* Protected view. Lots of people think nothing of downloading and opening files that they find on the Internet–even when they have no idea who created these documents. To protect your computer, Office programs open downloaded files in Protected view, showing a read-only version of the file that can’t do nasty things to your computer. If you trust the source from which you got the file, you’re an easy click away from enabling full-fledged editing.
* Borrow interface metaphors from the physical world. Lean on users’ real-world experience to create intuitive experiences. People will try anything on a touchscreen, for example, that they’d logically try on a physical object or with a mouse-driven cursor. Besides these practical benefits, using an everyday object as an interface metaphor imbues an app with the same associations that folks might have with the real McCoy–a shelf of books, a retro alarm clock, a much-used chessboard, a toy robot.
* Office Web Apps. Microsoft has put its most popular Office programs on the Web–for free. With Internet access and a Windows Live ID, you can work with Web-only versions Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote from just about anywhere. Store your files on SkyDrive, which provides 25 GB of storage space, and work on them whenever and wherever you want. And Office Web Apps makes sharing your files easier than ever before.
About the Author
Nancy Conner has a PhD in English from Brown University and has taught writing, including technical writing, to college students for more than a dozen years. She is currently a freelance copyeditor, specializing in technical books covering topics ranging from the MS Office suite to programming languages to advanced network security.
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