New screenshots of some of Office 2010′s user interfaces have emerged this week.

Outlook 2010 Screenshot

The Outlook 2010 screenshot doesn’t look all that inspiring. The feel of the ribbon is very much the same as the ribbon in the Office 2007 applications (although Outlook 2007 wasn’t subjected to this UI overhaul). I love the responses to Outlook 2010 on Lifehacker . Somebody puts forward the theory that Microsoft went bankrupt and the government are now designing the user interface. Harsh.

The overwhelming gut reaction is a negative one that questions the presence of anything new here. And I can understand that reaction. Also, it does appear to be a very “busy” and cluttered interface.

The ribbon interface is NOT easier/more efficient AT ALL. This new ribbon looks like even more of a mess than the last one.

The tabs at the top of the ribbon look like they were spray painted on, and some don’t have titles. What we have to remember, though, is that this is merely a beta version and some bugs (only some) will be fixed before the product ships.

On the whole, the comments on the Neowin site are more positive, though one comment there attracted my interest.

And the little icons on the left of the titlebar are silly and cluttering

The commentor is talking about this portion of the user interface in the top left corner.

I know what the Microsoft UI designers are trying to do here, and anyone else familiar with Fitts’s Law may do too. They are simply trying to get the important icons as close to the “optimum position” (easiest to locate the fastest) as possible. I can see the intention, but in cramming these icons so close to that location, I think they’ve made the buttons harder to target. Because the buttons are so close together, they should be bigger so that you can target them more easily.

You can have that one for free Bill.

But, again, this is not the finished article so maybe you’ll see MY SUGGESTION (bigger buttons ) in the product that ships.

On the subject of Fitss’s Law, it’s interesting that they’ve put the equivalent of the Office button a little lower than the corner position. I’ve tried targeting this button with my mouse – quickly – several times on the screenshot and each time I do, my intial thrust takes me exactly to the left corner (as you’d expect) and then I have to pull the mouse position down to reach it. That’s two mouse movements instead of the one mouse movement characteristic of the ribbon in Office 2007. That means it will take longer to hit the Office button now. Does this mean that the designers have downgraded the importance of the Office button to below that of the members of the Quick Access Toolbar Gang? Interesting decision.

Tags | images, leaked