Even nearly 10 years later, I cannot use Microsoft Office and its “ribbon” effectively.
That was really the first foray of any organization into user-hostile interface design and wow has it proved a real loser from a usability perspective.
I search for minutes for things back in Word 2003 I used to be able to find in 1-2 seconds.
My experience is completely the opposite. I loved the ribbon as soon as it came out. I find it much more user friendly. Rarely have to search how to do something. Except in Excel. But then if I find myself using excel for something complicated, I switch to a scripting language.
It is obviously more productive for some people. Perhaps the majority. I can’t understand how, but I believe you when you say it.
Hierarchical menus to me are so much more discoverable. Random icons are meaningless to me and I can’t scan them quickly.
When I want to do something more complex than make something bold, I have to spend a while looking it up on Google. Office for me went from being easy to use to attempting to use something like a 3-D modeling program.
Peak digital I tells ya, but do you listen?
Computers as tools of private productivity reached their peak around 2005-06 and have been (purposely) losing ground ever since as each new “convenience” is actually a net inconvenience.
Now computers are being turned into large tablets/smartphones as ways to mindless pass the time.
Yes, they are slowly becoming devices of social control, rather than how they started, as devices of social freedom (being that they were invented/expanded on largely by misfits and outcasts).
Very sad to see.