Between Microsoft's new Office UI (screenshots, video) featuring the ribbon, and Nintendo's unorthodox Revolution controller (details, hands-on), I think we're at the start of a new era of User Interface/User Experience design.
Universal designs, while consistent, may overly complicate the performance of a particular action; they are the jacks of all trades and kings of none. Microsoft is now moving away from a UI paradigm that worked well with few features but requires a lot of menu-hunting by the user to find what they want to do. Instead of forcing the user to think on the document-level, which requires thinking about formatting, layout, tables, etc., Microsoft decided to orient the user on the task-level. The creation of a document can be broken down into many tasks, the majority of which can't be done simultaneously, so why not focus the UI on document tasks instead of documents? That's exactly what Microsoft did. At first glance, it looks like they moved the menu bars into larger tabs with much larger toolbars. The biggest difference, however, is that the tabs make the toolbar modal and in doing so, eliminates options that are only applicable in a different context. Not only that, the ribbon provides more vertical space and can fit descriptions in addition to icons and allows for different layouts of icons within the ribbon.
Moral of the story: Empower the user by providing only options related to the task they are performing.
Only with an intuitive, contextual User Interface, can you not only provide access to popular options, but also highlight previously obscured options than can also be powerful.
Nintendo has taken a similar approach. They have created a non-standard controller design that will simplify the performance of particular actions. Contrary to Nintendo's competitor's "universal controller" design, which don't adjust to context, the Revolution controller can be physically used in ways that mimic in-game physical movement. Nintendo is in no way restricted by pseudo-consistency. Their developers don't have to deal with: "Since A is the main action button in our menu system, we don't want to confuse our users by making another the button the main action button in gameplay." Not only that, but users have no reason to associate "A" with action X other than previous experience in that game.
Things gets even more complicated when you need key combinations to perform actions because there aren't enough buttons on the controller. With Madden 2006 (on XBox), for example, I need to press three buttons to call a Hot Route (where a receiver's path is changed after the play is called): First there's "Y" to turn on the Hot Route (how does Y equate to Hot Route?), then I pick a reciever's letter and finally use the control stick to pick from one of four pre-selected routes. There is nothing intuitive about this, but it's the only way to do it with the current controller paradigm. Now image the same situation with the Revolution controller: Point the controller at the receiver (intuitive!), press a button (is Hot Route the main action of the current context? No, so then I must have to push an auxillary button), draw with or physically move the controller in the shape you want to receiver to run his route (intuitive!).
Moral of the story: By taking away the traditional restrictions of a controller, you allow for more contextual control of a game situation. The ability to add peripherals (such as a a left-handed analog stick) allows for even more contextualization.
Only with an intuitive, contextual User Interface, can you not only provide access to popular options, but also highlight previously obscured options than can also be powerful.
Technorati Tags: UI, User Interface, User Experience, Microsoft, Office 12, ribbon, Nintendo, Revolution, controller, context, intuitive, design, games, software
