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Title: LibreOffice Says Its UI Is Way Better Than Microsoft Office's

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/03/1951...

darwinmac writes: While many users choose Microsoft Office over LibreOffice
because of its support for the proprietary formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx),
others prefer Office for its "better" ribbon interface. These users often
criticize LibreOffice for having a "clunky" UI instead of the "standard"
ribbon interface you would find in Word, Excel, and other Office apps. Now,
Neowin reports that LibreOffice is fighting back, arguing that its UI is
actually superior because it is customizable, with several modes such as the
classic toolbar interface, an Office-inspired ribbon layout, a sidebar-
focused design, and more. Furthermore, it argues that there is no evidence
that the ribbon offers "superior usability" over other interface modes.
LibreOffice says in a blog post: Incidentally, the characterization of ribbon-
style interfaces as "modern" or "standard," used by several users, is not
based on any objective usability parameter or design principle, but is the
result of Microsoft's dominance in the market and the huge investments made
when the ribbon was introduced in Office 2007 as a new paradigm for
productivity software. The idea that "modern" equals "similar to a ribbon" is
a normalization effect: the Microsoft interface has become a benchmark
because of its ubiquity, not because of its proven advantages in terms of
usability. Added to this is the fact that many users evaluate office software
through the lens of familiarity with Microsoft Office and consider deviation
from it as a problem rather than a design choice. Before this, LibreOffice
had also criticized its competitor OnlyOffice, accusing it of being "fake
open source" because it believes OnlyOffice is working with Microsoft to lock
users into the Office ecosystem by prioritizing the formats mentioned earlier
instead of LibreOffice's own OpenDocument Format (ODF).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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