Re: What Are the Main Problems You Have with MS Word?

["Martin Soderstrom" <scribbler1382 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I'm still trying to figure out whether Photoshop is the Apple or the Orange,
here.

While I'm no proponent of Microsoft products, we should target actual
problems and not just type to hear ourselves click.  Word's menu structure
is in response to user demands.  Microsoft spends a =LOT= of money on
demographics.  The problem in this case is the average user of Word is
plug-dumb.  They have no desire to explore beyond what they see on the
surface or to even find out that Word's menus are completely configurable
and can suit anyone with a little effort.  I suppose at some point in the
future, Word will pick up a user's "vibe" and automatically present the menu
structure they innately want, but if Microsoft is still around by then
you'll need a hard drive so large to install it that your desktop will rival
UNIVAC.

While Microsoft is not producing superior products, people are using them.
So who's the real evil here?


"Bruce Byfield" <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com> wrote in message
news:155900 -at- techwr-l -dot-  -dot-  -dot- 

kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com wrote:

>With any software this powerful, there's lots of figuring out to be done.
>
I agree with you to a certain point. With any new piece of software, you
have to allow for a learnng a period.


At the same time, I don't think the problem is power so much as design.

If I compare MS Word with PhotoShop, I have to conclude that MS Word is a
kludge, with features added without much thought of overall design
philosophy. Even menus aren't very well organized. Why, for example, are
tables given a separate menu rather than being put into the Insert menu? Or
why are Options and Customize two separate items? (after all these years, I
still get them confused when I'm tired)Why do you have to drill down so far
to change a style that, when you get to where you want to be, you've
forgotten your intent? I could go on and on, but I think I already have. My
impression is that features have been added to MS Word over the years with
little thought of the common interface or compatibility.It may be true, as
Steve Hudson suggests, that the problem is not with the master document
feature so much as with MS Word code itself, but, then, why both having the
feature at all then? By contrast, PhotoShop was designed with additions in
mind. You may take years to learn PhotoShop, but there's a basic consistency
to the design.

Moreover, while it's true that you can find workarounds to accomplish many
tasks, the very fact that you have to root around for workarounds suggest a
problem. By definition, workarounds involve using the software in a way in
which it was not originally intended to be used. With other software,
workarounds are temporary fixes until a fundamental problem can be
addressed. Yet, in MS Word, master documents, for example have been
unworkable since well before version 6.0 (I think version 2.0, but I'm not
sure). That's over ten years. Yet advanced users merely take for granted
that the feature should be avoided, and learn all sorts of load-balancing
tricks to keep large documents from crashing.In other words, with MS Word,
workarounds are so much part of the daily routine of advanced users that
many of us don't no longer think that anything is wrong with them. We accept
them as normal rather than as signs of serious problems.



--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"They pout, they pose, they curl their lips,
They miss too many meals
With their implants and injections
Only God knows what is real."
-Garnet Rogers, "Where'd You Get That Little Dress?"








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