Did the Developers Get Lazy on the Layouts Option Panel
November 25, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
Image: Screen shot from Word 2007 Options panel
I’m still engulfed in learning more than I’d ever thought I would about mail merges and other functionality. Part of that learning has been combing through all the different checkboxes and settings that are available in the Word 2007 options panel.
A quick review of the "Layout Options" group uncovers a huge list of settings that are just checkboxes to check on or off a variety of settings. The "Layout Options" panel is initially collapsed so the expanse of potential options are hidden from the user.
After expanding the panel I was overwhelmed with everything that could be triggered on or off. I then began to wonder if there’s any type of logical grouping or additional information that could have been shared with this information to provide examples of what exactly it is each of these things do. I’d also think that there probably could have been some additional grouping of these settings into logical categories within the "layout" section.
Did the developers get lazy with this section? Did they run out of time? Do they just not care?
Could they have been trying to ape UNIX-based OSs?
I too, have seen some rough spots in Office 2007. They did a fantastic job with the Ribbon and all, but it’s also minor things, like the dialog menus, that really look out of place of Office. Maybe they’ll be able to refine the UI in the next Office.