Do You Like Office 2013? Thoughts on Preview

By Nazmus Shakib Khandaker
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

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Nazmus Shakib Khandaker

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Posted

Microsoft released the customer preview version of Office 2013 (aka Office 15). Labeled as the most ambitious office release by Microsoft, ti brings new features that relate to connecting Office to the cloud and to social networks. This thread is about discussing your impression on the new release of Office 2013 and Office 365 Preview. Do you like it, or do you hate it? Do you like the metro UI on the programs? What are your thoughts on Office 365 preview: did you used 365 before, and if so, is the new service better?

I really like the new version of Office, save some annoyances. There are things, like the blindingly white interface that hurts my eyes, but other than that Office looks great. The installer has been fantastic, something that plays a big role in first impressions. I loved the video tour in the installers and tours built in to the Apps as templates. The animations are nice and the cloud features work smoothly. I have some more extensive testing to do, but the initial thoughts are very positive. Finally, I love the new metro look and feel. Except the extreme whiteness, the UI is great, sleek, and pretty.

I will send a frown about the white interface; if you find it blinding, please do so too. this is your chance

So, please comment on what you think of the new release!

Best,

Nazmus Shakib Khandaker

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JonathanMarston

Posted
Posted

You pretty much summed up my thoughts as well. Seems like a decent upgrade, they just need to tone down the white a little. Just add a touch of gray to the background on the non-"content" areas and they'll have a winner.

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

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rfirth

Posted
Posted

I think they've gone a little overboard with the removal of 'chrome'.

What is your point? The UI scales with the window size. That's not a bad thing.

It looks like you just went overboard with resizing the windows to a tiny size. Microsoft could have removed your ability to resize it to smaller than a certain size. That would be the lazy way to deal with it.

Grand Master

bandit_liberty_rumble

Posted
Posted

What is your point?

That the UI is harder to 'parse' than it would have to be and that content unnecessarily flows right into the UI. There's an advantage to buttons actually looking like buttons, or at least having them separated from other UI elements and the content in such a away that it is easy to grasp the structure of the whole thing.

It looks like you just went overboard with resizing the windows to a tiny size. Microsoft could have removed your ability to resize it to smaller than a certain size. That would be the lazy way to deal with it.

My point isn't specifically about the right screenshot. That's just carrying it to the extremes. Just look at the tabs in the left screenshot and how they can't be readily identified as such and aren't visually clearly separated from either the titlebar or the document content.

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

That the UI is harder to 'parse' than it would have to be and that content unnecessarily flows right into the UI. There's an advantage to buttons actually looking like buttons, or at least having them separated from other UI elements and the content in such a away that it is easy to grasp the structure of the whole thing.

My point isn't specifically about the right screenshot. That's just carrying it to the extremes. Just look at the tabs in the left screenshot and how they can't be readily identified as such and aren't visually clearly separated from either the titlebar or the document content.

It's more *businesslike* - which actually makes sense for a productivity suite. Also, I don't doubt that there will be some *dressing up* done later (wasn't the same sort of complaint made about Visual Studio 2012?).

Seriously, though - why should a productivity suite mainly intended for productivity have much in the way of *bling*?

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

Who said anything about *bling*. I'm talking about usability. I think it looks great.

There will doubtless be more changes.

By the by, which *theme* did you choose for Office 2013? (I've done two C2R installs - one on my 8RP bare-metal install, and the other on a Windows 7 VM; both are x64. I went with Clouds on 8, and Circuits on 7. One thing that I like is that both are rather *understated* - did anyone choose a themeless install? That actually is the default - so if you see all that white, that is likely why.)

Grand Master

devHead

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

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Posted

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.

Grand Master

devHead

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

Boz

Posted
Posted

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.

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