Zarakon
10-02-2007, 22:56
http://www.appscout.com/2007/02/to_kill_a_paperclip.php
The lights dim. Roll film. The music starts gently at first--it's Boyz II Men's "End of the Road," possibly, or perhaps Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." The film is a montage, candid moments from a life caught on film. Young Clippy is being brought home from the hospital, in a box alongside the other paperclips in his litter. Now there's his first head scratch and his first screen tap. Next it's little Clippy looking sleepy. He's had a long day helping out confused Office users. There's the time he rode the paper airplane away from Outlook. Wasn't that exciting? He's such a brave little Office Assistant. Look, there he is with all of his friends. Doesn't he look happy? There's the Albert Einstein looking guy, and the dog, and the wizard. Is that Will Shakespeare? The last scene is a still photo of Clippy standing proudly on his prized piece of notebook paper. The dates "1997-2007" appear, and then simply, the words "Goodbye Clippy." The place is packed. There's not a dry eye in the house. Tux the Linux penguin and Sonic the Hedgehog are seated in the front row, holding hands, bawling their eyes out.
They didn't show the bad times, of course. The vocal anti-Clippy majority and the advent of Office XP have been omitted. And of course, neither Bill Gates nor the Office 2007 Ribbon had the guts to show their faces here. For what it's worth, Balmer did send a bouquet of orchids, with a note that read, simply, "RIPPY Clippy."
We here at Appscout.com all felt a bit slighted that we didn't get an invite to Clippy's wake. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the message got lost in the mail, and wasn't able to recover from the fatal error. Sure the little guy could get a bit overbearing, when we were trying to pump out stories on deadline, but we'll never forget those late night search sessions that Clippy initiated with glee. And yeah, Office 2007 is cool and all, but will the Ribbon Interface really fill that paperclip-shaped void in our hearts? We sat down with Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris, in order to say goodbye to Clippy, one last time. Eulogy after the jump.
Have a lot of people been asking about the death of Clippy, since the release of Office 2007?
Not so much recently. He's sort of fallen out of disfavor, so this is probably his last gasp.
Sadly, it seems like just about everyone that I've spoken with harbored some dislike for Clippy.
Yeah. Clippy was one of those features that split users in a very passionate way. There were actually a set of people who did like Clippy, and were sad to see him go. Some of those were people who just like having an animated cat or dog on their desktop, and there were people who liked the interface as a way of getting help. There were also an equal number of people who looked at it as interference or an annoyance, and even though it was easy to turn off, represented something of a bad direction in interface design.
It seems as if you've been slowly phasing him out since Office XP.
Yeah, that's true. We started with making him easy to turn off, which started with Office XP. In Office 2003, it's actually off by default, so people don't get it when they actually install Office. They have to actually turn it on, if they want it, and in 2007, it met doom. There's no way to turn it on in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or any of the new UI apps.
Have you received any negative feedback about Clippy's death?
Interestingly, the negative feedback that we've gotten has been much more about the dog than Clippy. I've never had anyone say, "Gosh, I really miss Clippy," but we have had a few people say that they missed the dog, and wanted to know how to get him back. I think there are certain characters that engendered themselves more than others. But again, we're talking a half-dozen requests in the three-million beta testers that we had. I think people are ready to see that pass on, as part of Microsoft BOB, and the past.
So when you were developing Office 2007, there wasn't any thought about incorporating some of these characters in the new UI?
Not really. One of the tenets that we had about the new UI in 2007 was that we only wanted to create one way to get to all features. We didn't want to have menus and toolbars and Clippy as parallel, slightly different ways of getting to the features, so Clippy as a way of helping you decode cryptic menus and toolbars didn't make sense, because we didn't have those cryptic menus and toolbars anymore. Clippy is just a fun character on the desktop, but there are plenty of other ways that you can go get fun characters to run around on the desktop if that's something that you're looking for, and you get the added bonus of getting them to work in other programs. It was an experiment in social user interface, which is to say, can you make the software easier to use, by letting people use natural language to interface with, and would they be more comfortable using the program if they were talking to something that was humanized?
On a more personal level, were you, or anyone else over at Microsoft a little saddened to see Clippy die?
Well, of course. He's cute, and he was emblematic of a phase of Offices past, which was very successful. The Office Assistant was introduced in Office 97, which is the biggest and most successful version that we built of Office, up until Office 2007. They were both important milestones--highlight of the decade releases. From that perspective, it marks the end of a decade of having Clippy around. Although I think that social user interface wasn't ready for the mainstream yet, you have to appreciate the risk that was taken, in attempting to introduce it into the mainstream.
*Plays taps*
The lights dim. Roll film. The music starts gently at first--it's Boyz II Men's "End of the Road," possibly, or perhaps Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." The film is a montage, candid moments from a life caught on film. Young Clippy is being brought home from the hospital, in a box alongside the other paperclips in his litter. Now there's his first head scratch and his first screen tap. Next it's little Clippy looking sleepy. He's had a long day helping out confused Office users. There's the time he rode the paper airplane away from Outlook. Wasn't that exciting? He's such a brave little Office Assistant. Look, there he is with all of his friends. Doesn't he look happy? There's the Albert Einstein looking guy, and the dog, and the wizard. Is that Will Shakespeare? The last scene is a still photo of Clippy standing proudly on his prized piece of notebook paper. The dates "1997-2007" appear, and then simply, the words "Goodbye Clippy." The place is packed. There's not a dry eye in the house. Tux the Linux penguin and Sonic the Hedgehog are seated in the front row, holding hands, bawling their eyes out.
They didn't show the bad times, of course. The vocal anti-Clippy majority and the advent of Office XP have been omitted. And of course, neither Bill Gates nor the Office 2007 Ribbon had the guts to show their faces here. For what it's worth, Balmer did send a bouquet of orchids, with a note that read, simply, "RIPPY Clippy."
We here at Appscout.com all felt a bit slighted that we didn't get an invite to Clippy's wake. A Microsoft spokesperson said that the message got lost in the mail, and wasn't able to recover from the fatal error. Sure the little guy could get a bit overbearing, when we were trying to pump out stories on deadline, but we'll never forget those late night search sessions that Clippy initiated with glee. And yeah, Office 2007 is cool and all, but will the Ribbon Interface really fill that paperclip-shaped void in our hearts? We sat down with Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris, in order to say goodbye to Clippy, one last time. Eulogy after the jump.
Have a lot of people been asking about the death of Clippy, since the release of Office 2007?
Not so much recently. He's sort of fallen out of disfavor, so this is probably his last gasp.
Sadly, it seems like just about everyone that I've spoken with harbored some dislike for Clippy.
Yeah. Clippy was one of those features that split users in a very passionate way. There were actually a set of people who did like Clippy, and were sad to see him go. Some of those were people who just like having an animated cat or dog on their desktop, and there were people who liked the interface as a way of getting help. There were also an equal number of people who looked at it as interference or an annoyance, and even though it was easy to turn off, represented something of a bad direction in interface design.
It seems as if you've been slowly phasing him out since Office XP.
Yeah, that's true. We started with making him easy to turn off, which started with Office XP. In Office 2003, it's actually off by default, so people don't get it when they actually install Office. They have to actually turn it on, if they want it, and in 2007, it met doom. There's no way to turn it on in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or any of the new UI apps.
Have you received any negative feedback about Clippy's death?
Interestingly, the negative feedback that we've gotten has been much more about the dog than Clippy. I've never had anyone say, "Gosh, I really miss Clippy," but we have had a few people say that they missed the dog, and wanted to know how to get him back. I think there are certain characters that engendered themselves more than others. But again, we're talking a half-dozen requests in the three-million beta testers that we had. I think people are ready to see that pass on, as part of Microsoft BOB, and the past.
So when you were developing Office 2007, there wasn't any thought about incorporating some of these characters in the new UI?
Not really. One of the tenets that we had about the new UI in 2007 was that we only wanted to create one way to get to all features. We didn't want to have menus and toolbars and Clippy as parallel, slightly different ways of getting to the features, so Clippy as a way of helping you decode cryptic menus and toolbars didn't make sense, because we didn't have those cryptic menus and toolbars anymore. Clippy is just a fun character on the desktop, but there are plenty of other ways that you can go get fun characters to run around on the desktop if that's something that you're looking for, and you get the added bonus of getting them to work in other programs. It was an experiment in social user interface, which is to say, can you make the software easier to use, by letting people use natural language to interface with, and would they be more comfortable using the program if they were talking to something that was humanized?
On a more personal level, were you, or anyone else over at Microsoft a little saddened to see Clippy die?
Well, of course. He's cute, and he was emblematic of a phase of Offices past, which was very successful. The Office Assistant was introduced in Office 97, which is the biggest and most successful version that we built of Office, up until Office 2007. They were both important milestones--highlight of the decade releases. From that perspective, it marks the end of a decade of having Clippy around. Although I think that social user interface wasn't ready for the mainstream yet, you have to appreciate the risk that was taken, in attempting to introduce it into the mainstream.
*Plays taps*