Rashmi hosting a BayCHI talk by Jensen Harris (Microsoft)

On Dec 12th, 05

Meeting announcement here.

Farewell, menus and toolbars. More than 20 years after the introduction of the Macintosh, software has outgrown the basic building blocks of today’s standard user interface. The upcoming version of Microsoft Office does away with the top-level menus and toolbars in favor of a new task-oriented, contextual user interface.

This talk will provide a historical perspective on the evolution of the Office user interface and the battle against the mounting complexity of the product. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the different design iterations, and an in-depth look at the new Office UI constructs, including the Ribbon, galleries, contextual tabs, and the MiniBar. You’ll also learn the ideas behind “results-oriented design,” which Jakob Nielsen wrote, “might well be the way to empower users in the future.”

With 400 million Office users potentially making this transition, would embracing these concepts solve problems in your own products? A question and answer session will follow the talk.

Jensen Harris is a Lead Program Manager on the Microsoft Office User Experience team and is one of the key designers behind the new user interface being introduced in Microsoft Office. Jensen joined Microsoft in 1998 and has contributed to a number of products for Windows and the Macintosh, including leading the redesign of the Outlook 2003 user interface. He has focused on the overall UI model for Microsoft Office since 2003.

Prior to working at Microsoft, Jensen graduated with degrees in music composition from Yale University and Interlochen Arts Academy. He is the author of widely used software, including the cross-platform, caller ID system YAC. He publishes his thoughts daily in An Office User Interface Blog.