
Re: Dear Microsoft...
"Seriously - the ribbon is not complex nor difficult. Anyone who finds it so, seriously needs to revise their opinion of how technically competent they are."
Technical competence does not mean that I want to learn a new interface with every few versions of a piece of software that I use often. In fact, the *more* I use it, the **LESS** I want to have to learn a new way of using it.
You want a real world example?
Imagine if the auto manufacturers decided to shake things up and make drastic changes to the way we drive a car. That interface has evolved over time and there is little variability in it.
Meanwhile, the car dashboard has more variability through time and across models/manufacturers. Keep that in mind the next time you're in an unfamiliar automobile and you're trying to make use of some functionality on the dashboard.
"Honestly, for a demographic that is supposed to be good with trying out new things, there are some folks in the IT world who are seriously close-minded."
Trying new things is one notion. Drastically changing the fundamentals of something familiar to us is quite another.
To continue the sematics exercise: it seems that this "trial" of the ribbon UI is telling us that it's a failure. What gets many people's goats is the fact that we're paying to be guinea pigs in what effectively is an experiment.