Pulling together a list of my favorite Vista apps, I've run into a problem. The piece of software I keep coming back to isn't sexy and doesn't perform any extraordinary technical functions. It's often unheralded and frequently slammed. Yet its user interface is beautifully designed and it's a pleasure to use. If you haven't guessed already, I'm talking about Microsoft Word 2007.

I know, you're thinking that Word is expensive and OpenOffice.org is, well, free. Hey, I'm not saying OpenOffice isn't a great product, especially if you're on a zero-dollar budget. Quite frankly, though, Word 2007 isn't all that expensive if you look around for a good deal. A retail upgrade is less than $100. And, you get a lot of bang for your buck.

As is well known, the sea changes in Word 2007, as compared with prior versions, are The Ribbon and the Office Button. (Not the Seinfeld ribbon.) Those two features are hallmarks of Word's completely revamped -- and, to my mind, greatly improved -- user interface.

Unfortunately, it's this change for the better that seems to be the big stumbling block for users upgrading from Word 2003. People frequently say to me: "I'm having trouble adjusting to Word's new look and feel." (They really say, "Um, like, you know, I don't, like, know how to use it.") I always tell them the same thing: "Use it for a week, you'll come up the learning curve very quickly. And then you'll love it."

The point here is that Microsoft made a bold move in jettisoning the legacy Word interface and going with a streamlined design. This kind of thinking should be encouraged, not resisted, and the way to do that is to give the app a fair test drive.

A couple of quick caveats: Word 2007 isn't strictly a Vista application. It works just fine under Windows XP, which is how I'm using it now as I type up this post at work. However, the design and release of Office 2007 (of which Word is a key component) were keyed to the launch of Vista in January, 2007. Marketing-wise, Microsoft probably wanted the two to go hand-in-hand, so customers would see Office 2007 as a reason to upgrade to Vista. (Notwithstanding that you don't need to upgrade your operating system to use it. This type of linkage is common marketing practice, though. Remember those execrable adds in the 1990s, when AOL suggested that you needed to be subscriber to gain access to free sites like WebMD?)

Also, I'm a big fan of the entire Office 2007 suite, which adds revamped versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook alongside Word. I use Excel occasionally and like the new version. However, I practically live in Word, and the great user experience I've had for the past year is what's prompting me to write this post.

So what's your experience? Have I failed you as a blogger because I've written something nice about a Microsoft product? Or, like me, do you see the value in hailing a great design from a company that's often been criticized when it delivers an end-user experience that isn't up to snuff?

Resources

What to learn more? The best book I've found on this app is Word 2007: The Missing Manual.

Here's a great O'Reilly screencast, which explains Office's Ribbon.

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