views:

1863

answers:

16

Understandably the Ribbon UI doesn't suit every application, or even most of them, however I'm suprised so few developers have chosen to adopt it. Any ideas why?

How much work would be involved for a fairly major application to get the new UI?

+1  A: 

If you're thinking about adopting the ribbon UI in a production commercial application, I would recommend to look for third party components instead of developing your own.

petr k.
+1  A: 

I think it stems from the fact that most users still use Microsoft Office 2003. I've found that companies that use Microsoft Office 2007, it's easier to get the users to migrate to the new ribbon control.

mattruma
+5  A: 

In my experience, most of the work would go into the design.

I converted one pretty small application into ribbonized form and I can tell you that 80% of the work was deciding how the ribbon will be structured - what will be seen on which page, how each page will be organized and so on. Then the rest was simple.

Of course, I used a ribbon library that did all the painting, collapsing etc for me.

gabr
I totally agree with this. Adding a ribbon forces the (decent) programmer to think hard about how the user will use the program. But this is a good thing. From a usability perspective anyway...
demoncodemonkey
Fully agree - this is a good thing.
gabr
Uhhh, why not just download one of the zillions of ribbons out there?
Pierreten
+1  A: 

I think the big issue is that you need to pay for a third party ribbon control in order to implement it.

Here's a couple of the commercial ribbon controls out there:

Krypton Ribbon

Actipro Ribbon

ComponentOne Studio

DevComponents Ribbon

Chris Pietschmann
Infragistics also has one, for the list.
nwahmaet
There's no need to pay for a ribbon control. Microsoft offers the ribbon via MFC since VS2008 SP1, and has a WPF version currently in the CTP stage for release with Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4.0.
Chris Charabaruk
+1  A: 

We use the Ribbon (third-party component) in our WinForms applications, and it's not an enormous amount of additional effort over a standard Menu-and-Toolbar approach. It can, however, be a tough sell the first time you ship it -- most corporate users suffer from what I call a "deer-in-the-headlights" effect, whereby anything that's not exactly like what they had before causes them to be utterly disoriented and initially hate the new version with a passion. Quite quickly, I think, they get to know the interface and appreciate it.

I do think that the ribbon is only appropriate for a certain class of application -- typically corporate apps that integrate with Office at some level or are being deployed to knowledge workers already familiar with Office apps.

I'm still to determine if the ribbon will survive the next generation of WPF apps we'll deliver.

Wayne
+15  A: 

The Office 2007 ribbon came from years and years of usability and data collection (remember checking the box when you first installed Office?). As gabr alluded to, the user interface is the hardest part. Questions like the following need to be answered:

  • What is used the most?
  • How many clicks does it take to do most functions?
  • Is the naming convention standard?
  • How will the ribbon change given the context of the user's actions?
  • etc.

And, frankly, those questions alone take a ton of work. The reason people haven't developed ribbon interfaces is it's too hard (or too easy to screw up).

Devin Reams
+1  A: 

If I'm not mistaken, Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (3.5 SP1) comes with the MFC-based Office 2007 style ‘Ribbon’.

If this is your dev. environment, I'd fiddle with it and see how it ticks.

JKueck
You're mistaken.
Pierreten
+9  A: 

I think it's because the ribbon was designed for a highly complex UI that has way too many controls to be manageable with a standard toolbar and menubar. It's (arguably) perfect for Word and Excel and a handful of others, but not so necessary for most applications. Most UIs are not that complex and thus don't need to use a ribbon.

Another reason might be that it is sufficiently different that many vendors don't want to "rock the boat" design-wise, fearing they will scare away customers. I'm not sure that reason holds much water though since there's likely an equal amount of vendors that don't care as much about their users as they do about attracting potential new users by incorporating the Next Big Thing. Perhaps at this point in time it remains to be seen whether the ribbon is truly the Next Big Thing.

Bryan Oakley
For years Microsoft pushed the standardized Office UI as a big benefit over individual apps for word processing, spreadsheet, etc. Ironically, now that the copmetition is gone, they completely revamp the UI requiring significant relearning for most users and losing that benefit.
Joe Skora
I agree with Joe Skora. Microsoft is constantly innovating ways to violate their own User Interface guidelines. Bryan Oakley's right as well -- it's an innovation with remarkably limited usefulness.
Jim Nelson
If you were cynical, you might suggest:1) Making the competition play catch-up helps microsoft,2) Not licencing OpenOffice to use the ribbon control will help microsoft.
Richard A
My mother actually uses styles now with word 2007. The menus were so confusing for her and other people like her. They had all these little pieces of paper with instructions on where things were. Now the buttons are right there. For me I find the ribbon an incredible improvement.
geometrikal
A: 

In my case I liked some of the ribbon's features but didn't want some of the other features (like the application menu button and quick-access toolbar) since I'm writing a web application. However the license for using the ribbon requires you to implement it in full or not at all.

dcstraw
Oh really? I didn't realize that... true though, some apps really don't need a quick access bar etc
adondai
+1  A: 

One of the hardest things is satisfying the MS requirements, so it is certainly worth buying a library to do all the heavy lifting for you.

I have implemented it for a complex web-application and it is non-trivial to get all of it working properly. I mean, it is easy to make it look like a Ribbon, but hard to get all the fiddly details right.

Nobody seems to be selling a commercial web-based Ribbon library, which is a pity, as I'd have bought it for that recent project.

A: 

If you feel you need to use the ribbon to better manage complexity you have already screwed up. MS Office uses the ribbon because it is a bloated toy that needs to appeal to people who will never learn to use even the most basic features properly.

If your application needs a huge number of features and eye candy for marketing reasons, by all means do use a ribbon. That's exactly what it was designed for. On the other hand, if your application is a serious tool for professionals, then take your GUI examples from Adobe.

Bloodboiler
What a dreadfully uninformed post. I take it you haven't bothered to look at Jensen Harris' blog to see what the ribbon was *actually* designed for and how it came about through millions of real world data points.
Greg Beech
Totally agree there Greg
Slace
-1. This is so rediculous, I don't know where to begin. The ribbon is not an eye candy feature, it's a usability feature.
Pierreten
A: 

Delphi 2009 has added components for Ribbon Controls. So technically, it is no longer difficult to add Ribbon controls to your application with D2009. I plan to do so in the future.

However, the real difficulty is in figuring out how best to implement them. Do it right and you'll have a fantastic user interface, since the agreement out there is that most people like the new Office ribbon.

But do it wrong, and you'll have a real mess.

lkessler
Do it wrong and Microsoft will revoke your license to use it.
Edward Kmett
+3  A: 

Here's a good post by Jensen Harris about how the Office 2007 Ribbon came about. It's kind of a long video but a really good watch if you want to see why MS went down that path and help make a decision if it'd be a good choice (or how to decide) for your applications: http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx

Slace
+2  A: 

I find, as a veteran user of Office that the ribbon is hard to get used to. I am currently enrolled in a Computer Literacy course (missed it my first time through, and it's required) at my college, and seeing people who have never touched a mouse in their life use it gives me new perspective.

For those new users, it seems to be fairly easy to pick up, and seems logical to them (not that they think about these things in those terms).

I think that for a new application developed for a new market, the ribbon UI would work very well. A veteran application in a wide-open market, however, might not fit well with the competition, and would end up turning people who are firmly grounded in the application's market away.

Strozykowski
A: 

There are a number of problems with using the Ribbon UI.

First, is that Microsoft has a license you have to comply with to use the UI, but they don't actually have a library that you can use once you have agreed to the terms of the license! So you wind up having to go out and use a third party toolkit to implement the ribbon that you obtained a license from Microsoft to use.

Next, the terms of that license state that you are not allowed to use it to compete with Office or other Microsoft programs that use the Ribbon. However, there is no telling the direction the Microsoft Office suite will evolve or what constitutes competition until after you have sunk in the investment.

Finally, the Ribbon UI you can "license" from Microft, being just a set of user interface guidelines actually explicitly precludes deviation from those guidelines by pretty much any means. So if you need a novel UI element that Microsoft hasn't specified down to the pixel then you're hosed.

It is hard to find companies willing to invest that much up front development effort for such a limited (or even limiting!) return on investment.

Edward Kmett
You're wrong about one thing: They do have libraries you can use once you agree to the license. One for C++/MFC apps, another for WPF apps.
Chris Charabaruk
A: 

We use the MS Ribbon GUI in our product Artisteer and most of our customers love it. It was very easy to implement using 3rd party Ribbon GUI component from CodeJock. You can check these products out if you like to see such implementation.