Office Labs: Projects that address customer needs..
By Don Burnett
Microsoft has a history of being a great listener to it's customers. That's probably the real reason they have had so much success over time in the market. After the launches of new versions of their productivity software came out, some people started to wonder where that great responsiveness was. It's now clear that due to the massive amount of change and product improvement that they had a massive amount of customer comments and feedback to go through and needed to evaluate this and look at where to go next with things. There has been a lot of situations where new features have introduced new needs, but these needs aren't necessarily something that would always inspire a feature change in the next office.
Recently they have launched a new site called Microsoft Office Labs. It's not a site you'd normally expect from Microsoft. In the past there has been the official "site" and nothing else. Office Labs is a site where you see lots customer needs addressed by software projects aimed directly at solving issues that have came to their attention through customer channels and feedback. The site is also there to give educational insight into areas of customer need that haven't seen other supported in other marketing efforts.. This site (very up-front) makes it clear that things you will find here are not features or things planned for the next version of Office. So why would I visit this site..
Simply put the projects and this site, really demonstrate Microsoft is listening to customers and their needs and working on addressing needs including community education gaps. And when you leave you might like Office Version 2007 a lot better. Some of there projects really rock. Let's look at one below..
Let's look at one of the projects and why it's so cool and useful..
"Where are my menus and toolbars? I don't know how to use this new version, ahhhh I want my old software back.."
Okay on of the first things I have heard about Office 2007 that was critical, was from new Microsoft Office users, most of which use the toolbars to access features are confounded by the new "ribbon". The truth is that office products have been growing over the years.. The last version of Microsoft Word (before the 2007 version) had enough toolbars that if you showed all of them you'd have no area to actually see the page you were trying to type on. Microsoft knew they had to do something, so they came up with the Ribbon, which most people feel is a better way to work and an improved user experience (once they learn how to use it). The complaints I have heard is just that people have to spend re-training time (not that they don't actually like the ribbon's innovation itself).. The complaints aren't the norm, however. Most people that I know who adopted the ribbon interface could immediately be productive, because it's very context sensitive and watches what you are doing and presents options based on what you are doing with the page you are creating.
So how do you solve this issue for customers who don't want to move right now or just need a little help in the move? Return the old menus and tool bars? With the addition of new capabilities that have just added it would over run the screen?
Answer: An add-in that lets you find the functionality you need really fast via SEARCH, so if the number of commands and add-ins double you are still able to quick get where you want..
Enter one of OfficeLab's first projects:
Search Commands
Search Commands helps you find commands, options, wizards, and galleries in Microsoft Office 2007 Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just type what you’re looking for in your own words and click the command you need. Search Commands also includes Guided Help, which acts as a tour guide for specific tasks. Here's an example and a video via YouTube. Wow, OfficeLabs on YouTube that's pretty cool as well..
They have some other cool projects at OfficeLabs, along with a lot of support Blogs worth finding out about..
A few include:
A social computing application based on SharePoint where people discover and share useful information about SharePoint.
Use your Tablet PC with an interface uniquely tailored to pen input. The tool fades into the background so that you can focus on capturing your ideas, sketches, and creative thoughts. Integrates search and inking.
An online marketplace where businesses can connect with and hire skilled freelancers in graphic design, writing and editing, translation, and more.
Don's Editorial Note: "Task Market is a great place to pick up extra work for designers, and freelancers.. "
