About About
It was asked last week: "With the Help menu not present in Office 2007, where do I get to the version information from the About box?"
Good question. In thinking through the design, we decided that it made sense for the version information to be integrated into the Options dialog box, since that's kind of a hub for application-level and system-level configuration and information. The Options window itself is launched from the bottom of the Office menu.
The "Resources" page within Options contains all of the information about updating and getting support for Office, so this seemed like the most natural place for the version information to live.
(Click to view full picture)
Outside of the beta program, the two top reasons people need version information are 1) when calling product support and 2) when verifying the service pack level installed. For #1, we just need to have a predictable location that product support can use to lead people towards the version information. #2 was what motivated us to move the version information to the same page as where one checks for product updates.
Comments
- Anonymous
May 02, 2006
It's now my habit to press "Help" then look for "About" at the bottom, to find version & SP numbers.
(Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but that's where I look first for all existing software.) - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Hmm, I'm not entirely convinced that this is a good idea. Presumably you still need admin rights to check for updates, so the average user won't be doing that (particularly in a corporate environment, where it will all get handled via WSUS or suchlike). In fairness, I suppose that most PCs in a corporate environment will be using the same version of the software, but it's still a bit tricky.
Personally, I like the fact that "Help | About" will work in the vast majority of programs, so if I'm trying to diagnose a problem over the phone then I can talk someone through it without having the app in front of me - this will make it more difficult. In particular, it leads to a chicken-and-egg scenario:
Me: "What version of Word are you using?"
User: "I don't know - how do I find out?"
Me: "Well, you do it one way in Word 2003 and a different way in Word 2007."
User: "But I don't know whether I'm using Word 2003 or Word 2007!"
I quite like the way that IE7 has handled this: it hides the menus in favour of toolbar buttons, so you get a question mark icon instead of a Help menu, but then the menus reappear if you press the Alt key. So, if I tell someone to press Alt+H, then click on "About", that will work, but the rest of the time they can just use the friendly picture. (In fact, IE7 has a drop down menu next to the ? button, which is another way of handling the problem.) - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Nevermind that you could just pay attention to the logo as the app loads. I mean I know it's only there for like 2 seconds, and all, but we're not talking rocket science. - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Speaking of "Options", one of the things in Word that I've always found a bit ... mental ... is the way the Tools|Options dialogue seemlessly blends settings that will persist forever and options that apply only to the current document.
Combined with the appalling wording of many of the options (e.g., "Save data only for forms" should be "Only save data for forms") and the way the help is getting less and less context sensitive with every release (in 2003, clicking the '?' button in the caption just opens a help page for the entire dialogue... not even for the specific tab), the situation is a mess.
How has Options (and its help) been improved? - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Question, where's the print button? - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Citizen & John:
As there isn't a Help menu anywhere, we had to find a new place for this functionality.
You are right that if we still had a Help menu (or menus at all) that would be a good place for the About information. - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
"(e.g., "Save data only for forms" should be "Only save data for forms")"
Actually in my mind it would be better as
"For forms, only save data" as both the entries above make me think that it's not going to save data for non-form documents. - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
In my opinion you should put the 'about' button at the bottom of the File menu, that is where I would expect it to be. - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
"(In fact, IE7 has a drop down menu next to the ? button, which is another way of handling the problem.)"
++ - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Making "Help" a split button would be cool. An "about" command in the menu could open the Office Center to the "Resources" page. - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
Regardless of order, "only" modifies "data" and so should immediately preceed it. So it should be either "Save only data for forms" or "For forms, save only data." Better still, if the app could detect whether the document contained form fields and, only if it did, display, "For this form document, save only the data"... - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
I totally agree - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
i don't think it's a good idea. every app ever written has version info in help and now you decide to change it.
bad idea in my opionion - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 02, 2006
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May 02, 2006
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May 03, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 03, 2006
For some reason, the first thing I do whenever I run a program for the first time is go to Help | About. After working with probably hundreds of Windows programs since 3.1, I can tell a lot about the program just from the appearance of its About dialog. - Anonymous
May 03, 2006
I find tabs easy to use, but only when there's 1 row.
I also like descriptive, concise headings. Display, Proofing, Save = good. Resources? Trust Center? Ambiguous.
Also, why doesn't the options dialog have a maximize/restore button? And is it still modal? - Anonymous
May 03, 2006
Yes, not goign to help, about is different, but rememebr people there is no more help menu, thus help|about is impossible. I'm glad they found a new home for it. - Anonymous
May 03, 2006
As a technical writer myself, I'm curious how involved the documentation team has been in the design of the new interface, and whether the radical shift from the old interface to the Ribbon has caused them to rethink the way help is provided in any significant ways.
How about a guest entry from someone writing help for the new application? - Anonymous
May 03, 2006
I love the Idea to have everything on the options page.
What I did realize is taht you have a newer version... I had to ask if the besta test will inlcude a test of the update process using Office online beta? - Anonymous
May 04, 2006
Yes, John Kirks' comment was very good. In order to know how to find what version and service pack of an Office program you are using, you have to ... know what version of Office you are using.
I suppose the phone conversation would go something like this:
"Is there a little question mark on the right side of the toolbar? If yes, click it; if no, is there a menu with a Help entry?"
The loss of Help/About does make the new Office a departure from the rest of the world of Windows programs. - Anonymous
May 04, 2006
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
May 04, 2006
I also agree that the About dialog should be accessed from "Help". I'm not sure what comes up onto the screen when a user clicks the ? button, but could there not simply be a hyperlink that appears somewhere on the screen that says: "About Microsoft Office Word 2007" which opens the same dialog that opens from the Options dialog? That way everyone's happy. - Anonymous
May 04, 2006
In addition to James comment:
I think it's one of the biggest usability issues to figure out, if an option of the Options-Dialog is for the current document or for the whole Word Application. Sometimes I even record the option change into a vba macro kind to see what objects are really affected!
And there are other things, where you have to guess what happens:
1. When changing the printer in the print dialog of Word it's only for this Word session (unsaved) and only for Word.
2. When you change properties of the printer from Word's printer dialog, it's only for the current document, isn't it?
Pleeaase improve these issues so that the user knows what he's doing and must not guess what happens!!!!
For the Version Information, please consider to put "About" additionally in the "Home"-Tab and into Help after clicking on "?". - Anonymous
May 05, 2006
Adam took the words out of my mouth. Tabbed dialogs work!
If you a) separate document-specific* and application-wide settings into 2 dialogs and b) take advantage of larger screens, you probably could reduce the three-row monster into one row of tabs.
*It would also make sense to integrate the File-->Properties dialog with the document-specific settings currently strewn throughout Tools->Options.
As Help->About: one less menu is good. - Anonymous
May 05, 2006
What part of "About"? is an Option? - Anonymous
May 06, 2006
I too think this is a mistake
What happens when you right click on "?"
Couldn't that provide "About"? - Anonymous
May 08, 2006
Why does the help icon have to be just a button, it could be a popup menu.
If we can add groups to the QAT, why not make help one too?
That way Help|About would still work without making any changes to the UI. - Anonymous
May 20, 2006
I personaly would put "About" at the bottom of the File menu where "Word Options" and "Exit" are. That's far more discoverable imo, no matter what the legacy reasons are.
If you are considering conversations:
"Do you have a ? icon?"
"No"
"Click Help->About"
"Do you have a ? icon"
"Yes"
"Right click, click About"
vs my suggestion
"Click File. Is there "About" at the bottom?"
"No"
"Click Help->About"
"Click File. Is there "About" at the bottom?"
"Click on it"
So it's the same process for both. However, how many people are going to right click the ? and find this out for themselves? And how many people are going to notice it at the bottom? Alot more. It also, imo, has better legacy as you are still keeping it in the drop-down menu. Office has always set the trend in UI, but alot of applications won't impliment the help (mainly because alot of them don't have it). By simply moving it from Help to File they can still easily include it in a way that is similar to office. So no longer do you have custom solutions, you only have 2. - Anonymous
May 27, 2006
there is no file menu - Anonymous
October 27, 2008
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