This post is inspired by my recent attempts to educate mum and dad in the use of the various tools with which we access the Internet. My folks are very non-technical. Dad knows how to launch iTunes (and I managed to teach him how to rip a CD, which was a monumental achievement), and mum knows how to poke around in Picasa to view her photos.

Microsoft, as I've mentioned earlier, are starting to shy away from the classic "main menu" user interface. I've used five of their recently-released products that have done away with the main menu:

The problem is, only two of these five have replaced the main menu with anything usable:

  • Office 2007 introduced the ribbon, which puts every single available command right in your face.
  • Internet Explorer 7 moved most (all?) of the commands you need to dropdown menus underneath a few toolbar buttons (Page, Tools and Help), as well as introducing the "Favorites Center" to manage all your bookmarks.

The other three applications have surfaced only a tiny subset of the available commands to the toolbar, and relegated the rest of them to a "hidden" main menu, which you access either by hitting "Alt" or by finding an obscurely-placed "menu button" somewhere on the window. In the case of Windows Live Messenger this button is in the non-client area of the window, making it even more difficult to find.

So now if you want to change the options for your program, you have to locate this button, drop down the resulting menu, and select "Tools|Options". It may only be one more click, but the fact that the entire menu hierarchy is hidden under this button means that Joe User simply isn't going to find it.

When I installed Windows Live Messenger on mum and dad's PC, I immediately opened the options and turned off some of the more annoying default settings. For example, the "Open Windows  Live Messenger main window when Windows Live Messenger starts" and "Show Windows Live Today after signing in to Messenger". There is zero percent chance that my mum and dad would have discovered how to do this on their own.

Windows Live Mail Desktop is no better. Want to change how often it checks for new mail? Good luck. Again, you have to first locate the button to show the main menu (or know that the Alt key does the same, except don't hold the Alt key down - you have to tap it), then click "Tools|Options". For mum and dad, the options dialog here also has a zero percent chance of being discovered.

Obviously these new user interfaces are targetted at two types of users: Power-users like me who know where to look for the extra commands, and end-users who are happy with the defaults. I would guess that these two groups account for half of all computer users. That's not a good hit ratio if you're trying to make easy-to-use software.

I applaud MS for trying to innovate in the UI space. I don't mind them dropping the main menus from their applications. But for the love of god, don't bury 90% of the available commands under some hidden button! Give us easily-discoverable options! Your users will thank you for it.