Office 2007 - first impressions

[Bobby]

I installed beta 2 a few days ago and so far I'm pretty impressed with it.

It's not easy to improve the best writing tool (Word) ever created and the
best counting tool (Excel) ever made. But 2007 looks good.

The suite appears to be designed for the novice user - the sort of person
who never tried anything fancy in previous versions because making three
selections from a menu was beyond their cognitive skills. Well, they will
love this version with its real-time previews of most things.

Because I know Word and Excel so well, the interface is a little irritating
at times - but I appreciate that this version is not aimed at users like me.
And it looks *great*. My favourite new app is Outlook. Nothing much has
changed but it looks much nicer. And PowerPoint looks nicer too.

Good job.

Bobby

 

[Patrick Schmid]

Hi Bobby,

As an experienced user you definitely have a harder time with the new
interface than a novice user. However, having used Office 2007 since
November, I can assure you that over time you will forget all your old
habits (2003 ) and really get to appreciate the new UI.
There are a few things that I don't like in the UI, namely the placement
of a few groups. In order to address that, I am working on a tool that
will allow a user to graphically alter the UI (giving back functionality
that was available in 2003). To find out more about that, check out the
blog on my website.

Patrick Schmid