Why did UI’s turn from practical to form over function?

E.g. Office 2003 vs Microsoft 365

Office 2003

It’s easy to remember where everything is with a toolbar and menu bar, which allows access to any option in one click and hold move.

Microsoft 365

Seriously? Big ribbon and massive padding wasting space, as well as the ribbon being clunky to use.

Why did this happen?

  • @[email protected]
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    1 day ago

    Btw, just so you know, Libre Office has multiple UIs, incliuding a Ribbon-like variant. View > User Interface.

    But they let you choose.

    • @pyre
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      15 hours ago

      last time i used libre office was probably more than a decade ago and it was atrocious. did they make things better?

      because i still don’t have ms office and would like to have an alternative to edit documents other than uploading a file to google docs and downloading it back.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 hours ago

        I think they got better.

        But there’s still other (closed source) office suites in a pinch.

    • @[email protected]
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      824 hours ago

      Exactly, this is the way. I use it w/o the ribbon, but I like that the ribbon is an option for those who like it.

      • @JustARaccoon
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        28 hours ago

        Well a big problem is when a UI has a small learning curve that then gives a huge benefit in usability, letting the user decide based on their feelings might lead to them having a worse off experience in the end, is that something you’d be open to getting people complaining about not finding their options day and night while they stubbornly avoid the ribbon?