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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Absurd Navigation

You may or may not be aware that Microsoft has released a new version of Office (Office 2007) that dramatically alters the user interface. It is supposed to make it easier to find buried options.

I run MS Outlook 2003 at work, and although I haven't tried 2007 yet, the need for it smacked me in the face today when I tried to do something as simple as uninstall a simple little add-on. I had to go through SEVEN menus. The menu names were as follows:

Tools
-> Options
-> Other
-> General
-> Advanced Options
-> Add-ons

The really funny thing about this menu path is that NONE of the sub menu contain descriptive titles... options, other, general, advanced options!?! Who came up with this ridiculous scheme?

A note to software designers: You should never use a non-descriptive word such as "other" or "general" for a menu, because it just becomes a dumping ground for the many features you haven't thought about how to structure. It will always end in absurdity.