155 replies to this topic 3 votes

[Jbenisek]

I liked it... but using it for the next few months will be the test. I'm excited.

[+devHead]

JonathanMarston, on 16 July 2012 - 23:30, said:

Oh yeah, and they need to do something about the dreadful new navigation bar in Outlook...

Yeah, I have to agree; the navigation bar looks like they forgot to finish it. I always enjoyed having the visual cues next to each folder name. Now it's like just a list of words. Hopefully these will be some things they'll fix before the final release. I mean, why take out the icons? I noticed though, that the notification area icon for Outlook is still the old yellow 'O' like previous versions. The white in Outlook is a bit overwhelming.

[GP007]

Ci7, on 17 July 2012 - 05:13, said:

it is good

but the UI need to be silver or at least for such an option

and for some reason office theme is stuck at 'none' other chooses never apply for some reason :?

I think because any other office themes you do see will also show up as Windows 8 themes. Notice for now how they two UIs, if you go back to that older Windows 8 screenshot from a month or so back that MS posted, they're matching (white, and lots of it). I believe that in order to fit into the UI better overall that Office 2013s themes will also come out and match with whatever they add to Windows 8 as well.

[+devHead]

I just discovered in Outlook that if you select the 'Folders' view, the icons come back next to the Inbox and all the other navigation places in the left pane. I think I'll stick with this view for a while.

[Boz]

looks terrible.. they are trying to find some kind of middle between desktop and tablet app and it's turning out terrible. it's neither tablet app or desktop app.. it's just terrible mix of both. You have huge icons and text so it's awkward visually when you are using it with a mouse and it's not really properly optimized for finger where things need to be fairly big compared to desktop.. so they found some middle ground that just doesn't look like it's really working from design/usability perspective at all.

At least for me it's awful. Just another proof that trying to merge desktop and tablet into one OS and apps like Office is just a terrible idea.

[nicconics]

Chris123NT, on 17 July 2012 - 03:28, said:

I like it from a functionality standpoint, but from a UI standpoint I feel like I should be wearing sunglasses when I use it.

lol, let me get the ray-bans, have to edit a document. I literally just saw Heratio from csi miami do this.

[+Quillz]

I would have preferred the UI match your window chrome color, rather than always be white. My current window chrome is red, and it's jarring how Office 2013 does not follow this.

[HawkMan]

people need to learn not to set their monitors to contrast 100, brightness 100 (+overdrive where applicable)

[+Anarkii]

Well I got it installed, so now that is up and running ill reserve judgement for a couple weeks.

[UXGaurav]

It looks like Office XP a lot but with Ribbon. Before the shiny icons and gradients appeared.

[+Mephistopheles]

First impressions:

• The UI is too white. The lack of contrast between page and application background in Word for instance is awful.
  
• What's with the animations when typing in Word, or moving around cells in Excel?
  
• Save to SkyDrive as default? I can't be the only one thinking this is a bad idea.

I'll be playing some more with it for more in-depth impressions. Do I like it? Too early to tell.

[Calum]

Considering it hasn't been available for even 24 hours yet, I don't think anyone has had enough time to give it a fair chance. First impressions aren't usually a good indicator; impressions after one has used it regularly for a certain amount of time are best to go on.

It seems great to me, so far, but I'll get back to you once I've used it regularly for some time.

[Calum]

Mephistopheles, on 17 July 2012 - 07:50, said:

[. . .]

• What's with the animations when typing in Word, or moving around cells in Excel?
  
• Save to SkyDrive as default? I can't be the only one thinking this is a bad idea.

[. . .]

The animations are probably the main contributor to the user experience being more pleasant for me than in previous versions of Office I love them.

Why do you believe saving to SkyDrive by default is a bad idea? I'm not so sure. I like that Microsoft are betting on the cloud, and I think it's great that users will be able to save a document in the default location, then access that document as soon as they log onto another PC, without having to specifically go to the SkyDrive website at all. This change might cause some confusion, but I would hope Microsoft could educate them about this change. I believe it's a change that will have to happen at some point, so it happening now makes sense to me.

[Calum]

Mephistopheles, on 17 July 2012 - 07:50, said:

[. . .]

• What's with the animations when typing in Word, or moving around cells in Excel?

[. . .]

To add to my previous comment on this point, perhaps they should provide a way to turn the animations off (if they don't already)? I can see why someone might not mind them in Windows Phone (for example) but would mind them in such a productivity application. Is that the case with you, and if so, what do you see as the reason for that?

[+Mephistopheles]

Why is saving to SkyDrive by default a bad idea? Think about this scenario:

• Joe User works on a document on his laptop. Saves it to SkyDrive
  
• The user then sits on a plane or train without internet connection and wants to continue editing the document.
  
• Much to Joe User's chagrin the file is MIA.

See the problem?