Feature
What should have been a minor update ended up being indicative of a broader trend in digital workplace tools.
Microsoft changed the default font used by Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint in late February. Jesse Kwok, product manager of the PowerPoint team, first flagged the demotion of Calibri in July 2023. He wrote, "We’ve refreshed the Office theme with a new default font, color palette, style, and line weights that help you make your documents more modern and accessible."
An entry on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap last December confirmed that the new font — Aptos — had entered general availability.
Microsoft made the change based in part on input from the Insider community rather than the wider user community, which was reflected in some of the negative feed-back that appeared soon after the change.
While a new font is a very small change, for Office users it pointed to a wider problem with Microsoft 365 and its tools, notably the constant and difficult to keep on top of updates to these workplace apps, including the default app for document creation, Word.
Microsoft — and Word's — Deep Roots
It is almost unthinkable at this stage of workplace development to imagine a world without Microsoft Word. There are, of course, alternatives, but with Microsoft 365 so deeply embedded in the enterprise, to completely remove its presence from work life is difficult, if not impossible.
To put it in perspective, Statista reports that during the fourth quarter of 2023, Teams was the most popular mobile application published by Microsoft with close to 27.31 million downloads from global users. Microsoft Authenticator was ranked second with 23.6 million downloads onto mobile devices worldwide while Microsoft Word followed with 17 million downloads in the same time frame.
Elsewhere, Statista noted in late January that Microsoft 365, with Word, was being used by over a million companies worldwide, with over one million users in the United States alone using the office suite software.
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Layering Complexity on Top of Basic Functionality
Word was initially designed as a straightforward document creation tool, but has evolved into a platform offering a wide range of advanced functionalities. The evolution reflects Microsoft's attempt to meet diverse user needs across industries and professional roles.
Let's be clear: the basics of Microsoft Word are easy to learn. But the advanced features will elude most self-learners. Without instruction, many people never realize all of the capabilities of the humble doc which is Microsoft Word and struggle to use it.
Where does this leave users when bigger, major changes are introduced and what can they do?
Without a doubt, Microsoft Word has become a comprehensive tool over the years, Attract Group CEO Vladimir Terekhov told Reworked. While the core functionality remains user-friendly, the advanced features can be overwhelming for the average user. All of the updates and new features, while intended to improve productivity, can add to complexity, he continued.
The contradiction arises when the tool's complexity hinders the productivity it aims to enhance. “If users spend more time learning the tool than actually using it, there's a clear issue,” he said.
While the complexity also allows for a high degree of customization and functionality for power users, Terekhov was quick to ask how many people could be considered power users?
Word is deeply ingrained in many business processes, so while it would be possible to work without, it would be a challenging transition, he continued. Alternatives would need to offer similar functionality with improved usability.
From a Document to a Swiss Army Knife
The challenge lies in balancing simplicity with complexity, said Jeff Mains of Champion Leadership Group. For everyday users, the essence of Word as a tool for creating documents remains paramount. The continuous introduction of new features, while enhancing productivity, can confuse users who may not require such advanced capabilities for their daily tasks.
The situation, he says, underscores the importance of customizable user experiences, where individuals can tailor the software interface to their specific needs, prioritizing frequently used features and minimizing the visibility of those less relevant.
Yet Mains acknowledges most users would struggle to accomplish this. Targeted training problems that analyze the needs of a given team or organization, and then focus on those needs rather than the wider possibilities present in Word is one way he recommends handling this.
"Whether Microsoft Word has become too complex is not straightforward," he said. "It depends on the user's perspective and needs. For some, the richness of features enhances their workflow, while for others, it introduces unnecessary complexity. The key lies in customization and education, enabling users to adapt the tool to their requirements efficiently.”
Ultimately, despite its humble beginnings as an application for document creation, Word has become something that needs to be tailored to fit needs rather than hoisted onto a workforce that is already struggling with app overload.
“The goal should be to leverage Microsoft Word not as a one-size-fits-all solution, but as a versatile platform that can be customized to fit the varied needs of its users, ensuring that it remains an asset, not a hindrance, to productivity and creativity in the digital workplace," Mains added.
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Word was designed to make document production simpler, but like many software programs, it has grown more sophisticated over time. It may be very complicated to use as a result, which means uses are not taking full advantage of all of its features, said Jan Chapman, co-founder and managing director of MSP Blueshift.
Workers find the constant updates overwhelming, he said, and in the absence of adequate training, many of these functions may go unused — a situation that might be seen as going against the tool's original purpose.
He too recommends organizations provide focused instruction on Word's more complex capabilities, ensuring that staff members are using the program to its full potential. It is also possible, he said, for IT departments to personalize the toolbar and other elements of Word to ensures that so that workers have easier access to the functionalities they need.
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Alternatives to Word
One other alternative is to switch. The market offers a number of alternatives to Word.
The most obvious of these is Google Docs, which comes as part of the Google Workspace suite. With it, users can create and edit text documents in their browsers with no dedicated software required. Multiple users can work at the same time, and every change is saved automatically.
Zoho offers Writer, a fully-featured word processor on the cloud, designed for collaborative work that gives users everything they need to create powerful documents. There is a free edition of this, but businesses will need to look at a paid plan.
Open source alternatives like Apache OpenOffice are also out there. OpenOffice provides word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases among other things. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers.
LibreOffice, another open-source office productivity software suite is free and developed by the Document Foundation. It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.
This is not to say that users will find simplicity in any of the above. No application or software package comes without problems. However, with many workers struggling to keep up with the constant changes in Office, it is worth looking around for something that suits an organization’s needs.