• Changed type Jaynet ZhangMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Friday, February 15, 2013 9:25 AM

Hi,

We have passed this information to the product group for consideration for a future product or update. We are sorry that at this time we have no other option to change the colors beyond what we has already seen.

Dear,

I do not think continously cut&paste your default answer "We have passed this information to the product group for consideration for a future product or update.." is what we would expect from a professional forum like this. If in large companies I hear Execs opposing to upgrading to office2013 beaucse of the lack of options to change colour schemes apart from three shades of grey and them facing potential OHS complaints from medical staff and/or employees, I would not hesitate one second and escalate this up to the level of Balmer. You cannot continue to ignore these valid remarks provided by (so far) very loyal users.  I think 99.9% of Office use is on corporate /academic / private desktop computers not on a tablet. Quite honostly on my 3 - 26 inch expensive monitors the least I want is a boring eighties style interface that might (I say might) work on a tablet.  In my environment (professionally and privately) I hear nothing but complaints about this dreadful interface (and it's inability  to be changed).  I cannot imagine that "I will de-install and go back to Office 2010" or : " I will not upgrade" is the kind of response you might want from your most valuable existing user base. I think there is a lot at stake for your Office business unit so if I where you I would take these signals extremely serious and not wait even a week to provide additional templates so that you can put your existing hughe Office user base back in their comforrt zone or there might be no further real future for this product. The future of office is still on a desktop, not a a tablet or surface that (at current) nobody buys.

• Edited by StefanWeckx Friday, February 08, 2013 12:07 PM

Hi,

We have passed this information to the product group for consideration for a future product or update. We are sorry that at this time we have no other option to change the colors beyond what we has already

What kind of product testing could have possibly allowed you to come to the conclusion that three unreadable color schemes were a sufficient number of choices? You can choose a wider variety of useless backgrounds but you can't offer a color scheme that makes the entire application more pleasing to use? 

I have pretty good vision and find the ribbon nearly unreadable in white, light gray and dark gray. 2010's blue allowed for more separation between the menu items and the ribbon - now it looks all jumbled together.

Did you guys circumvent product testing AND fire your entire UI and useability engineers?

• Edited by KevinRSmith23 Tuesday, February 12, 2013 9:33 PM typo

Totally agree with all comments.  I just don't understand, and am baffled that new color schemes haven't been added.  I've written to my Microsoft reps and let them have it..  it's plain awful.

You can choose a wider variety of useless backgrounds but you can't offer a color scheme that makes the entire application more pleasing to use? 

On the subject of useless backgrounds, whose idea was it to position "busy" grey on white text over the top of the buttons in the top right corner? A bit of embellishment is fine on an otherwise bland page, but please don't position them in areas where the user needs to easily see what's underneath or around them.

Until these simple usability problems are resolved, I won't be recommending that my organisation uses Office 2013. It seems that volunteering to pilot it for them was a mistake.

I am waiting for the Microsoft response that says:

Hello from Seattle,

The product group has passed information back to you, the people who are using our software, that the future update to correct this obvious oversight will be fully tested and released not later than April 30, 2013.  They also thank you for paying for their multi-million dollar homes all over the Redmond area and assure you that they prefer to continue to have you pay for the result of their very customer focused software so they can continue to afford the increased property tax bills they are now paying.

• Edited by careys Monday, April 15, 2013 11:31 PM

I just finished installing Office 365 and I'm already sorry I did so.  The lack of color schemes is the first disappointment, especially since I have a hard time seeing the very light colors or white colored fonts on dark backgrounds.  Secondly, I believe all the devices have to be set up under the one user account.  Since there is the auto-sync feature for email, this makes sharing among a household of multiple users with at least two devices each not a great feature.  I'm not certain I want to abandon my Office 2010 version entirely as yet. I doubt anyone in the house except me will make the switch to 365. But the use of pre-defined and no-option color sets is a definite down side.

Hear, hear. I like keeping up with MS Office, but I fear my eye-floaters are going to make the new moon-coloured Office suite a painful experience. So I'm sticking with Office 2010 until MS get off their arse and start fixing their design mistakes, including capitalized ribbon tab names.

This is another blunder by Microsoft. What were you thinking. There is almost no contrast and it make looking at your email incredibly difficult especially when you have 2 or 3 additional mailboxes. Microsoft stop trying to be cool and fix this issue ASAP! We are going blind with these color schemes.

FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS

FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS FIX THIS