Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
Posted to microsoft.public.word.pagelayout
|
|||
|
|||
Hire 100 common people to review a major change like the ribbon
When you make a major change like the ribbon, why don't you hire 100 or more
normal people who use Word (whatever) regularly and DON'T WORK FOR YOU, and FILM THEM to see how angry and frustrated they get. Why should we common people have to waste so many hours in frustration, trying to understand a program like Word 2007 when the Help doesn't even answer a question in a relevant way? Example of a hair puller: In an outline, Word inserts a page break in a random manner. Sometimes a page has only one line, sometimes a few. In draft mode with the format showing, there is a single untitled dotted line that can't be deleted. There are no extra paragraph marks at the end of the document. The whole document only shows one section. Why? Help is totally useless with this issue because it only shows how to deal with "normal" breaks that you can insert or delete. So far no one I have talked to can find out why those lines are there. I even opened the file in Word 2000 and they are still there and can't be deleted. You have heard it a million times before. Word Perfect's Reveal Codes tells you something, in this case, that there is a HRt-SPg imbedded in the formatting as the heading style changes from Heading 5 to Heading 4. Checking the setup of Heading 5 in Word 2007: Modify StyleFormatParagraphLine and Page Breaks, I find that only Window/Orphan control is checked. What does Window/Orphan control do? I click on the ? on top of the box and Word Help opens, but nothing of relevance is showing, so I type in Search "window/orphan control" and the same ambiguous "Results of top 100" comes up, such as "Work with the Help Window"; "Finding the content you need in the Help window"; "Enable or disable ActiveX controls in Office documents", "Why am I getting a message that says to troubleshoot my Internet connection?", etc. MY GOD, do you people live in an alternative universe? You say this is all supposed to be intuitive? Intuition works on the principle of Lateral Thinking, which means that there has to be something that links blueberries with Grandma, i.e. PIE. Where is the link between "window/orphan control" and "Why am I getting a message that says to troubleshoot my Internet connection?" Are you all cognizant of the fact that dealing with these problems costs the world millions of hours of lost productivity? Why? What arrogant right do you at Microsoft believe that you possess to foist this on us? If any of you believe in Heaven and Hell, you had best start praying that you don't go to Hell and spend the rest of eternity having to use Word 2007's Help. ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...ord.pagelayout |
#2
Posted to microsoft.public.word.pagelayout
|
|||
|
|||
Hire 100 common people to review a major change like the ribbon
What you are experiencing with outlines has nothing to do with the Ribbon;
it would be true in any version of Word. If you are using Word's built-in heading styles, then you are seeing the effect of "Keep with next" formatting, which is part of the style definition for all these styles. If you will not have any body text in your outline, then you need to remove the KWN property from heading styles below, say, Heading 2. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "GomerFackworth (is this unusual enough?)" rosoft.com wrote in message ... When you make a major change like the ribbon, why don't you hire 100 or more normal people who use Word (whatever) regularly and DON'T WORK FOR YOU, and FILM THEM to see how angry and frustrated they get. Why should we common people have to waste so many hours in frustration, trying to understand a program like Word 2007 when the Help doesn't even answer a question in a relevant way? Example of a hair puller: In an outline, Word inserts a page break in a random manner. Sometimes a page has only one line, sometimes a few. In draft mode with the format showing, there is a single untitled dotted line that can't be deleted. There are no extra paragraph marks at the end of the document. The whole document only shows one section. Why? Help is totally useless with this issue because it only shows how to deal with "normal" breaks that you can insert or delete. So far no one I have talked to can find out why those lines are there. I even opened the file in Word 2000 and they are still there and can't be deleted. You have heard it a million times before. Word Perfect's Reveal Codes tells you something, in this case, that there is a HRt-SPg imbedded in the formatting as the heading style changes from Heading 5 to Heading 4. Checking the setup of Heading 5 in Word 2007: Modify StyleFormatParagraphLine and Page Breaks, I find that only Window/Orphan control is checked. What does Window/Orphan control do? I click on the ? on top of the box and Word Help opens, but nothing of relevance is showing, so I type in Search "window/orphan control" and the same ambiguous "Results of top 100" comes up, such as "Work with the Help Window"; "Finding the content you need in the Help window"; "Enable or disable ActiveX controls in Office documents", "Why am I getting a message that says to troubleshoot my Internet connection?", etc. MY GOD, do you people live in an alternative universe? You say this is all supposed to be intuitive? Intuition works on the principle of Lateral Thinking, which means that there has to be something that links blueberries with Grandma, i.e. PIE. Where is the link between "window/orphan control" and "Why am I getting a message that says to troubleshoot my Internet connection?" Are you all cognizant of the fact that dealing with these problems costs the world millions of hours of lost productivity? Why? What arrogant right do you at Microsoft believe that you possess to foist this on us? If any of you believe in Heaven and Hell, you had best start praying that you don't go to Hell and spend the rest of eternity having to use Word 2007's Help. ---------------- This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then click "I Agree" in the message pane. http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...ord.pagelayout |
#3
Posted to microsoft.public.word.pagelayout
|
|||
|
|||
Hire 100 common people to review a major change like the ribbo
Thank you Suzanne, once again. I did finally figure out the KWN issue after
some hours of searching, however I think you are missing the point of my suggestion to Microsoft. The outline question is only one of many that wastes my precious time that I have left on this planet. First, this is posted as a Suggestion which I thought would go to MS not to the forum. My point is that they foist on the public a program that is absolutely frustrating to use, and wastes millions of hours that could be spent productively. So much for computers making life simple. Why is Help so Unintuitive? What happened to the way it used to work? Even in the days of Clipit, search came up with credible possibilities, not some absurdities that have no relevance to the search keyword. Why do popup boxes a) open up Help instead of just giving a definition as they used to, and b) use terms that Help doesn't recognize? Why do these forums have to be filled wilth hundreds of good people like you working for free to repair the lost hair of millions of frustrated folks when MS makes millions foisting a travesty of word processing on us because they are the big gorilla? Every time that MS comes out with a new product, one hopes that it is an IMPROVEMENT on the old version. Instead, one is forced back into kindergarten having to start over with new terminology and learn new ways of dealing with the same issues? This would not be a problem if we could still use the old versions that we have grown to know and use efficiently, but MS then creates a new OS and the old versions of programs don't work anymore. I have been working with computers since they had tubes in them so I do have some sense about this issue. I have a closet full of old programs that don't work anymore, even if MS insists that they have "compatability modes". And I have some that I still have to have 3 computers with different OSs on so I can work around those issues. Of course, if I were rich, I could afford to upgrade all of these programs to new versions each and every time MS changed. What is it in the MS culture that makes them so user unfriendly? That was my point. |
#4
Posted to microsoft.public.word.pagelayout
|
|||
|
|||
Hire 100 common people to review a major change like the ribbo
FWIW, MS does have "usability labs" in which testers use early versions of
the program, under observation. I have no idea how these users are selected, but the story we were given was that beginning Word users generally found the Ribbon easier to use, moderately experienced users found it no worse than the menus, and only "power users" would be frustrated. It seems that user reaction across the board has somewhat tempered this optimism. In particular, MS underestimated the extent to which users want to customize the UI (their CEIP results told them that users rarely change anything, and they already knew that users *hated* adaptive menus), and Word 2010 will allow for additional customization, though I'm disappointed that it will still not allow users to design or use custom button faces even for the QAT buttons (for which dynamic resizing is not an issue). I don't think anyone would argue that Help hasn't gotten worse with every subsequent version. Much of that is a result of the struggle to keep up with new features, especially for RTM. This was especially critical in 2007, in which everything was in a different place, so existing Help was largely obsolete. But a great leap forward with Word 2007 is that Help can be updated along with other features by periodic patches and service releases. And the online assistance can be very helpful if you have time to watch a demo video; my gripe is that the simple "About x" is always way down the results list, far below the online help video. Context-sensitive Help is another loss that we can lament till we're blue in the face but should not expect to see restored, apparently. It is still available for some features, however, and the more informative ScreenTips for buttons are a step in the right direction as well. The stated purpose of the Ribbon was to make features more "discoverable." At the same time, many of them were reconfigured to make them easier for "ordinary users" to take advantage of. Unfortunately, this results in cover pages and TOCs that users can't figure out how to remove or edit, loss of AutoComplete for vast libraries of AutoText entries (restored in 2010, thank goodness), etc. Not to mention that, short of adding a button to the QAT, many features are one or two more mouse clicks away than in previous versions. All of this is really an attempt to be user-friendly (these NGs are another such gesture), but 2007 proves once again that no application can be all things to all users. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "GomerFackworth (is this unusual enough?)" rosoft.com wrote in message ... Thank you Suzanne, once again. I did finally figure out the KWN issue after some hours of searching, however I think you are missing the point of my suggestion to Microsoft. The outline question is only one of many that wastes my precious time that I have left on this planet. First, this is posted as a Suggestion which I thought would go to MS not to the forum. My point is that they foist on the public a program that is absolutely frustrating to use, and wastes millions of hours that could be spent productively. So much for computers making life simple. Why is Help so Unintuitive? What happened to the way it used to work? Even in the days of Clipit, search came up with credible possibilities, not some absurdities that have no relevance to the search keyword. Why do popup boxes a) open up Help instead of just giving a definition as they used to, and b) use terms that Help doesn't recognize? Why do these forums have to be filled wilth hundreds of good people like you working for free to repair the lost hair of millions of frustrated folks when MS makes millions foisting a travesty of word processing on us because they are the big gorilla? Every time that MS comes out with a new product, one hopes that it is an IMPROVEMENT on the old version. Instead, one is forced back into kindergarten having to start over with new terminology and learn new ways of dealing with the same issues? This would not be a problem if we could still use the old versions that we have grown to know and use efficiently, but MS then creates a new OS and the old versions of programs don't work anymore. I have been working with computers since they had tubes in them so I do have some sense about this issue. I have a closet full of old programs that don't work anymore, even if MS insists that they have "compatability modes". And I have some that I still have to have 3 computers with different OSs on so I can work around those issues. Of course, if I were rich, I could afford to upgrade all of these programs to new versions each and every time MS changed. What is it in the MS culture that makes them so user unfriendly? That was my point. |
#5
Posted to microsoft.public.word.pagelayout
|
|||
|
|||
Hire 100 common people to review a major change like the ribbo
I share your frustration and every long-time user that I discussed the issue
with do too. While, I agree with Suzanne that MS was interested in making things more "discoverable", they should first have realized that things were already reasonably discoverable. The original designers weren't oblivious to that principle. Any new design would only be a fractional improvement. But I think there was another -- secretive -- motive for the ribbon: Office needed a radical overhaul -- driven by the old principle of "planned obsolescence". -- JohnTheTemp "GomerFackworth (is this unusual enough?)" wrote: Thank you Suzanne, once again. I did finally figure out the KWN issue after some hours of searching, however I think you are missing the point of my suggestion to Microsoft. The outline question is only one of many that wastes my precious time that I have left on this planet. First, this is posted as a Suggestion which I thought would go to MS not to the forum. My point is that they foist on the public a program that is absolutely frustrating to use, and wastes millions of hours that could be spent productively. So much for computers making life simple. Why is Help so Unintuitive? What happened to the way it used to work? Even in the days of Clipit, search came up with credible possibilities, not some absurdities that have no relevance to the search keyword. Why do popup boxes a) open up Help instead of just giving a definition as they used to, and b) use terms that Help doesn't recognize? Why do these forums have to be filled wilth hundreds of good people like you working for free to repair the lost hair of millions of frustrated folks when MS makes millions foisting a travesty of word processing on us because they are the big gorilla? Every time that MS comes out with a new product, one hopes that it is an IMPROVEMENT on the old version. Instead, one is forced back into kindergarten having to start over with new terminology and learn new ways of dealing with the same issues? This would not be a problem if we could still use the old versions that we have grown to know and use efficiently, but MS then creates a new OS and the old versions of programs don't work anymore. I have been working with computers since they had tubes in them so I do have some sense about this issue. I have a closet full of old programs that don't work anymore, even if MS insists that they have "compatability modes". And I have some that I still have to have 3 computers with different OSs on so I can work around those issues. Of course, if I were rich, I could afford to upgrade all of these programs to new versions each and every time MS changed. What is it in the MS culture that makes them so user unfriendly? That was my point. |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
My Review Tab ribbon in Word 2007 does not have an "Ink Group" | Microsoft Word Help | |||
can you change ribbon | Microsoft Word Help | |||
Word 2007- display Review/Track Change Status with Review Tab hidd | Microsoft Word Help | |||
I want to hire a restaurant manager? | New Users | |||
my sent word documents change to the "review function", why? | Microsoft Word Help |