Word '07: Badder Ass than Ever
We discussed in Friday’s class that many computer applications look like things we’d see in an office, like the old trash can icon or the new recycle bin icon, paper clip and clipboard icons, and the little disk that means save, even though hardly anyone saves on floppy disks anymore. Cat, I think, even mentioned that she can make her Word documents look like notebook paper if she wants. These familiar images are comforting.
Recently, I've heard lots of folks--my students, other graduate students, professors--complaining about the new Microsoft Word. The biggest complaint, which I entirely agree with, is that it's so much more difficult to find things than in the previous Word. The new Microsoft Word is not comforting. It's all new-fangled and obnoxious. To Save As, you have to hit the big button clear over on the left side! The left side! All the way over! And it took me a week to figure that out, for crying out loud! Why do things have to change? Can't they just leave well enough alone?
Even though the biggest complaint I hear (and make) about the new Word is that it’s hard to find stuff, is this really what bothers people about it? Bolter and Grusin write that “Immediacy is supposed to make this computer interface ‘natural’ rather than arbitrary” (23). One way to do this is to use images that we’re accustomed to seeing in the physical world, like paper clips, disks, and trash cans. The old Word, like many computer programs, uses these icons to make the computer interface natural, since the images used are things we’re used to seeing. The main difference visually between the old Word and the new Word isn’t that these icons are missing, but there’s an extra appeal to make the interface appear more natural: it looks like a webpage. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing the webpage that Word has been redesigned to look like one, perhaps to make the interface more natural to us. Maybe that’s the intention, maybe not. If people are complaining, perhaps users of Word aren’t comfortable enough with Word documents and the web combining (George Costanza: “Worlds are colliding!).
Comments
Colliding and Repelling
And while the new Word is busy combining with the Web (Werb?), it's ignoring its roots--the old Word. Word 2007 is engineered in such a way that its default format is incompatible with previous Word programs! By altering the new Word Interface to resemble an html page and by making older versions of Word incompatible with Word 2007, Microsoft engineers are clearly sending a message that Word 2007 should change the way users think about/interact with word processing programs. (I wonder whether Microsoft users will reject the change and demand a return to the familiar.)
Word Up?
I have also bitched about New!Word. Will I have to amend my course policies to include a penalty for students sending me documents in .docx form? Excellent point that perhaps users' discomfort has to do with the changes reflecting the influence of the Web. Of course we aren't directly saying that, though I have mocked the "make blog entry" on the top of the page. By changing its appearance perhaps Word is trying to provide more immediacy; they are working toward that "interfaceless" interface, and we don't like it - at least not yet. The interfaceless interface has reduced our efficiency, for the time being. If the Internet does become more like Second Life, where we have virtual representations of our bodies and we 'walk' to Google and ask an oracle our question, will ease of use be sacrificed? Or is our dislike of the new format analogous to people's first reaction to computers in general, a reaction that was likely, new automatically = bad/difficult.
I do think most of the complaints (OK, at least my complaints) have to do with the need to relearn the program. So perhaps we are still not completely comfortable with the mental challenges computers confront us with.