Has Microsoft noticed the UI inconsistency between Excel and Power BI?
Get Data and Get data are two prominent UI buttons found on Excel’s Data tab and Power BI’s Home tab, respectively.
Both have the same icon, and both serve the same purpose — to import data.
One has a big ‘D’, while the other has a small ‘d’.
What might seem like a trivial matter to many of you actually raises some important questions about UI design and decision-making at Microsoft.
I seldom use Power BI; however, after opening it up the other day, it soon occurred to me that something was different in the ribbon.
I realised the whole interface is based on sentence case — not title case as with Excel and virtually every other Microsoft program I know.
Let’s remind ourselves of the difference between the two:
- Sentence case: only the first word of the sentence and any proper nouns are capitalised. E.g. This is sentence case and that is what Power BI uses.
- Title case: the first and last words are capitalised, as well as all major words. Most articles, conjunctions, and prepositions are typically not. E.g. This Is Title Case and That Is What Excel Uses.
Style guides vary slightly, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole.
The inconsistency is obvious when you compare instances of two or more words in the ribbon tabs, buttons, Backstage menu, and other places.
Familiar buttons — not only in Excel — but across the Microsoft 365 suite are different in Power BI. For example, Format Painter is Format painter, Text Box is Text box, and Save As is Save as.
There are also several identical icons with differing labels. Why does a question mark in a circle represent Support in Power BI, but Help everywhere else? And notice that subtle difference with the text box buttons?
Was this a UI accident?
It appears not.
The change occurred about four years ago. Power BI Docs posted about how to switch to the then-new ribbon format by enabling it in the options menu.
At the top of that page, the included image displays the old and new ribbons together, with the latter showing significant changes compared to its predecessor.
Conclusion
Why I’ve never noticed this difference before — I don’t know. Perhaps I’m more receptive to this kind of thing than yesteryear, given the considerations I have to make in my line of work.
Uniformity is one of the hallmarks of good UI practice. Yet, for some reason, Power BI is the rebel that defies Microsoft trends, while Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote operate on a different wavelength.
It almost seems like Power BI has been treated as a guinea pig, but it’s not clear why these inconsistencies have existed for so long.
Did the person overseeing UI design at Microsoft really ratify this?
