mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
After 20 years of design experience, you’d figure Bill Gates and his pals in Redmond would be able to create intuitive icons for their products. But many of the Microsoft Office 2007 icons are confusing, even for those of us who use Windows on a regular basis! Test your Icon IQ with our Office quiz, and be sure to report your results (and suggestions for the MS folks, sans four-letter words) in the comments below. Good luck!
Hooray!!!
Score: 100% (12 out of 12)
posted by John on 7-9-2008 at 10:37 am
I only knew 3 of them for sure, and got bored guessing the rest…I obviously am a Windows moron, but that’s ok…
posted by donner on 7-9-2008 at 11:18 am
75%
Bummer, the Info Path, Groove, Front Page trio through me off. Argh!
posted by michael on 7-9-2008 at 12:16 pm
50% Knew 5 and I got lucky with one other guess.
They’ve changed Publisher enormously. My version looks basically like Word but with a P instead of a W.
Those icons really are atrocious. It’s like they just randomly assigned a bunch of generic symbols.
recaptcha: produce cherryola??
posted by Nerak on 7-9-2008 at 1:07 pm
58%
but then, I only use a Word, Publisher, Outlook, and Excel, and only at work….otherwise I use a Mac. So really, not that bad :-)
posted by Kolja on 7-9-2008 at 1:35 pm
10/12. Got FrontPage and Groove mixed up. It helps that I actually use some of the more obscure ones (like Visio), but a lot were guesses. The icons are pretty, but completely meaningless.
posted by kate on 7-9-2008 at 2:27 pm
You can hate on Microsoft all you want but they have developed strong set of tools for what ever you need to do which no one still has come close to matching (even OpenOffice).
Only got two wrong, Groove and Front page.
posted by Kinglink on 7-9-2008 at 3:02 pm
I got 4 out of 12, but I guess two. Taht is pretty pathetic. Mind you, I’m a linux user and haven’t been using Windoze at all for the past 9 years.
posted by Jacques on 7-9-2008 at 3:53 pm
The tools work pretty well, but the icons are not recognizable, and I’ve been using the Office Suite for over a decade now.
posted by Reithe on 7-9-2008 at 6:56 pm
Now, identify the name of the equivalent open source product that takes half the disk space and loads in one quarter the time :)
posted by Kevin on 7-9-2008 at 7:49 pm
The reason many people missed FrontPage 2007 is that it doesn’t exist. MS discontinued it prior to the 2007 release. Type “what happened to FrontPage” in your search engine.
posted by Pooks on 7-9-2008 at 9:56 pm