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How to design an inconsistent UI

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Friday, January 21, 2011

From the silly inconsistencies dept:

Excel 2010: Ribbon with unprotected workbook and unprotected sheet:



Excel 2010: Ribbon with protected workbook and protected sheet:



Adrian Gallero


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This blog post has received 3 comments.


1. Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:44:57 AM

If Microsoft make this mistake it shows the pitfalls and the ease with which some design howlers appear; but what guidance do you follow for UI design, and are there any good but easy style guides you would recommend to your clients?

Robert Edgar


2. Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 5:57:37 PM

Robert,
I don''t do much UI design, so I can''t recommend much, just the normal Windows and Ribbon guidelines.

But well, in this example, I guess no guideline would help, it is just common sense. You either make both buttons have a "selected" and "no selected" state, or make both buttons change captions. It is really incredible Microsoft didn''t noticed that one.
For what is worth, office 2011 for the mac has it right, both buttons behave the same way (both get selected, and they don''t change captions). Looks like the Microsoft mac BU has more attention to detail.




Adrian Gallero


3. Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 11:10:08 PM

How about the excel ribbon''s cute feature that puts Copy as Picture, under the Paste menu, and then under As Picture submenu:

Paste -> As Picture -> Copy as Picture?

Warren


Warren




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