Fire up the all new Office 2013 and there is one thing you can’t help but notice. Everything looks different! Or rather everything looks a bit like Windows 8. One of the biggest features of this new wave of Microsoft applications is the adoption of a brand new look and feel. As ever when things change, opinion is polarized. Some love it, some are less than keen. Let’s have a look at what Microsoft has done.
Firstly everything is flat, stark, and minimalist. Gone is a lot of the color, as well as the rendered icons. In their place is a significant use of white and flat icons (inspired again by Windows 8 and its “tile” concept). The general idea is the interface should play a reduced role, when compared to the content being worked on. It is a noble ambition (have a look at IAWriter for an extreme example), though one can understand those that say Microsoft has gone too far. Certainly you could say use of capitalization in the ribbon menus is a little too much.
There is a second reason for this design change, and that is touch. Microsoft has made Office 2013 the most touch friendly version yet, and the increased use of whitespace is a big part of this. Microsoft has carefully considered the need for bigger targets when its applications are used in these different environments - vital for those using fingers to navigate.
As we started by saying, people don’t tend to like change. Remember when the ribbon first arrived? But the real test of this new UI, does it makes Office easier to use, will only be answered through many thousands of hours of real life usage. So we will have a wait for a few months, and then revisit this topic.
