alt Hacker NewsIDK though - this is how Office ended up with its ribbon. They realised Paste was the most common action so they gave it a big button right at the left side, and then cut and copy got smaller buttons next to it. And similarly they reordered all the buttons according to frequency of action.
Result? When you have an intent in mind, it's hard to find the right button! In office 2003, you could click on the "insert" menu and every item there was something that would go into your document. If you're thinking "I want to add a picture" you can click on "insert" and scan through for picture-related items. (Blender does this too). In the 2007 ribbon model it would - well that one would probably be on the default visible ribbon because it's a frequent action - but what if you want to insert a table of contents? Who knows where that button is.
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:-)) Yes, Microsoft Office is actually a perfect example for how not to do it and why:
What they do wrong is, how they partition the "state space" in the first place. They employ utterly absurd abstractions that fly in the face of rational usage. Then that "ribbon" nonsense observes the user stumbling though that mess and changes the arrangement on the fly, maximizing the confusion.
In other words, they have never conceptualized what it is their users actually want to do and why. Now they're "stuck" with "what users are habituated to" and each "optimization" makes things even more worse in other places.
To get a "fluid" interface right, you need to know that it makes sense only when there are distinct use cases. You then have to detect (or perhaps better: let the user decide) what use case you're in and shape the interface according to that. Making the user chase buttons certainly isn't the right way.
In hindsight, the horrible ribbon was really the first big sign that our industry had completely lost the plot with UI design.