Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

Microsoft Office 2007, code-name Office “12” has an impressive user interface. The Microsoft Office UI development team is so proud of the design they say it is “the most significant update to the Microsoft Office user interface in more than a decade.” The team has updated the official preview page, go check it out!

The development team has smartly used several TAB systems to replace the traditional system of menus, toolbars, task panes, and dialog boxes. They focused on a “result-oriented” approach which enables the users to use the advanced features easier and faster.

Tabs are being used across Microsoft Office 2007. The Command Tabs reminds me very much of the property panels in Dreamweaver. One of the benefit using panels like this is the users can easily categorize and familiarize different features and tasks. It essentially makes Microsoft Office 2007 easier to learn compare the past versions.

Office 2007 also used the object property panel (Contextual Command Tabs) idea where you click on “instances” (e.g. chart), the properties and modification tools associated to the type of instance (e.g. chart editing functions) will appear. This makes more sense compare to the old versions where you constantly “search” for the editing functions.

The overall Office 2007 interface is well done and it would be a good direction to complete with the Google’s “Web Based Word Processor” (Writely).