I don't know if they're arrogant to consider themselves the main customer base, but I don't think it's an unfair assumption, either.

Kagi was almost advertised to me as what Google used to be. Again, I don't know if that's ever how Kagi put it themselves, but that's the impression that was given.

> Whilst I may not represent the average person, I have no need to check bank statements or manage insurance immediately

I think a lot of people check to make sure how much money they have before they make some purchases, especially big ones. Or, they check with this card declined (might need to move some money from one account to another or use a different card).

I teach high school and see students doing this all the time when buying food for lunch. I can't imagine it's any less prevalent amongst adults of a certain generation.

I certainly need to know how much money I have at any given time when I'm shopping. Seems fairly privileged (not in a bad way) to not need to think about that.

If moaning were DLC, they'd get a monthly subscription.

Put another way: do you truly see insulting people's sense of agency with cutesy misspellings of other people's names as an effective way to making the world a better place?

Your messages read like the ravings of those who think putting a dollar sign in Micro$oft was really sticking it to the man. Nothing short of an irritating, rumbling, moaning noise.

For me who always uses a Magic Trackpad, doing gestures is the equivalent to holding down that wee button. So I think we see eye on eye on this.

It's the people who can't imagine that you'd ever have your hands away from the keyboard, so everything that could reasonably be done with a keyboard can and must be done with a keyboard, who get up my back.

See also: Linux users who insist all you need is a terminal and vim. Exact same thing.

> Definitely not

Sounds like a you problem.

> easier.

> It's harder [...]

Sounds like a you problem.

> [...] because you have to memorise more gestures and perform more complicated ones.

Oh no, how will I ever remember (checks notes) swiping. On a Trackpad!? Insane.

> More spatially natural

> That makes no sense.

I swipe left, window goes left. I swipe right, window goes right. I swipe up, window goes up. I swipe down, windows goes down.

It's as close to actually flicking the windows around the space provided without getting a touch screen.

> and only uses one hand

We agree.

> unless, of course, your other hand is always near a corner

Corner of what?

> you don't need to type to have your left hand rest [...]

Big assumption that I'm left-handed. The modifiers on the right-hand side of some keyboards, including on notebooks, are seriously iffy.

> [...] rest near the left near corner of the keyboard

If my other arm isn't anywhere close to the computer, then it's nowhere near the keyboard, let alone the corner.

> you've just moved your RSI to your right hand

How often am I swiping windows? Barely.

Are you also saying any use of the trackpad or mouse, no matter how little, is automatically RSI?

Whereas having your fingers nearly-permanently at the ready over (or near the corner of) the keyboard is A-OK?

> Also hands have the same length, so leaning back doesn't prevent leaving one finger on a modifier

Back to the RSI angle because my hands are not glued to the keyboard. The way you seem to think so tells me you only sit at a desktop when using a computer, you never slouch, you never slump, you never use a notebook computer.

> it's just that none of your arguments support it.

Or your imagination cannot allow it.

My left hand is not always on my keyboard. I'm not always typing. I'm not modelling 100% of my computer usage after "how to get RSI the fastest"; sometimes, I allow myself to lean back in my chair and just scroll the web, documents, photos etc. from time to time.

My favourite solution on macOS is an app called Swish which lets you do trackpad/Magic Mouse gestures to throw windows into corners, along edges, etc.

It'll be a skill they can use for any unsigned app and you can have cute screenshots. The Terminal command, on the other hand, is a huge barrier to entry.

The author doesn't discuss users' existing familiarity with Office 2003 and they only mention the word 'training' once, that "software design to interact with technology should require the least amount of training as possible" whilst never acknowledging that training in, and even qualifications in, the use of the Office suite was very much a thing in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Even then, the most problems were had in Excel. Advanced usage of Excel is done by technical people who would have had some training. Word and PowerPoint weren't shown to have significant difference in usability; arguably, Word is the program most people forced to use the Office suite spend their time in.

Never mind the ways by which the Ribbon and computers have changed since Office 2007. Options moved around, the Ribbon height reduced, screens having gotten wider to compress fewer options into submenus…

The author states at the end of their conclusion:

> In order to determine if the result of the study with respect to the Excel 2007 application persists and are not due to the learning curve the experiment can be repeated with users having at least three years using this version.

Do you know if the author or anybody else followed up?

It would be more interesting to see a comparison between Office 365 now that the interface has effectively become the de facto standard (same as Windows, macOS, mobile, tablet, and the web version) and Google Sheets (which retains the menus, toolbar, etc.).

I'm no lover of the Ribbon myself but I feel like there's better evidence for it not being the ideal interface than this which wouldn't have convinced me even at the time.

This isn't the proof that'll bring down the titan.

LibreOffice has a Ribbon interface option, too.

Also, this article only applies to the US.