#55: Quick access to fave notes
Ewan Dalton
I help Microsoft Partners with strategy, GTM, roadmap & sales alignment | ex-MSFT | IAMCP UK board
A few themes have re-appeared on Tip of the Week over the years … saving time by using keyboard shortcuts, finding useful but somewhat hidden bits of Windows or Office apps, etc. One of the most prominent seams to mine, however, has been an undying 💖 for Onay-no-tay.
The UX Paradox of Office Apps
Usability research into Office applications once found that 87%* of the new features users asked for, were already in the product – they just didn’t know how to find them. As more and more features were added to apps – Excel particularly, it seems – end-users just didn’t know how to “discover” them. By Office 2000, dynamic “intelli-menus” basically hid options which were more obscure or which an individual just didn’t use, and while it made things look simpler and less cluttered, it made the problem worse.
A wholescale UX rethink in Office begat the “Ribbon”, which is now pervasive in other apps; if you’re interested in such things, check out Jensen Harris’ 2008 presentation on what led to the Ribbon being conceived. The talk offers a great historical perspective but also goes over the thought processes on how these things come about.
* statistic is made up but the story holds true. Who cares if facts and figures are correct as long as the lies are well presented? How do you think Excel charts and PowerBI got so successful?
Not Just Another Toolbar
Even with the Ribbon to make things more ordered, sometimes it’s good to be able to jump straight to a feature you use commonly; the customizable Quick Access Toolbar on the top left of many apps gives you the ability to pin certain commands, and can be an invaluable way of getting to functions you like without delving into Ribbon tabs and menus.
Click the down-arrow to the right of the toolbar and you can pick from a set of suggested functions, or by customizing it, you can delve into any part of the extensive menus and pin just that one feature there. There are commands which are not even on the Ribbon, but you could pin them to the QAT if you like them…
The QAT is present in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook (classic) – but not New Outlook, to some users’ chagrin. It’s not uncommon to find a similar UI feature in 3rd party apps from the mid-2010s.
OneNote Favo(u)rites (again)
New Testament Tip of the Week #39 covered saving Favourites in OneNote: #39: OneNote Shortcuts, Favourites and Pins. Despite some of the guff being taken up with browser and mobile favourites, the good stuff in that tip was in (once again) recommending OneTastic.
As well as providing an extensive macro capability, the OneTastic addin lets you pin a page or section to “Favorites”, and you can later go back to the same menu used to manage the pining, in order to access your previously pinned pages.
For extra goodness, try customizing the QAT and looking for Pin to Favorites…
Select it, click Add >> and hit OK. Now you’ll be able to access the drop-down for Favorites right there from the top left corner…
As someone who likes their screen real estate left to the content thank you very much, the QAT was a genuine leap forward and made life a lot easier for those spending a significant proportion of their day in Excel.