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Subject:Re: Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 From:quills -at- airmail -dot- net To:Paul Hanson <phanson -at- Quintrex -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 3 Nov 2008 12:59:39 -0600
There wasn't that much of an outcry against Win95 since it was
addition to and enhancements that were seen as improvements.
The current brouhaha over Office 2007 is that the menu system was
dropped entirely for icons. This has a bit of a problem as the icons
aren't necessarily intuitive, nor are they necessarily grouped in
similar ways that the menu system was. The navigation of the icon
bars, and there are more than one, isn't very clear. There isn't
documentation that accompanies the software that explains the change.
And if you are in a company where the IT department distributes and
installs software, you don't get any documentation other than the
Help system. So it's not a good way to suddenly have a new software
package.
Imagine having it foisted upon you, on a production machine, and
being expected to meet your deadlines while having to learn the
package. Microsoft ignored reality, and expected miracles. They also
assumed that everybody would know what they had done. To my way of
thinking, the assumption worked exactly as most assumptions do,
poorly, and "everybody" really only included the developers and
testers at Microsoft.
Scott
At 11:41 AM -0600 11/3/08, Paul Hanson wrote:
>Microsoft likes to change things up. Prior to the Office 2003 to
>Office 2007, I can point to Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 as a shift in
>the UI that moved things around.
>
>I'm wondering... were any of you on a list back when Windows 95 was
>released on users that were used to Windows 3.1? Was there an outcry
>of complaints from users? Or do people think that 3.1 ==> 95 was not
>as big of a change as Office 2003 to Office 2007?
>
>I didn't know email even existed when I made the switch from 3.1 to
>95 so I really don't know.
>
>Paul Hanson
>Technical Writer
>RoboHelp ACE -
>http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/team_macromedia/robohelp.html
>Quintrex Data Systems http://www.quintrex.com
>email: phanson at quintrex.com
>^
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