Ribbon vs Windows 95 Interface
リボン / Windows 95 インターフェース
Both sit in Microsoft UI, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. One is layout and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Ribbon
A command bar that organises a program's features into a series of tabs at the top of a window, replacing both the menu bar and the toolbars. Microsoft introduced it with Office 2007 and named its parts in the Windows guidelines: core tabs, groups, contextual tabs, galleries, the Application button and the Quick Access Toolbar. Every command carries a label, and its size follows how often it is used.
Windows 95 Interface
The screen language Microsoft set down in its 1995 handbook for software design. Gray panels are carved with a doubled outer and inner edge, so the direction of the shadow alone says what can be pressed. A bar sits permanently along the bottom, and every application is assembled from the same system parts.
| Ribbon | Windows 95 Interface | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 2007– | 1995–2001 |
| Family | Microsoft UI | Microsoft UI |
| Kind | Layout | Style |
| Cues | A tabbed band sits permanently at the top of the window, fixed at 48 pixels high / The band is cut into labelled groups, with each group name running along its lower edge / Command icons come in two sizes, 32 by 32 and 16 by 16, and the frequent ones take the large size and lead the group / Coloured contextual tabs appear when an object type is selected, and their tab set labels end in Tools | Gray panels framed by a doubled edge, one light line and one dark line, outside and inside / A bar pinned to the bottom of the screen with a single square button at its left end / A flat navy title bar with three small squares grouped at its right end / Small bitmap text with no antialiasing, one letter underlined to mark the keyboard shortcut |
| Best used for | Consolidating menus and toolbars into a single surface for a business application with dozens of commands · Designing a surface where users pick by seeing the result first, through galleries and live preview | Laying out a list or settings screen for business software at a fixed pixel size that never has to scale · Rebuilding the look of a 1990s personal computer for an exhibition or a video |
| Type | Label every command. Icons stand alone only where the commands are ones everybody already knows. | Set a bitmap sans at its native size with antialiasing off. Use one size, reserve bold for emphasis, and underline the single shortcut letter. |
| Composition | Fix the band to the top and keep core tabs to seven or fewer. Make the first tab Home and gather the frequent commands there, then cut the band into labelled groups. | Split the screen into a permanent bottom bar and a work area. Pack controls about four pixels apart, and put confirm and cancel in a row at the lower right of a dialog. |
| Material | Draw each icon at both 32 by 32 and 16 by 16, giving the large size to the frequent commands. Size in ribbon gallery thumbnails to fit inside the 48 pixel band. | Carve everything from four values: the gray face, a white highlight, a mid gray shadow, a black outline. Build relief from an outer and an inner line, and swap light for dark on press. |
| Caution | Merely refactoring existing menus and toolbars into the band costs the extra space without gaining the results oriented commands that justify it. | Copy the gray and the doubled line but add rounded corners or soft shadows, and the direction of the carving stops reading, taking the hardness that defined the original with it. |