[AccessD] Access poll

Shamil Salakhetdinov shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru
Sat Aug 8 14:41:17 CDT 2009


John,

Let me have this my posting as the last one in this thread? My last posting
but anybody else please feel free to comment on it but do not "force me" to
reply - OK?

Yes, my example with cars' "interfaces" evolution maybe is not that a good
analogy to comment on what and why happened with good old MS Office
CommandBars replaced by Ribbon. I prefer to not comment (a lot) on what
reasons lay behind that MS decision. I do feel the reasons were good and
real business oriented as I see that MS is releasing more and more mature
software with years both for end users, developers and system engineers. I'm
not saying I understand/can explain all their reasons. Many of them are
beyond me. But I feel good and safe with MS software. (Much) more good and
safe than before.

Have you ever tried to drive a car in UK, Ireland, Japan...? - or whatever
else country/place in this world where they have a steering wheel on the
right side? And I mean driving such a "unusual car" when you have zero
experience with right-located steering wheel and many years experience of
driving a "normal" car? And you rent such an "unusual car" and you go from
airport almost straight on highway, in the night's darkness, under the rain
etc...

If you do have such experience you know how it feels - comparing with that
experience learning Ribbon is just a child's play. I mean that. :)

Thank you.

--
Shamil

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 11:09 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access poll

Shamil,

In fact you picked a bad example to demonstrate your old / new interface
argument.  The auto is so 
standardized that you can go anywhere around the world and the ONLY thing
that may throw you a curve 
is the steering wheel on the left / right.  The Accelerator / brake / clutch
is identical.  The 
shift patterns for manual tend to be identical, or at least similar enough
that you can very quickly 
adapt.  The column auto gear shift, virtually identical, the center auto
shift patterns, almost 
identical.

So almost any seasoned driver can go almost anywhere in the world (that I
have seen anyway), jump in 
a car and at least peel away from the bad guys.  When you get down to
lights, wipers... a handful of 
pretty standard locations.

I guess my point is that to completely redesign the interface needs a
reason... and I certainly 
don't see that reason.  Excel is still Excel, it did not undergo a radical
redesign that simply 
wouldn't work under the old interface.  Same with Word, Access etc.  In fact
I found a widget that 
would somehow convert Office 2007 to use the old interface, which completely
thrashes the "needed 
for new technology" mantra.

As for asking developers... I truly do not think so.  I have heard, and it
is admittedly pure 
hearsay, that they have a huge usability lab and they basically did
usability studies and decided 
that the usability could be enhanced.  I will not argue that.  But did they
do the usability studies 
AFTER deciding to completely change the interface, in order to make the new
one as efficient as they 
could?

MAYBE the new toolbar is more efficient for "brand new, never seen this
widget before" users.  And 
of course MS owns the product and can do with it what they want.  The
irritation comes from the fact 
that if you HAVE used the product before, if you have spent 10 years using
it, then the new toolbars 
are a huge time suck trying to adapt.

It is EXACTLY the same thing as taking a guitar and stringing it backwards
and telling Eric Clapton 
"hey, it is just a guitar, it does exactly the same thing".  Yea RIGHT.  It
does do the same thing, 
but Eric just can't play it without completely relearning the manual
interface.

Have you ever heard of the DVorak keyboard?  It is supposedly a much more
efficient design but who 
is going to go learn to use it?

You get my point.

Microsoft owns office and they are in a position to FORCE the world to
change, and that is what they 
are doing.  You can bet your bottom dollar it is for their own reasons.
Usability?  Maybe.  Or 
maybe they had lost control of the interface and had competition designing
office products that 
looked identical but were free (Open Office anyone?) and maybe a redesign
could be copyrighted or 
even patented...

MS would never admit to any such motivations but given that it is apparently
possible to install a 
widget that takes you back to the old interface, it is NOT because it was
impossible to use the old 
interface.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Shamil Salakhetdinov wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
> 
> Thank you for your comment.
> As I noted I do not intend to start MS Access 2007 vs. MS Access X (<2007)
> discussion I just wanted to agree with Arthur therefore this will be my
> final post in this thread. 
> 
> BTW, but my previous posting I didn't mean that MS Access 2007 is
better/has
> better interface than MS Access X (<2007) - I just wanted to note that I
> like MS Access 2007 a lot when it happens to do some development with it.
I
> also didn't mean that MS likes/listen to opinions of all of MS Access
> developers and users but I'm quite sure that they(MS) do a lot of
> investigations, which involve many developers and users who do use MS
> Access/Office in their everyday work (I do not belong to this MS selected
> elite group), before they (MS) introduce the GUI changes as they did for
MS
> Office/Access 2007. 
> 
> Short note (just a note - no discussion/arguing) about "throwing away a
good
> percentage of their knowledge" - we're in IT/software development business
-
> that kind of "previous experience losses" happens every day - and more and
> more with every new day. It's inevitable. Have a look at the cars: what
> external and internal "interface" they had in 80-ies/beginning-middle of
> 90-es and what they have now? MS Access/Office interface was quite the
same
> since MS Access/Office 95/97 (and its ideas/principles are from
> 80-ies/90-ies). It was time to change it for MS Access/Office 2007. 
> 
> Not going into flame mode, not defending MS, just trying to be realistic.
> (Sure somebody will find my above passages stupid. No problem.)
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> --
> Shamil
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Thomas Ewald
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2009 9:23 PM
> To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access poll
> 
> One of the poll options mentioned something like "Microsoft must hate
Access
> developers." Why developers...how about users? And why stick with
> Access...all of Office was changed. Can you say "New Coke"? Microsoft took
> the best known office interface in the world and changed it, insisting
that
> its  millions (!) of users have to throw away a good percentage of their
> knowledge and start over. Not all of their knowledge, of course, but a
good
> percentage. And why? Because they had too many options to fit in their
> menuing system - their easily adaptable menuing system?
> 
> I'm not at the level of some of you, but I do Access (and Excel)
> development. Beyond that, though, I USE Access and Excel a great deal, and
> Microsoft is apparently intent on making much of my knowledge and
experience
> obsolete (How politically correct: Level the playing field by removing the
> value of experience.). 
> 
> Since I make my living using and developing Access and Excel, I'll have to
> learn the ribbon eventually, unless Microsoft decides to dump it later,
but
> I'm in no hurry. Like most companies, my employer and my current outside
> client are both in no hurry to migrate, so I'm safe for now.
> 
> Thanks for listening.
> 
> Tom Ewald
> Detroit Area
> 
> Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 20:58:30 +0400
> <<<All the bad-mouthing about Access 2007 is based on a failure to
> investigate what profound improvements lurk therein.>>>
> 
> Agreed. 
> Not going to start Access X (<2007) vs. Access 2007) flame.
> Just stating about my experience with MS Access 2007 development.
> And as you know I have intensive experience with working with MS Access
> since MS Access 1.1, especially with Access 2.0, Access 97, skipped Access
> 95, almost skipped MS Access 2000 and MS Access 2002(XP) and I have done
> quite a lot of development work with MS Access 2003. You can find software
I
> have done running all over the world for all MS Access versions including
MS
> Access 2007 - have a look www.4tops.com and www.helpgenerator.com (I do
not
> work for that company nowadays, nor have I any shares in it or any profits
> from its current business).
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> --
> Shamil
> 
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