-Beta 1" preview version - displays a film strip. Thumbnails displayed in the film strip show the actual current content of applications. When users are flipping through open applications, the preview thumbnails are displayed a 45-degree-angled 3D preview - resembling the look and feel of flipping through physical pages.