The Ribbon

Posted January 4th, 2007 by Chris Gurney

Whether you like it or not, Microsoft calls the shots on the direction of user interfaces on the vast majority of desktop applications around the world.

The next major paradigm shift is just around the corner. Over on Lifehacker, you can catch a glimpse of the new Microsoft Office 2007 user interface.

The main difference over Office 2003 is that Microsoft opted to replace the traditional menu + toolbar setup you see in the majority of Windows applications with a tabbed approach, called the “ribbon”. Options are laid out on the ribbon based on the task the user in attempting to perform. The goal of the task-driven approach is to shorten the time it takes to perform an action, such as creating a table. Here’s a demo that shows this, and more on Microsoft’s site.

Even more importantly, however, is that Microsoft is allowing the Office 2007 user interface to be licensed, and is providing a set of guidelines. This means that you can expect to see the ribbon, and other new UI behavior, proliferate to most of your favorite applications over the next few years.

From a product management standpoint, there will be a major impact for product designers as that they will have to rethink how their applications are laid out in order to “conform”. But from what I have seen so far, this will be a positive change, if done right.

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