Then why they made vimperator-like controls for the ribbon? Press Alt to display the tags, then enter the corresponding tag. Works in Windows Explorer too.
It's a pretty useful feature, clearly aimed at power users. It makes the ribbon both discoverable and productive, in contrast to most other controls, which are typically either or.
They also clearly made large steps towards keyboard-only controls. In Windows 8 and contemporary Office versions, they bound most settings (previously only accessible through GUI) to PowerShell objects. In modern Windows/Office builds, you can control practically everything from the console or keyboard, or script it - something that was traditionally missing in the Windows ecosystem.
And of course they vastly expanded the PowerToys. I just don't see them ignoring power users - they made great improvements for the advanced Windows and Office usage.
The ribbon keyboard navigation is significantly slower to use though than the classic menus, because you need to release the Alt key first, and also many sequences are longer. With the classic menus, many commands were like Alt+B+C where you could press those keys almost simultaneously like a chord, in a fraction of a second. The new keyboard shortcuts always feel clumsy and awkward to press in contrast, and they don’t build muscle memory well for that reason.
You don't need to release the Alt key. Not sure I understand any other points either, as "clumsy and awkward" sounds really opinionated. Ribbon tags are just ordinary vi-style modal shortcuts that were proven to work well before Microsoft even existed - you memorize mnemonics/syllables, and utilize your touch typing skill with them. Unlike Win32-style menu navigation shortcuts, they're mostly on the home row, and/or represent a mnemonic.
For the speed, you should really use the traditional non-modal shortcuts (which never went away), not Win32 menu navigation. However this question is discussed to death in vim vs emacs debates - the minuscule speed difference is irrelevant for one-time actions, what matters is the cognitive load and muscle memory.
The valid use case for non-modal shortcuts (as opposed to combinations) is manually repeating the same command multiple times over and over, but in text editors this is the strong anti-pattern, and in Word you can use F4 for that, which is much more convenient and can be done just by holding the key.
You do need to release the Alt key because the old menu access keys still work (invisibly), and are activated otherwise if you don’t release the Alt key. I think part of the subjective clumsiness is because the ribbon has higher latency than the classic menu had. This is a general problem with newer UI elements in Office. They sometimes have a latency such that they don’t register key presses if you press them to quickly. This means that you have to consciously have to insert a small delay between key presses, or have to wait for visual feedback before pressing the next key. This is something that wasn’t an issue 20 years ago.
> You do need to release the Alt key because the old menu access keys still work (invisibly), and are activated otherwise if you don’t release the Alt key.
This is a backwards compatibility feature overriden by Ribbon keys, isn't it? When you hit Alt+I (Insert menu in Word 2003) you get a specific pop-up warning about that (in Word 2019 you do), and can use the invisible old menu relying on the old muscle memory. But when you use an existing Ribbon combination, it takes precedence. For example, hitting Alt+W without releasing Alt calls the View tab on the ribbon instead of the old Window menu, so you don't issue two different commands.
The reason tags feel like having higher latency is because the tag appears either on release or after ~500ms of holding. But there's no input delay, it's purely visual. If you memorized it, you just touch type the combination at any speed.
Classic Win32 and Office menus are prone to actual input delays, though, if implemented incorrectly (e.g. starting slow operations on opening the menu).
It's a pretty useful feature, clearly aimed at power users. It makes the ribbon both discoverable and productive, in contrast to most other controls, which are typically either or.
They also clearly made large steps towards keyboard-only controls. In Windows 8 and contemporary Office versions, they bound most settings (previously only accessible through GUI) to PowerShell objects. In modern Windows/Office builds, you can control practically everything from the console or keyboard, or script it - something that was traditionally missing in the Windows ecosystem.
And of course they vastly expanded the PowerToys. I just don't see them ignoring power users - they made great improvements for the advanced Windows and Office usage.