# Ribbon (リボン)

> 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.

- IndexStyle No.537 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/ribbon-ui
- Kind: Layout · Family: Microsoft UI · Era: 2007–
- Mood: Trust, Technique
- What this family collects: Twenty years of the Windows surface swinging from added roundness and translucency toward an information first approach built out of type and empty space.

## Defining characteristics

- 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

## 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

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Label every command. Icons stand alone only where the commands are ones everybody already knows.
- Layout & structure: 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.
- Material & texture: 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.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #F5F4F2
- The colour it is remembered by: #D6E4F5
- Text and outlines: #2E5C99

## What to avoid

Merely refactoring existing menus and toolbars into the band costs the extra space without gaining the results oriented commands that justify it.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: A tabbed band sits permanently at the top of the window, fixed at 48 pixels high
- [ ] Visible in the piece: The band is cut into labelled groups, with each group name running along its lower edge
- [ ] Visible in the piece: 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
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Coloured contextual tabs appear when an object type is selected, and their tab set labels end in Tools
- [ ] The layout follows: 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.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Label every command. Icons stand alone only where the commands are ones everybody already knows.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: 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.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #F5F4F2 as ground, #D6E4F5 carrying the style, #2E5C99 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Aero (エアロ)** — The translucent glass UI of Vista and 7: frosted window frames, live thumbnails and GPU-composited depth making 'through glass' the OS's standard vocabulary. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/aero
- **Windows 95 Interface (Windows 95 インターフェース)** — 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. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/windows-95-interface

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=ribbon-ui+aero

## Further study

- why Office 2007 threw out the menu bar
- the difference between contextual tabs and modal tabs
- how key tips beginning with Alt narrow first to a tab and then to a command

## Reference works

- Office 2007-style ribbon with contextual tabs — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ribbon%20Context%20Tab.png

## Source of record

- Microsoft Learn — Windows 7 Ribbons (Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines) — https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/uxguide/cmd-ribbons

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/ribbon-ui
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/ribbon-ui/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)