Microsoft Office 12
When I first saw screenshots of Office 12, I thought “Wow, they’ve really thought about it this time.” Recently, I discovered this blog, and this transcript of a talk by the blog author (some important Office 12 UI guy).
Now I’m sure Office 12 is going to be impressive. I just hope they haven’t done quite so well with Vista, because although I’m (mostly) certain KDE 4 will be well researched, designed and implemented, I think it’s hard competing against the amount of money companies like MS and Apple can afford to put into design.
The blog is good. The author is obviously experienced and has led the UI development well. The entries are well written and very interesting! As someone interested predominantly in UI-design, I gained a lot of insight. I was a little thrilled to see ideas in there I’d been thinking on myself, which is also annoying as now people will just assume I copied if I ever implement any of them. And for sure KDE 4 should involve as many new widget-ideas and usage-concepts as possible IMHO.