Comments on: Microsoft Dynamics – the unfamiliarity of Office

By: tino

tino — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:44:40 +0000

@tek: UI design isn’t about the pixels but about the usability. It doesn’t matter what it looks like but where it is (or even more simpler: IF there is a button). Even a command line interface needs a good user interface design. Call it language.

I think Long’s point here is, that the Office team did understand that there is a need for good design (even in business) where the Dynamics team seem to not know what a designer should do

By: tek

tek — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:16:11 +0000

CoLD-Fire – I think the ability to build an amortization table or whatever business specific functionality the company cares about… is more important than the tint of a button or the dis-similar look of a ‘click to email’ button. Not to belittle UI too much, but AndreDaCosta is correct… enterprise customers rank this much further down the list. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they don’t rank UI at all… unless its so utterly horrible (think command line versus GUI, not centered tooblars versus left-justified.)that its unusable. MSFT Dynamics obviously isn’t in that camp.

By: CoLD-FiRe

CoLD-FiRe — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:36:01 +0000

Excluding performance and stability, UI is the most important component of all.

Sure, Features and what they provide is very important.

But as you can see with Office,
It doesn’t matter how many cool things it can do, if the UI is a bitch to navigate, and has features placed in illogical locations or if a feature/function is hard to use due to poor UI design. It might as well not even include the features in the first place.

By: tino

tino — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:05:17 +0000

@Andre Da Costa: Businesses should care about the interface. A well designed software can save their money and I think thats why MS decided to redesign the Office System.

By: Andre Da Costa

Andre Da Costa — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:59:11 +0000

I think the companies using this product cares way more about what it does than how it really looks. You are also most likely to get it through Volume Licensing than off the shelf. For someone who has never used the product, you will have a rant like this. I’m just saying, businesses are not as wowed by UI as they are by the solution the product offers.

By: tino

tino — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 13:20:00 +0000

The whole design and marketing departments at Microsoft can’t manage all their own products really well. The screenshot you have linked shows that Dynamics uses a Windows Mobile 6 like menu bar! And the new Windows Live Photo Gallery (stupid name!) looks half like a Windows Live website and half like a Windows Vista app even on XP. It’s a designers hell and they talk the whole day about user experiences…

By: tek

tek — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:44:19 +0000

jeez, talk about getting your panties in a wad over absolutely nothing.

there’s rants about minutia… and then there’s this rant.

By: Abel Chiaro

Abel Chiaro — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:10:24 +0000

Or just as stupid as this new Windows Explorer that can’t remember a single folder display setup…

Or, perhaps, as Media Player 11 that locks some library views just because it doesn’t like them above a certain number of items…

Or like the moronic Ultimate Extras…

My goodness, where is their QA? On vacation?

(I’m just glad that at least the Office team usually performs better.)

By: Matt Sharpe

Matt Sharpe — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:16:41 +0000

Interesting, and silly. They should know what excel looks like.

Almost as stupid as the two Windows Updates for Vista I just installed on my laptop, which apparently fix network connectivity and desktop refreshing.
After rebooting, the sidebar has rendered as a massive block of grey, and I can’t access the Internet. Woohoo!!!