I will try to read those posts soon. I've only just started using the new Office (since I work for a Windows shop now, instead of Linux).
It's extremely frustrating for me - for instance, I always have to search and scan for the "copy" button only to discover it's not on the current tab and then move to another tab which - if I'm lucky - will not suddenly close my document and replace it with a crazy menu but contain the tool I want to us. And it's crazy - if you want to save or print your document, you have to use the fake-tab that closes your document! (At the very least, they could just shrink the window and put it on the side so you know where you are.)
At least the old system had my frequently used tools easily accessible, but my rarely used tools hard to find. The current setup might have rarely used tools easy to find and frequently used tools hard to find - it all depends on what I was doing three hours and two tasks ago.
The menus buried so many features I never used or knew about. Its quite reasonable for them to replace it with a new system. But hiding the tools I use all the time annoys me me, and the silly fake-tab that hides my work when I'm trying to keep it upsets me. I would really be excited to know their logic. I hope it's explained in the blogs you linked to.
The menu text is also has underlining. I think this was a learnable indicator of clickability, since you'd often see clickable things with an underline (e.g. form buttons), especially once the old web took off with underlined links.
Compared to now when you literally just guess what's clicable. "Oh, is this thing where it says 'on: What Was the Microsoft Network' a link back to the main article? No idea, but I'll hover over it and see." Thankfully at least desktop web browsers change the pointer to indicate clickability - on my phone or in desktop apps I just have to try to activate everything to find out.
Not to say there's been no improvements in design - there's now a consistent symbol to say "there's a menu behind this" which is not exactly learnable but at least it's redeployable on multiple systems. And toolbar buttons have got more pixels in them now then before (are they larger? i don't think so but maybe), and usually a bit more spacing, so misclicks are less likely.
It's extremely frustrating for me - for instance, I always have to search and scan for the "copy" button only to discover it's not on the current tab and then move to another tab which - if I'm lucky - will not suddenly close my document and replace it with a crazy menu but contain the tool I want to us. And it's crazy - if you want to save or print your document, you have to use the fake-tab that closes your document! (At the very least, they could just shrink the window and put it on the side so you know where you are.)
At least the old system had my frequently used tools easily accessible, but my rarely used tools hard to find. The current setup might have rarely used tools easy to find and frequently used tools hard to find - it all depends on what I was doing three hours and two tasks ago.
The menus buried so many features I never used or knew about. Its quite reasonable for them to replace it with a new system. But hiding the tools I use all the time annoys me me, and the silly fake-tab that hides my work when I'm trying to keep it upsets me. I would really be excited to know their logic. I hope it's explained in the blogs you linked to.