Through the Looking Glass
A couple of months ago, I posted screenshots of the visual appearance of the Office 2007 Beta 1 Technical Refresh.
At the time, a number of you asked for pictures of what Office 2007 looks like on Windows Vista with glass enabled.
Your wish, my command. Here are a few pictures of what Beta 2 will look like running on a recent pre-Beta 2 build of Windows Vista. Note that you need a fairly recent build of Vista in order for glass to be enabled in Office.
We're still planning on some visual tweaks based on feedback and to optimize for glass, especially in the upper-left corner (or, as we call it internally, the "northwest" corner.) But these won't debut until after Beta 2 ships, so these pictures are an accurate picture of what Office 2007 Beta 2 will look like on top of Windows Vista Beta 2.
Word 2007 Beta 2 on Windows Vista
Excel 2007 Beta 2 on Windows Vista
Enjoy the screenshots!
Comments
Anonymous
May 01, 2006
That is just beautiful!Anonymous
May 01, 2006
It has been quite a long time since the last screenshot of Word 2007 I have seen. I feel Office 2007 is slowly loosing all its new features. Many labels are less clear and more generic, just think of Home, Home doesn't mean anything. Styles feel like we are going to have the same styling as in Office 2003, everytime you change a tiny bit of your style, Office automatically creates a new style in the list, so styles are pretty much useless. The Editing label in the toolbar is far from being relevent to its content (Find, Replace). Colors are the same 16 colors we used to find in Windows 3.1, these colors are ugly.
Anyway I love the whole UI style. I just think Office 2007 won't be as new and exciting as many announced few months ago. Same thing for Vista.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Very nice!
Speaking of the "northwest corner," has the team made any modifications to the Office Button's appearance to address all the concerns about discoverability?Anonymous
May 01, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 01, 2006
To Vincent:
Search this blog for "home tab" to get the whys behind the decision. If I ask you to change the name of Company ABC to Company XYZ in your document, is that not editing? The Find and Replace tool just speeds it up. You should also search the blog for "color palette" to get more info on what's coming.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Gotta say, the glass is just distracting. I have a hard time understanding why glass works from a usability standpoint.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
So it would benefit from having the same shape as others - curves of glass and Office surface don't match at all!Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Hey, show us Windows Classic please. :)
I don't use Windows Classic theme, but dying to know how it will look there...Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Jensen Harris put online some screenshots that show us exactly what Glass will look like on Windows Vista....Anonymous
May 01, 2006
awesome..Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Jensen, I don't know what your usability studies said to use so much dark colours in the UI, but I feel uncomfortable with it. Why not replace the black/grey canvas with a blurred translucent canvas?
I thought the focus of Glass was to put emphasis on the important elements of the interface, and I think the Translucent canvas would help emphasize that.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 01, 2006
Yeah the area behind the word document should be glass since it's basically dead space.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Overall, it looks nice - better than on XP.
I have to say, though, that the gradient in the background of the content area in Word and PowerPoint drives me batty. Backgrounds are supposed to be, well, in the background. The gradients are way too in-your-face.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
I'm sorry, but why in diagramms in Excel don't use correction of prospect? Vertical lines as in a low cost photo. It's bad.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
PingBack from http://www.windowsvistaweblog.com/2006/05/01/glass-on-word-and-excel/Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Looks good! I have a couple of thoughts:
I agree I think the glass look would be beneficial behind the page. I find the curve on the top left grabs my attention, even though I know it's intended to be a subtle background.
Secondly, the scrollbars look different to the rest of the controls - I guess the main bar ('handle'?) is supposed to stand out, which it does... maybe you could change its look to be more like the plus/minus zoom buttons on the status bar. That way it would still look similar in colour to how it does now, but also similar in look to the rest of the UI.
But, it's looking good... thanks for posting the pictures!Anonymous
May 01, 2006
PingBack from http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2006/05/01/office-2007-with-aero-glass/Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Definitely the document backing should be opaque! Putting glass there (even if it's frosted) will be way too distracting. I don't think I could focus on my text if it were bordered by anything other than an opaque nearly monochromatic background.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Why are the "Sheet" tabs still at the bottom of Excel? Every single application you will ever use (excluding excel) has tabs at the top, not the bottom. When you work on stuff you work at the top.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
So, when will we be able to use Beta 2, you know that we are desperately waiting.... Please, please, please give it to usAnonymous
May 01, 2006
This is Excel. DAvid, meet Excel. Excel, meet DAvid, the new kid on the blog :)Anonymous
May 01, 2006
Vincent is right, I liked Beta1 more!
Sure, Beta2 is eye-candy (Though I liked Beta1 Menu-Tabs more) but the point of Vincent is clear. What is Home? Home as a Label is meaningless!
I still love Office 2007, but is gradually losing the features that made me excited, like Vista...Anonymous
May 01, 2006
I agree with the comments that the top left is too busy. What purpose is a shiny Office logo, again?
I also wonder if the Glass thing is going to be bad for usability... remember that the corners of the screen are the easiest to hit - so when an app is maximised, can you still close by hitting the top right (as XP currently does correctly)? Or do you have to accurately target the button?
Is it just me, or is the ribbon even higher than it used to be? Just overlaying a Word window over the screenshot, the Office 2007 ribbon takes up ~130% height of my Office 2003 setup with two toolbars.Anonymous
May 01, 2006
I thought that you shouldnt paint on the window borders. Why is it that MS says one thing in their guidlines and then dont care about that guideline?Anonymous
May 01, 2006
well, I dont`t see anything exciting at these pictures. are you working with nice background or with m$ word, excell ???Anonymous
May 02, 2006
It looks really ugly to me.
Perhaps I'm just too used to how it used to look, and I don't have an artist's eyes...Anonymous
May 02, 2006
I love it, and can't wait to use it.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Instead of posting something that is supposed to be "eye-candy" it would be better if you would respond to questions and comments that really matters.
There are a lot of questions regarding RibbonX and the help system. Is this a blog or a brochure?
And the Office team should stop to trade in functionality for presentation. People are looking for something to get their work done, if I want something that is nice to look at I download a screensaver.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
So the Excel worksheet "x" is gone in B2, Jensen? I think it was missing in B1 and back in the refresh. That can only mean it'll be back for RTM, right.<g>
JimAnonymous
May 02, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 02, 2006
Um, that looks pretty cheesy. All these people claiming MS is copying OS X, when in fact it looks like they're copying some bad themes from Linux.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Show us Office on Windows Classic. Show us the Word that is gray and rectangular. My teeth ache from all this eye candy.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 02, 2006
PingBack from http://techgurls.blorc.com/2006/05/03/microsoft-office-2007-beta-2-screenshots/Anonymous
May 02, 2006
I think Microsoft need to focus more on the features of the product, rather than 'visual effects'. For example, to me, all Office 2003 is is Office XP with an ugly new colour scheme. I switched to the Energy Blue theme for the only purpose of turning it beige again!! Hardly worth buying?!
Please can you stop 'faffing around' with fancy colour schemes, and focus on the main selling point of the product... and what we fork out huge sums of money for: what it actually does!!!
I also have 2 requests for Microsoft, although I'm not sure if you've implemented them already:
1) Please can you add the full colour scheme to the Highlight colours yet? Office 2003 has the same basic 15 colours as it did when I first got a PC with Office 97 - it's nice to be able to highlight using more colours at times!.
2) Please can you make sure that the rotation tools work on ALL images/autoshapes/textboxes etc! They worked fine in Office XP, but in Office 2003, they're always disabled!Anonymous
May 02, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 02, 2006
Quick question re manageability: will we be able to lock the toolbars? Users are far too able to accidentally change their interface elements on Office 2000, XP, and 2003.
Thanks!Anonymous
May 02, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 02, 2006
I love all these people who say things like "sure it looks nice, but it's going to confuse people!" when all the real world data being collected by Microsoft is saying just the opposite.
1) The new UI is better than the old UI from a usability perspective. For this there is hard data. If you claim otherwise, you'd better be able to say more than "I don't think that's true" because MS can point to thousands of people average people from all walks of life who think it is.
2) Pretty sells. It doesn't hurt anything to make it look better, and makes the experience better for everyone. If you don't like it, don't upgrade. Vote with your dollar and stop whining.Anonymous
May 02, 2006
PingBack from http://systemcenter.wordpress.com/2006/05/02/vista-delayed-again/Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Does the new interface require more or less "mouse miles"?Anonymous
May 03, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 03, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 06, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 06, 2006
Great news ...
I can't wait to the Beta 2 to be available, as a Beta Tester and want it NOW !!!
Bye from SpainAnonymous
May 07, 2006
wow justwow .so uglyAnonymous
May 08, 2006
looks hidious... ditch the themes and use the theme windows has dont make the App inconsistant with the OS in apperanceAnonymous
May 08, 2006
UGLY!
the colour is rubish! i hate it dar to dark.
and the top left is just terable!
The pre beta UI was far better!Anonymous
May 08, 2006
The round thing - is it a system menu? Is it how the system menu will look like in all Vista apps? Anyway, too many lines around, don't really like it.
So, a new video board with HDCP support (this should be especially heartwarming for those who bought a video card without HDCP: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_hdcp_support/), a Gig of RAM, and a CPU fast enough - to be able to see through windows? No, thanks. Win2K + Office97 are still good enough.Anonymous
May 11, 2006
"Service Unavailable"
Dude, where's the pics?Anonymous
May 11, 2006
lol ITS SOO NICE :PAnonymous
May 11, 2006
lo nIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIceAnonymous
May 12, 2006
PingBack from http://www.dreambase.se/?p=346Anonymous
May 12, 2006
Michael J - You go ahead and live in the past. The rest of us will be more productive. Pffft. IMO, from actually USING the products, Vista and Office 2007 are a great step forward.Anonymous
May 13, 2006
How customizable will all the toolbars be in Office? I've gotten used to being able to customize the heck out of my Office applications (and Internet Explorer), and I would really like for that flexibility to be preserved.Anonymous
May 13, 2006
Too lazy to write interesting postings? Aggregate! Newspapers have been doing it for decades (it keeps...Anonymous
May 15, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
May 18, 2006
http://s2.bitefight.com.pt/c.php?uid=15964Anonymous
May 18, 2006
PingBack from http://blog.fvrc.ru/2006/05/19/skrinshoty-office-2007/Anonymous
May 20, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 08, 2006
<a href='http://www.yahoo.com'></a>Thanks! http://www.insurance-top.com/auto/">http://www.insurance-top.com/auto/ <a href='http://www.insurance-top.com'>auto insurance</a>. <a href="http://www.insurance-top.com ">Insurance car</a>: auto site insurance, car site insurance, The autos insurance company. Also [url]http://www.insurance-top.com/car/[/url] and [link=http://www.insurance-top.com]insurance quote[/link] from site .Anonymous
June 08, 2006
Thanks!!! http://www.insurance-top.com/company/">http://www.insurance-top.com/company/ car site insurance. [URL=http://www.insurance-top.com]home insurance[/URL]: auto site insurance, car site insurance, The autos insurance company. Also [url=http://www.insurance-top.com]cars insurance[/url] from website .Anonymous
June 08, 2006
Hi! http://www.insurance-top.com/company/ car site insurance. auto site insurance, car site insurance, The autos insurance company. from website .Anonymous
June 11, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 19, 2006
http://www.insurance-top.com/company/ car site insurance. compare car insurance, auto insurance, insurance car. from website .Anonymous
June 20, 2006
Persone los pioneros non rabata. Great...Anonymous
October 27, 2007
PingBack from http://qmunic8.com/?p=533Anonymous
October 27, 2008
PingBack from http://mstechnews.info/2008/10/the-office-2007-ui-bible/Anonymous
May 29, 2009
PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=jensen-harris-an-office-user-interface-blog-through-the-looking-glassAnonymous
June 01, 2009
PingBack from http://woodtvstand.info/story.php?id=4386Anonymous
June 02, 2009
PingBack from http://woodtvstand.info/story.php?id=45574Anonymous
June 15, 2009
PingBack from http://mydebtconsolidator.info/story.php?id=11280