Thursday 18 July 2013

Back, kinda

So I was away from blogging, I may be back, I may just be making random hate fueled commentaries on things that annoys me, we'll see.

Today it falls to Microsoft's office suite (2013), it is horrific to say the least.

It burst onto my screen after our mandatory upgrade to the latest and greatest at work. Anything that proclaims to know what I might or might not like I often get frustrated because I am a very specific person, with me the slightest imperfection or visual glitch can cause me to loose faith in a product.

This... Well, I'll try, but I have not the hate filled bile spewing words of derision I'd like to have.



Oh really? Well I think I won't. Your move Microsoft.


Once I'd gotten over the shock of an audacious claim by some engineers who never asked me what I'd like. I launched into the main interface.

I rapidly closed my eyes and reached for my sunglasses, I thought we'd been nuked, everything went a brilliant white, like a new born sun. The interface was pretty much uncomfortable to look at. What come to mind is that some neo-nazi hate group were handed the ui design work and given free reign over every aspect of the project.

"White power! White power! White power!"

In its defense one can change the office theme, although most of them feel childish and distracting.

The ribbon interface hasn't changed much, I don't quite know where anything is and I refuse to use it because I maintain it's a design nightmare. It feels like the early 90s when everything was big and blocky for no reason. Many things were left in the 90s for very good reason.

Now I don't like ribbons, the image of fleeting, fluttering annoying things comes to mind. In fact what comes to mind is a ribbon (or multiple ribbons) that is (are) attached to a child's bicycle. Now it is entirely subjective if these are aesthetically pleasing to a person, not me. I hate them.

The analogy does not end there.

I don't know if you've ever had to stand near a child riding a bike with ribbons attached to it, if not, let me describe the experience for you.

You are minding your own business doing your own thing and you hear the gleeful screams of a small child over enthused by the fact their bike (which depending on how recently their training wheels came off could be very unstable) has whip like appendages billowing in the wind.

This is your first sign that trouble is coming.

What do you do? You get out the freaking way is what you do.

This child could fall over and cry to the nearest adult and you have to deal with something that you wanted nothing to do with but now have to deal with anyway.

If that doesn't happen and the child doesn't fall over and you haven't yet gotten out the way? You'd best prepare for a whipping by proxy as a gleeful child cycles around in circles celebrating it's new toy while you are left repeatedly slapped in the face by something you don't want near you and just wish would go away.

That is how I feel when I use this version of office; Repeatedly whipped in the face by something that shouldn't even be there while I'm trying to get my work done.

Finally my biggest gripe are animations they make office feel slow and 'retro' i guess is the aim but it really frustrates me. I can hear the faint "you can turn them off" but that isn't the point. Why the hell were they enabled in the first place? It does not add any value. 

As usual I just use Google docs to get real work done. It just gets the hell out of my way and assumes I know what I am doing.

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