[AccessD] Access 2007

artful at rogers.com artful at rogers.com
Thu Mar 15 18:05:48 CDT 2007


Wow, Charlotte. I don't want to inject political metaphors unnecessarily into this discussion, but clearly you and I have radically opposed development objectives. My objective is all about the user, and I deem personalization a vital component of sensible software. I want every single one of my users to be able to customize her menu/ribbon/shortcuts to suit her personality. I do not want to intrude upon this ability. 

Yes, I want to prevent users from doing something asinine or disastrous, but if user X prefers the ribbon in this arrangement while user Y prefers that, I have utterly no beef with that, and try as best I can to ensure that both users can exert their preferences according to their needs. To the extent that the UI I provide fails to allow this freedom, I deem it less than successful.

My goal is to free the users not to imprison them. It's difficult not to inject political metaphors into this discussion, so best I shift the metaphor to child-rearing. I want to educate the users and allow them freedom, albeit within limits.

Perhaps this discussion simply concerns the definition of "limits". I do not profess any expertise in this category. I have tried various experiments in various projects, such as drifting the most-frequently-used menu choices to the top of the menu, and so on. At the end of the day, my maxim is quite simple: "Make the user feel graceful." Make everything seem simple, intuitive, obvious and flexible. 

I didn't say this was easy. But it is the goal I choose whenever writing software. To the extent that a manual is required, the software UI failed, IMO. Of course, I still provide a manual or at least on-line help, but to the extent that either is used, I deem my UI a failure.
 
Arthur 



----- Original Message ----
From: Charlotte Foust <cfoust at infostatsystems.com>
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:34:12 PM
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access 2007


I'm not talking about what users see, Arthur, I'm talking about the pain
it is for a developer to work in it.  I purely HATE ribbons, even more
that I hated "personalized" menus in previous versions.  All the changes
have been made to wow the end users, and they're thumbing their
collective noses at the developers who still need to build applications
or clean up the messes that "power users" have made.  

I work with the Outlook metaphor in the apps my company develops, so it
isn't unfamiliar, it's just totally annoying that you can't get an easy
bird's eye view of the objects in schema, you have to wade through
ribbons and nav panes and just pain in general.  

We'll have to agree to disagree on this.  I BUILD apps in .Net with that
interface, but I don't have to cope with it in the design environment as
well because VS.Net at least is intended for developers.  I cringe to
think of what they'll do to in in the next release, though. :-<

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of
artful at rogers.com
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:21 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access 2007

Wow. You and I couldn't possibly be more opposed on this one, Jim. I'm
thinking "Finally!" I totally love what is possible in the new
environment. Clearly it's a personal-taste thing. There is nothing you
cannot do in 2007 that you could do before, so you can continue to do it
the old way if you wish, but I love the new UI. Admittedly it took me a
few experiments to find out how to twist it according to my
predilections, but now that I know, I love it.

P.S.
About 99% of the users I know measure everything they use by the Outlook
metaphor. That could reflect the subset of people at whose pleasure I
serve, but that's the fact. The sizable pane, the treeview in the left
pane, the auto-loading panel in the right pane... everyone that I know
knows this interface so well that I don't have to explain it. So I just
take an old app and turn the switchboard into a treeview and suddenly
everyone is much happier than they were with the previous roll-out.

Arthur 


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Charlotte
Foust
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 8:43 AM
To: AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [AccessD] Access 2007

Show of hands please:  how many of you are actually using this version? 

I HATE Office 2007 and Access is arguably the worst of the worst.
Outlook seems to be the most sane application in the suite, which isn't
saying much.  Friends, we have suffered a Mac attack in this version of
Office.  All the things I have always hated about the Mac OS have found
a home in Office 2007.

Is anyone trying to develop in Access 2007?  The Outlook metaphor drives
me nuts!  Oh, for a database window!  It also seems to have weird
problems with CurrentProject.Connection with linked tables when you try
and convert an earlier format database.  Can anyone recommend a good
book on just Access 2007.  I know Martin came out with a book, but I
haven't found it yet.

Charlotte Foust
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