User proof

Vaporising users

Flibble — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:48:00 GMT

Developing a usable application requires that you pay particular attention to who you're designing for. That statement isn't exactly rocket surgery, but it becomes rocket surgery when you begin to realise that everyone has their own ideas of who their users are.

Faced with broad labels, such as ' software developer' or 'dba', it can be tricky to get consensus on skill levels, attitudes and goals. What you then discover is that one person's idea of your user's ability is magically exaggerated when they're arguing a case for assumed user knowledge, and then somewhat diminished at other occasions when you're arguing the case for a feature that would take a lot of development time.

Fortunately, we usability people have thought about this. You'll find that it's hard to pick up a usability book that doesn't mention personas in some form or another, confidently claiming how they'll ensure everyone knows who your users really are.

Excellent. Jobsa good'n. Time for a pint of warm froffy ale and a quick read of 'That’s me sorted' magazine.

Only, that's not quite the end of the story. Personas are tools we use to specify a user archetype. They represent a broad group of people as a single user who is easier to relate to, understand and design for. Satisfy your persona and you satisfy the group. So clearly, you need to think long and hard about the group to ensure that your persona is representative. Most projects have a couple of personas representing groups of people with differing needs.

Hard as that is, it's not impossible and creating believable and representative personas is a great way to start a project. Customer visits, forum and support feedback as well as market research are all rich avenues of information about your real customer needs.

No, what's really tricky is integrating personas into your development team and extracting the full worth of what a persona is good at - i.e. ensuring everyone knows the goals, behaviours and skills of your users. What typically happens is that unless everyone is completely sold on the idea (and reminded almost daily), it's easy to lapse back into the mindset of imagining a malleable user that changes according to your needs.

Red Gate are pretty close to getting the full benefit of using personas and their associated scenarios, but in the next coming weeks, I'm looking to implement a few more ideas to have us living and breathing our users.

To that end, I'll be vaporising any appropriate users and feeding the resultant er... vapor... into the air conditioning. Any volunteers?

War correspondant

Flibble — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:20:00 GMT

At times, Red gate is a dangerous place to work. It's not that the volcano in the first floor meeting room erupts very often, or that the crocodiles have managed to break free from the car I managed to trick them into. No. Not those kind of dangers.

Let me explain. It started innocently enough at a time of year that is all about love and giving - Christmas. A Secret Santa event was organised and presents were happily distributed. It was all going well up until Bart unwrapped his gift... Even then, it wasn't clear how the future would be changed irrecoverably. Remind me to send a terminator back to that happy day.

Anyway, Bart's face did light up in wonder as his foam disk firing, lazer warbling, rapid rate alien blaster was revealed. Batteries include too - which was nice. It wasn't long before Bart was a force to be feared in the office. Minor disputes were quickly and decisively settled with 10 rounds of forcefully flung foam. Happy times were effectively over.

Shortly after, the arms race began. Disgruntled victims sought ways to retaliate and assert their own views - new purchases were made. Where previously Bart would enjoy a position of total control, foam rockets would ricochet back in Bart's direction. His dominance in the weapon's arena was being challenged.

Soon, it wasn't just foam rockets. Suction pad topped darts began to penetrate the air space with deadly accuracy - Bart was forced into retreat and an eerie calm beset the office.

It was inevitable. The cliché came true, the calm gave way to the storm and the big guns started to appear. Now there are pump action, ball flinging implements of mayhem in the office. Nobody is safe and prolonged battles flare up at the slightest provocation.

And then a glimmer of hope. I've just found the car keys for the crocodile car. Now lets see who gets their way...

Getting to know you...

Flibble — Fri, 12 May 2006 11:16:00 GMT

We're a friendly bunch here at Red Gate - always looking to make new friends. Whilst it's true that we dearly love sitting in front of our pooters and seeing who can grow the best chilli plants, sometimes we just want to get out, meet our users and have a jolly good gossip.

We like to listen, we like to observe and we like to learn. We like to understand your niggly gripes, your favourite tweaks and what really makes you want to twist your melon until it can just utter the word "elbow". It's nothing sinister, it's just that we know that the best way to make useful tools is to really understand what would be helpful. Sometimes it takes an onlooker to see how convoluted a process has become, or how many hoops you must amble through before you achieve your goals.

So that's the plan for the next few weeks. We're on the road again, making new friends and hopefully learning a thing or two on the way. If you're in the UK, somewhere close to Cambridge or London, by all means get in touch and we can arrange to meet up for a chat.

Splendid.

Dom

Oh... and for the record, I reckon my chilli plant (Rangdo) pips the other wannabies having so far produced enough chillies to make a rather scrumptious sweet chilli tomato chutney. The other somewhat puny plants in the office could barely muster enough chillies for a small dollop of vanilla ice cream. Pah!

S.P.L.I.N.K.

Flibble — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 22:45:00 GMT

OK.. this has nothing to do with SQL, and for that I apologise. But it does have some relevance to usable design and application development:

Watch the video and hurry on back....

SPLINK

OK.. so it's a road safety message for children enjoying the 1970's in the UK. I can remember this one, scarily enough.

You can imagine the scene. Some hard pressed TV producer is tasked to save the growing number of kids caught up in road traffic accidents with a quick public information film. Hard hitting, to the point and memorable. What better way to achieve this than a handy mnemonic...

So let's just spell out SPLINK:

S for Stop
P for Pavement
L for Look (and listen)
I for If (traffic appears)
N for no (don't run into that car)
K for keep (looking for traffic as you cross)

Seriously.. this is what it stands for...

You can just imagine the kids stood beside the roadside. S for Stop... ok.. I got that.. P... Pavement, yup, I'm already here... that's why I stopped... L... what did that stand for? What is I... I forget... N for.. um... er... Nothing coming... k for er... kiss the other side...

Cue tragic accident......

For me, the very appearance of an acronym is often enough to send me into a fit of despair. What better way to encrypt a system than to give it a "need to learn" acronym? SQL, ADO, RAID, ASP, PSP, PHP, DMZ, P2P, RAM, ICQ, ASL, IEEE, DNS, TLA, ISO, FPU, PNG, NPC, TCL, JSP, GNU, BSD, UDP, JEN, MPL, ESR, RMS, FTP, ETF, JFK, AWK ETC.

OK.... I can sense that many of you already know what they mean... but that's not the point. It's gone too far.

It's almost impossible to read a technical document/article/recipe/llama/publication without having to learn a new acronym.

Does this enhance learnability? Does your user have the capacity to learn another acronym? Might they forget it instantly or forever need to divert their attention from your application/document back to their memory to recall this new timesaver?

There has to be a better way...

I bloomin' hate acronyms...

*sobs*

Auntie Mavis

It all went wrong

Tony Davis — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:15:00 GMT

Things weren't going swimmingly. In fact, you could say it was an unmitigated disaster. That might sound overly dramatic though, so let's just say things were somewhat less optimal and keep it quiet. Nobody needs to know. In fact, forget I even mentioned it. Forget this even. No really... stop reading. Why are you still here? Didn't I tell you to stop reading? Ughh… this is getting complicated. *points at shiny thing off to the left*

You still here?

*sobs*

Ok… let me explain, seeing as you're one of those 'inquisitive' types.
It started with one of those natural urges. Not that type, just the type that gets you through the day, and by that I mean tea. Mug in hand I venture into the kitchen to prepare myself a lovely cup of beverage heaven. Well that was the plan, but life somehow conspires to cause me abject misery when I attempt life's most mundane tasks.

The kitchen makes me nervous. It's full of complicated devices that as a child my mother would steer me clear of. Kettle? Boiling hot water, could scar you for life so leave well alone. Fridge? Very cold, could get stuck inside it, been known to kill kittens. Fork? Lethal in the wrong hands, you could have someone's eye out with that. Microwave? Can make anything explode in a mysterious voyeuristic manner.

So.. stepping into the kitchen has already caused me to palpitate and nervously convulse.

Tea then.. that's the plan. Now one of the Red Gate kettles is a bit of a feisty beast. It has an air of chic smugness, but it belies a woeful secret. For all its fancy appearance, it's thwart with failings. For starters, its little water gauge on the side is permanently misted up, so you never really know how full it is. And that unfortunately brings us to the lid. Now I'm forced to open the lid to see how full it really thinks it is. The lid. The bloomin' lid. Easy off, painful on. Some narcissistic designer saw fit to bestow upon this Red Gate kettle, a lid of pure evil. It takes seemingly minutes to pop it on, but it'll gleefully pop off at the most inappropriate moment, thus exposing its boiling fury. This often occurs at the moment of pouring, almost as if it has saved up its vengence for when you least expect it. Now if it was one of those joyful pourers, this might be ok, but it's one of those designs that seems to spatter boiling water in every direction but towards your mug. Don't they test these things?

Now the fridge is pretty harmless, you might think. And to be honest, it is pretty safe, but again, the design has somehow gone wrong. I've learnt that the best way to open the fridge is to actually put your fingers between the door and the carcase and gently prise the opening apart. Now logic might tell you to use the 'designed' handle on the front - all big, chrome and shiny. But alas, something went wrong. If I pull on the handle, I'm almost more likely to pull the fridge over than to actually open it - such is the suction of the seal. And it's not just me. I can watch nigh on all Red Gate employees behave in the same way. Can you see what's wrong here?

And then... the final insult in my beverage attaining quest.... the milk carton.

Now here is the worst designed product - probably on the planet. A design that has at its heart, a deep seated desire to never relenquish its bounty. It's hard to describe this, so bear with me. It has a little green screw off lid. It screws off easily. Milk shall surely be imminently mine. But no. Some person thought it appropriate to design level 2 of the milk opening game to be nigh on impossible. It's a bit like learning to fold a pice of paper in half, and then as your next challenge, out-fold the world's second highest ranking origami champion. Unless you can inadvertently distract him to flop his creation into a flame, you're onto a bit of a loser.

This carton has a plastic 'handle' by which you are meant to delicately grab and then prise off, to reveal a bounty of milk. I've opened a lot of these now (being somewhat addicted to tea) and I can probably claim a 20% success rate. 80% of the time the plastic 'handle' snaps and I'm left faced with a sealed plastic carton of frustration. Who designed this?

So out comes the fork. This is a dangerous addition to the task, but now, necessary. Mum warned me of the dangers of the fork, but I feel I'm ready. The first stab has to be relatively precise. Miss the target and you're gonna get sprayed. Hit the target and you're but part way there.

In a most deft attack, I manage to pierce the plastic and start the battle with the carton. The carton buckles under the force - I'm still yanking on the fork - nothing gives, and after a 4 minute struggle I see an opening crack in the plastic that makes me feel that some headway has been made. A fellow employee douses my sweaty brow and provides encouraging words of support.

By now a crowd has formed, and they are party to what is the witness of a birth of a new carton of milk. It is joyous. The milk is liberated.

And so the tea is made.

Now this is typical. Our lives are surrounded by products that actually fail to live up to our needs. An over zealous milk carton designer has forgotten that we actually need to be able to get to the product. A DVD case is wrapped in inescapable plastic. A computer dumbly responds to a routine task. And don't even get me started on the microwave.

What happened? Isn't technology meant to free us from effort? How come effort has suddenly become the result of technology? Aren't we meant to be in control of or our tools?

And I guess this is why I exist. How to make technology work for us, and not have us work to use the technology.

And I've found a home at Red Gate. And we've bought a new kettle. And tea is bountiful.

*simper*

Auntie Mavis

The usability curse

Flibble — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:27:00 GMT

When I did my degree, nobody told me that my life would forever be cursed.

Not once was I taken aside, sat down, and told in clear and simple words that my life would never be the same. Like hyperactive kittens faced with a vat of warm fishy milk, we lapped up the techniques to spot usability issues with gusto. So as we left the safe confines of university and gazed upon the world with our quizzical eyes, it didn't take long for the horror to become apparent.

They were everywhere. Nothing escaped a healthy dose of rubbishness. Both physical and cognitive, unusable products abound.

But what of the curse? Well it's nigh on impossible to switch off your unusable product antenna. And as you gaze on dumbfounded by the stupidity of a design, you can't help but feel a little bit of your life seep out of your ears. Sometimes it's just a little, and it drifts out at a relaxed pace. At other times, it's a spleen venting avalanche of verbal diarrhea.

It was over Christmas that I had the misfortune to witness quite possibly one of the worst products I have ever seen: a talking alarm clock. The box did proudly proclaim: A pleasant voice announces the time every hour. Spot the problem? Every hour. Slumber. Slumber. Slumber. Slumber. IT'S THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING AND I THOUGHT YOU WOULDN'T MIND BEING WOKEN UP BY MY DULCET MECHANICAL WARBLINGS. No slumber.

But chances are, you wouldn't even get to experience this, because you'd have thrown it at the wall before then. Not one member of the family could work out how to set the alarm and EVERY SINGLE button press resulted in an ear piercing bleep that sucked your very will to exist. That this product exists at all I find shocking. Even if the intended audience for this product was a blind person, it still fell woefully short of any use. If I ever meet the designer... WhyIoughta *shakes fist*

And I guess this brings me to my point. There is so much in this world that shouldn't really be here. Gadgets that fail to deliver, features that go unused, clutter that clogs essential functionality and any song by Celine Dion (sorry Celine if you're reading this). Whilst it's often great to be able to announce a wide feature set to make your products sound feature rich, it's only through a deep understanding of what is actually essential that you can hope to attain usable products.

Once you know what's most important, it's then that you can exert your full design enthusiasm towards ensuring that the functionality you do include is usable.

Milk cartons

*sobs*

Auntie Mavis

Filtering foibles

Flibble — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 16:09:00 GMT

There are times when you're striving for a usable design, and no matter what you try, your attempt just fails to cut the mustard. Everyone has a difference of opinion as to what should be done to fix it and you're stuck there trying to think of a sensible improvement. What to do? Time to call on a technique I like to call "Do an impromptu usability session with colleagues who haven't seen this type of functionality before", or DAIUSWCWHSTTOFB for short.

A design for filtering objects in one of our applications is just such an occasion. This has gone through a number of iterations, which all technically work, but could hardly be called the definitive behaviour that we're looking for. This is a small part of the application and at this stage it doesn't warrant an external user usability trial, so instead, it's a trawl around the office to recruit likely victims for a quick 5 minute filtering foray.

Plucking victims from their desk can be tricky, but I tempt them with stories of gold, attractive members of the opposite sex, and of course, dancing llamas. None can resist the temptation and willingly follow me to my desk. Fools. Sadly, this cunning ruse will not last long, so I need to be quick. As they approach within 4 feet (and it becomes clear that I've lied mercilessly to entice them over) I hit them with the test. Reeling from the suddenness of my invitation, they begrudgingly agree. Muhahahaha [Evil laugh]. I win again. Ahem.

20 minutes and 4 victims later, the arguing about whether the design works can be brought to a climactic climax. It still doesn't. *sobs* However, with renewed behavioural ammunition, it's back to the proverbial drawing board to knock up another attempt. By gosh, when we're done, this is going to be one fantabulous filter. A filter so magnificent that we might even attract a flock of admiring dancing llamas - maybe even ones that know the fox trot...

*simper*

Auntie Mavis.

Cat detective

Flibble — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 09:01:00 GMT

Ahhh... now... er... that shouldn't happen. Oooh, yup, that's not at all clear. Purrr, Meow, Purrr. Hmmm... they're not finding that and why are they trying there?

Reviewing a usability trial recording is akin to playing the role of a detective. You can't be one of those detectives who, week after week, fail to solve the crime. Nope - you have to instead adopt the persona of the real detective - Like Hong Kong Phooey's cat Spot. Hong Kong Phooey may have been the number one super cool guy, but he was simply an amusing figurehead to the real brains of the dynamic duo. And so it was that I came to review the latest usability trial recordings, pretending to be a cat and preparing to eat the cat equivalent of humble pie.

Paws at the keyboard and watching the session back, it's often subtle clues you're looking for. Why did they move the mouse there when you asked them to do that task? Why did they think that function could be found there? Observing the subtleties is one thing, but then trying to work out what led them to think that way is the real trick.

Some are obvious and relate to "signposts" that you have peppered around the user interface. Button labels, icons and other describing text are typical examples of signposts that a user will absorb as they start to make sense of the interface before them. Get a signpost wrong, and you run the risk of temporarily throwing the user down the wrong path, or worse, permanently obscuring important functionality. Get this one right though, and an interface is so much easier to learn and navigate. This is why solitary icons without an associated label are such a poor way to signpost an interface. Icons are so ambiguous and can be interpreted to mean something different by every new user. A text label, by contrast, can at least be translated and if carefully chosen, will be correctly understood by every user.

These are some of the first crimes to be solved by my wily feline senses.

Sometimes you only notice that something is a problem when you observe it being used, and I guess this was our biggest lesson learnt for these particular sessions. We had a clumsy mix of dialogs and whilst the user's managed to work their way through it, it clearly showed an inelegant and tortured path we were forcing them down. As I observed this, the paws were typing at a furious rate.

So what next? Well, in some cases it's back to the drawing board to think of how we can redesign problematic areas. Elsewhere, it's making small signpost tweaks. Finally, and most importantly, I need to return this catsuit to the shop before they charge me for returning it late. It's not my fault that my tail has got stuck in the zip and the suit designers felt it necessary to oversize the paws. *sobs*

12 inch fluffy paws.

Why?

*sobs*

Auntie Mavis.

Humbling times

Flibble — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 17:11:00 GMT

It's that time again.

Time to leave the comfy confines of the office, brave the real world and meet the most important people who work for Red Gate: our users.

With a bunch of design ideas stashed on a laptop, we venture off to learn exactly how wrong we've got it. I have to admit, this is secretly my favourite part of the job, but it does require a modicum of courage to perform. It's not easy to sit and watch someone use a product that you think is pretty good, only to find it's less so. Nobody likes to be shown how bad they got it wrong - and that's exactly the sort of risk you take when running a usability trial.

But this is a vital step in working towards usable products, and you have to be prepared to take a few humbling punches if you want to succeed. What's often worse, is that it's often yourself that delivers the punch, in a scene that wouldn't look out of place in fight club. As you sit back and scrutinize the recording of the session, you have to give yourself a good slapping for whichever interaction design travesty you've unleashed on an unsuspecting user.

So as we are about to embark on a fresh set of sessions, I can't help feel a pang of excitement as to how we'll be able to improve our designs - I just hope the bruises fade quickly...

Auntie Mavis.

World Usability Day

James — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:34:00 GMT

Thursday 3rd November is World Usability Day.

A day that is hugely anticipated. Millions will take to the streets, trying to catch a glimpse of their favourite usability guru, sagely administering sermons on the woes of unusable products. I can see it now - it'll generate almost as much fervour as the results for the Estonian Eurovision Song Contest entry in 1961. You can just smell the excitement.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love this to be a success, but I just can't help but feel that we've got a long way to go until it's ranked above other prestigious events, like for example, World Badger Day.

If this day does help to raise the awareness of this mismatch between rubbish products and user needs, then that's all well and good, but how long before it's actually taken seriously? When can we expect to see the public rise up and demand better? When will we be able to use technology and not be made to feel stupid?

My guess is that this is a very long way away. Why? I actually don't think a user often recognises the fact that something is unusable. I think they struggle along with the tools that they have, seemingly oblivious that they could actually be far better. So that seems to place the emphasis on the designers to come up with usable designs. Will that happen? Maybe eventually, but marketeers seem to be in love with additional functionality and merging companies limit the choice we have and prevent smaller companies from gaining market share.

So maybe World Usability Day is the way forward. Raise awareness of the everyday rubbish designs that we have to endure so that the mindset may change to demand it elsewhere.

I live in hope.

Auntie Mavis

Aesthetically usable

James — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 09:36:00 GMT

If there’s something that eats at the very nub of a usability guy’s reason to be, it’s that usability is something a consumer frequently overlooks during their purchasing process.

If you ask them if they think it’s important, they’ll be plenty of nods and mumbles about how much they value usable products, but something seems to go wrong - just at the critical moment when they choose to purchase.

Depending on the type of purchase, there seems to be a pecking order as to what sets the user’s heart and pounds… er… pounding.

If you take a consumer product, say an iPod, there’s so much design aesthetic and air of apparent coolness, that other practicalities can neatly be consigned to the big pile of unimportance. Is the iPod brilliantly usable? It’s not horrific, but it’s not as great as the marketeers would have you believe.

I remember reading about an article a year or so back about a comparison study where two designs were rated by a set of consumers. One was hugely aesthetic, fancy icons, neat visual flourishes yet completely baffling to use. The other was far less visually appealing, the icons weren’t so pretty but importantly it used text beneath the icons to help the user navigate. The outcome? The participants adamantly preferred the pretty version, even though they freely admitted that it was completely unusable - such was the sway of the aesthetics.

So where does that leave usability? Thankfully, it depends on what type of purchase the customer is making. Some miniscule mobile phone designed to impress your friends is quite different to a software tool whose very reason to exist is to help you do something tricky. You can live in your secret world of usability torture if your friends think you’re cool. Of course, eventually both you and your friends will see your frustrations erupt when you accidentally hang up on them for the 18^th time that day...

A significant factor in these types of purchase is that there is no real opportunity to try before you buy. A mobile in a shop might be a plastic replica, or you might just believe that the gadget-o-matic must be OK because 4.2 million other people plumped for it. How can a consumer make an informed decision in that situation?

Thankfully, for some purchases, try before you buy is possible and the end goal might not be just to impress your friends. So for Red Gate, creating a happy user experience in the first few minutes becomes very important. Tolerance levels differ when you haven’t already committed to the purchase. The user of a baffling mobile phone, who has just spent £564 to look cool, is not first in line to say how they can’t work out how to use it. But if you haven’t already purchased, it’s but a wafer thin biscuit that separates your seething wrath from bubbling into the real world.

Are aesthetics important? Why yes of course. Poor aesthetics will clearly impact negatively and even pixel level inaccuracy will make the user think that less care and attention has been lavished on the product. So as good as a product may be, if it fails to have visual appeal, it runs the risk of being overlooked in favour of the visually rich but arguably inferior alternative.

Auntie Mavis

NEDS

James — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:14:00 GMT

Ever heard of NEDS?

It's another handy acronym in a world full of HIMPERs (An acronym I just made up, but it looks pretty convincing if you ask me). So NEDS stands for: New Economy Depression Syndrome and it's something that is apparently increasing in the hectic lives we lead. Gone are the days when we used to be able to loaf around in trees, picking nits off our sisters and eating bananas. Modern life is just a little bit more complicated now. For a start, my sister rations her nits to a measly 5 per week, which is barely sufficient to sustain a poor hapless usability nonce like myself.

So back to the topic at hand, what has NEDS got to do with anything? Well, it's a self-reinforcing depression caused by exposure to stressors without an appropriate means to avoid them. Stressor number one is the sheer quagmire of data and information. So whereas many eons ago, the choices relating to bananas might just have been, yes or no, green or yellow, mine or theirs, now things are a trite more complicated. Organic or pesticided? From Tesco or Asda? Shaked or Baked? Pot noodle flavour or penny chew? With so much choice, we end up feeling guilty that we can't get to experience each and every possibility. So many banana related activities - so little time.

The second stressor is constant interruption. People who know lots about this have even coined a fancy name for it: "decision shift". We're all a victim of this and it's a lot more damaging to your productivity than you might give it credit for. So, for example, you're in your zone - your document is almost writing itself, you even managed to slip in a fancy word or two that makes you look pretty smart - Transmogrificationized even, but then an email comes in. You couldn't avoid noticing it and it's from a good friend, so you take a quick peek. Half way through the email, the phone rings and just as you're responding to that, you get a text message. Pretty soon your poor fuddled brain has shifted so much that getting back into what you were doing takes a good few minutes. And then of course messenger indicates your sister has a spare nit for you and your brain wanders off again to that happy place.

All of this chips away at us, we're less productive, we feel guilty for it, there's never enough time, we need time to regain our sense of purpose, we need mechanisms to bring simplicity to our lives.

So as part of achieving usable products, have in mind that the working environment that many of us now live in is a place where constant interuption and data excess makes using challenging software that much more difficult. If we can make our software take some of the strain - only provide the information our users need and avoid the need for the user to use short term memory, in our own small way we're improving lives. Soon after that, world peace will be on the agenda and after that nit allocation will bountiful...

*simper*

Auntie Mavis

Microsoft radically re-design the Office UI

James — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 09:55:00 GMT

Microsoft's new Office UI

This could be an unmitigated disaster if those mighty Microsofteees misjudge how their users use the various office applications. In theory, it's a great idea - like one big context sensitive menu for whatever it is you're doing at the time. Why show the user every darn widget in your arsenal when you can conveniently filter out the bits that aren't relevant at that given moment?

Another aspect of the redesign is the use of suggestion. Instead of giving you all the tools to hang yourself all of the time, it'll instead present to you the most likely variation you want given what you're working on. Current behaviour is like being givinen a blob of plasticine and told to "turn it into Gromit". Sure, you might eventually get a likeness, but it'll take a long time and you had to master the ways of the plasticine (which trust me, can be a ferocious fiend in the hands of a novice). So instead, the UI realises you have plasticine and says, "I can turn that into Wallace, Gromit, Morph, Margaret Thatcher etc. etc.". This might sound like it's stifling creativity, but given that there's a great deal of commonality in what user's will be trying to achieve with something like Word, this way of presenting the most likely thing you want, might actually work... Sadly, it can't write for you so you'll stil have to exert some brain fluff, but at least you should be able to find the relevant tools and quickly take advantage of the power of suggestion.

If, however they get it wrong by squirelling away the things you most frequently need behind some more tweaky hurty panel, or by only suggesting Anne Widdecombe when you want to icrease font size, then they'll moose it up for the masses and send us off to the clutches of the competition.

Time will tell, but I reckon this has real potential.

Auntie Mavis