What happens when you force an interface improvement...

... people rebel!

Microsoft Office 2007's 'ribbon' interface was carefully thought out to be more task oriented and allow users access to the features they need most based on the task they are performing within a document - the motivation being research showing that vast swathes of the 20,000-something featureset were being totally ignored by most of their user base.

While I like it overall (especially the live previews which aren't strictly a part of the ribbon), I can't be the only person who's struggled to find that hitherto easy-to-find command, eventually unearthing it in the miscellaneous task list (the one furthest to the right). I know I'm not, as a new plugin has been launched for the tool: it reverts the menus to Office 2003 style, while keeping the other features.

While I find this latest evidence that people will always find a way to undo your best-intentioned efforts pretty funny, there's a serious side to this: give users the option. Always.

And work on the things that don't work first: Office - sort out your page and list styling tools, and then give us an integrated interface for all the dialogs and options - not a fancy new ribbon hiding all the hell of nested numbered titles setup just as before....

:)