The Story of the Microsoft Office Ribbon

Recently, a student of my Interaction Design course at DePaul University asked about “ribbon” design in user interfaces. For you Microsoft Office users, you know what I mean – the new navigational element of the 2007 version. Anyway, she’s working on a fairly complex Windows-based application that is “used to drive specialized medical equipment that automates the preparatoin of intravenous nutrition solutions for critically ill patients”.  Anyway, as part of our discussion, I came across some links that I haven’t seen for a while and given their great information, I thought I’d share here…

• Dan Harrelson, design technologist at Adaptive Path, interviews Jensen Harris, Group Program Manager of Microsoft’s Office User Experience team
• The Story of the Ribbon by Jensen Harris on an Official Microsoft User Interface Blog

If you are familar with other great summaries of the design of the Office ribbon, please do share.