<Microsoft lets users bypass Office Ribbon ⁄ >

For users still unhappy using the Ribbon interface in the Office productivity suite, Microsoft has a new option: search.

On Monday, the company released an Office add-on called Search Commands that lets users type the function they are looking to do. After months of testing it internally, Microsoft is ready to give the public a chance to try it out. But the new tool won't be found on Microsoft's main Web site.

Rather, it will be available via a new effort, dubbed Office Labs. Spearheaded by Microsoft veteran Chris Pratley, Office Labs is Microsoft's attempt to test out productivity ideas that may -- or may not -- be ready for prime time.

In an interview, Pratley said Office Labs is designed to try out anything from just a feature to an entire new product concept. The goal is to get feedback early on, before deciding where to put the big development dollars.

"It's kind of expensive to make an entire product and then put it out there and see if it's any good," he said. Pratley knows firsthand. He was among those who helped create the Office OneNote application earlier this decade after spending the 1990s working on Word and Excel.

Office Labs is not the first time Microsoft has tried to create a sandbox for new ideas. It already has its "Live Labs," which has served as an incubator for the online services business.

In contrast to the masses of developers who work on Office itself, Pratley leads a team of about 60 designers and developers. On Monday, Microsoft went public with two of the group's projects -- Search Commands and Community Clips, which is basically an attempt to create a YouTube for help videos.

Search Commands, also known by the code name "Scout," has been popular inside Redmond for some time. With Office Labs, Microsoft will get to see if the searching metaphor is a hit with average users.

Just because something seems like a good idea, doesn't mean users will jump on it. Pratley notes that in the 1990s, Microsoft experimented with -- but never released -- a Web browser-like approach to navigating for commands, offering hyperlinks to different dialog boxes.

In that approach, though, commands didn't have a fixed home, but instead could be accessed in any number of ways. That uncertainty didn't sit well with users.



este é só um excerto do artigo, para aceder ao artigo completo, clique no link em baixo:
this is just a small excerpt from the article, to access the full article please click in the link below:
http://www.builderau.com.au/news/print.htm?TYPE=story&AT=339288481-339...