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Survey Results:

How Do Business Users Like
Excel 2007's New Ribbon?

The 'Ribbon' in Excel 2007 is the most significant change that
Microsoft has ever made to Excel's user interface. We wanted
to find out what Excel users in business think of that change.

by Charley Kyd
June, 2008

The preliminary results are in, and the conclusion is clear: Excel's new Ribbon isn't popular.

For more than six months we've tried to gauge Excel 2007's market acceptance by asking what version of Excel our readers use.  We decided it was time to go further and ask what Excel users think about Excel 2007's most distinctive new feature.

So near the middle of May we posted a poll asking the opinion of Excel users about the Ribbon. On June 1, we realized that we needed to ask several more questions. You can see the four-question survey here. If you haven't taken this version of the survey, please do so now.

In the May results, about 56% of all respondents had a negative opinion about the Ribbon, and 31% had a positive opinion. Roughly 30% said they hate it, and 19% said they love it.

If anything, the percentage of people who like the Ribbon was higher than we expected. Most mail we get about the Ribbon offers opinions like the following, which we received in late May:

"Here in Ghana our parent company bought Office 2007 for the group and installed it on all mid and senior level management computers (about 200 in all).

"Over the next three months fully 95% of users went back to 2003. Of our nine departmental managers only one still uses 2007 at all and he is the one with the weakest computing skills.

"We have many consultants from supplier companies typically from Britain but also from South Africa, Europe and Australia who visit each month. I am amazed by the number of other people outside our company who report firstly that they hate the Excel 2007 ribbon and secondly that they hate the product the more they use it.

"So it would appear that familiarity with the ribbon still does not endear it to experienced users. I would add that the general view from what I can gather amongst users is that the product itself was not ready for market and that the ribbon is a huge step backwards."

We'd like to know what you and your company think about Excel's Ribbon, both good and bad. When you take the survey, be sure to enter your comments where requested. And please be sure to urge the Excel users you know to vote on this issue. Your vote can't hurt, and it might help to improve future versions of Excel.

Finally, to learn about updates to these results please follow this link to subscribe to our newsletter.