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The Death of Clippy
Journal written by anaesthetica (596507) and posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Feb 10, 2007 09:03 AM
from the annoying-desktop-mascots dept.
from the annoying-desktop-mascots dept.
AppScout interviews Office's Group Program Manager, Jensen Harris on the subject of Office 2007. Harris reveals that Clippy, the bane of all semi-sentient Office users everywhere, is officially dead. The decision apparently revolved not around the passionate hatred for the unfortunate sprite, but simply out of a desire for UI coherency.
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Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://tsfraser.googlepages.com/index.html)
Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I see three classes of Office users and there seems to be a reasonable argument that there should be three seperate classes of Word/Office for these people; the classes are students/home use who want something which they can write a paper or resume on, office workers who want a little more control over their presentation, and professionals who want complete control over their presentation.
It looks like you're trying to post to Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.celardore.net/)
- Trolling
- Being interesting or informative
- Posting something obvious
- Flamebaiting
Drat, there's no help for being funny =(Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the general annoyance of clippy [...]
Funnt thing is, most non-expert users I've interacted with actually _like_ clippy (well, they often change it to another avatar, like the silly little dog, but the point is they like the idea of a "helper").
The help system that sits behind "Clippy" is excellent. It does what its designed to do very well - the problem expert users have is that they're not interested in what it does.
Re:Clippy did its job... Unfortunatly. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://rjmarq.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 02 2003, @07:19PM)
So every time she saves a file, I hear: "*click* *clank* *ker-chunk*"
Yes, she's quite inconsiderate about making noise - all day I hear "AAHAAHHHH! I DON'T KNOW HOW ANYONE GETS ANYTHING DONE AROUND HERE!!" (referring to the amount of email she gets), and similar things. Yeah, thanks for spreading the disruption around, lady.
My boss is no help - well, more correctly, she sympathizes, but she also realizes that we're never going to be able to change this woman's behavior, so the rest of us have to suffer or use headphones and turn the music WAY up to drown out her rantings.
She and Clippy deserve each other.
Re:Clippy's hints were often unrelated to the task (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.fredshome.org/)
While the idea in itself isn't bad, the execution just didn't work. The help offered was either completely off the mark (as above) or apparently targeted at people who had seen a computer for the first time just the week before (a bit like the Windows on-line help - this is how you format a floppy).
I haven't used MS office a lot since I don't use Windows but get exposed to it every now and then and could use a decent interactive assistant since I don't know my way around it very well. OTOH of course it's pretty much the same as any other such piece of software so I can always find what I'm looking for by poking around a bit. But a competent assistant would be a time saver.
It would however be very difficult to do properly.
I guess users are better off without the assistant than with screen space devoted to a useless one.
Don't go, Clippy (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, it's easy to only remember the bad times. But who among us can honestly say we won't miss him? His knowing winks, his cute little antics. His sage, though sometimes random and unrelated, wisdom. I already feel a piece of my heart missing and I fear it will never be clipped back together.
Cue Cinderella's "Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone".
Goodnight sweet prince (Score:5, Funny)
(http://lives.sourceforge.net/)
Re:Goodnight sweet prince (Score:5, Funny)
(http://nystrom.nl/ | Last Journal: Sunday April 03 2005, @02:17PM)
After which we all celebrate by installing *BSD and Linux. Clippy would have wanted it that way.
Re:Goodnight sweet prince (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Goodnight sweet prince (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Goodnight sweet prince (Score:5, Funny)
He will be interred next to his cousin Bob in the solid-gold family crypt.
Vorpal bladework (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/)
The Tragedy of Prince Clippy ... (Score:4, Funny)
Folks tried to tell him not to count on it, but he ignored them, saying "Would Chair-boy lie to me? Never!" When that news broke, so did Clippy. Lots of double-, and triple-shots, and he was occasionally found wandering around "the Campus" with a bottle of Muscatel in a bag, mumbling incoherently, "To C# or not to C#, that
Clippy is NOT dead ... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://trolltalk.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 03, @08:45PM)
"The rumours of my death are somewhat exaggerated."
Clippy is alive and well - he's been ported to linux so that we can hate him too ...
http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/ [sourceforge.net]
Moments from Clippy's life (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.getogg.org/)
Oh, NOW... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consistency or not, it was a huge failure of something in the development process.
I mean, the HATE heaped upon poor Clippy, from the most novice to the most advanced of users, is hard to comprehend. For something to be so wrong for such a wide range of users means it is truly bad. How on Earth did this get past the supposedly rigorous user-testing facility that Microsoft has? Nobody said at some point, "You know, that Clippy thing isn't really helpful. It just gets in the way and is annoying." Nobody? For years?
From the article, after talking about people who liked him: "There were also an equal number of people who looked at it as interference or an annoyance..." Equal? Equal?!! What kind of bizarro statistics is MS collecting from their user feedback system that it took them years to figure out the problem and at least turn it off by default?
TTS and voice in agent (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday March 10 2004, @11:39PM)
Maybe they should make a 3d little dude that walks across the top of the Aero glass.
Clippy Resurection! (Score:1)
so long clippy (Score:5, Funny)
rust in pieces.
Hopefully... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://home.primus.ca/~ronsharp/tororg.html)
Clippy's Mental State (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, Clippy was definitely incoherent.
Enough! Clippy was the MAN! (Score:5, Funny)
When you were pulling your hair out trying to expose the BCC field, who saved your ass?
Who taught a million admin-assists where to learn how to mail-merge?
ALRIGHT....I admit it.....Clippy was my......lover.
IS THAT SO WRONG?
Somebody took pictures of clippy's death... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/~Spy+der+Mann/journal/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 10, @01:50AM)
http://www.thenoobcomic.com.nyud.net:8090/daily/s
One of my Nightmares, Unillustrated (Score:5, Funny)
(http://ettlz.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 12 2006, @06:53PM)
"Hello! It looks like you're writing an article. Would you like me to:
"By Lamport's Beard! What are you doing here?!"
"Well, Microsoft chucked me out."
"How the hell did..."
"It's this Emacs thing — got a darn powerful LISP engine, you know. It's very roomy in here."
"Oh, sorry, it's not that big. He's been evicted. Now, about that article—"
"Look... just... bugger off!" [Click!]
"Hello! It looks like you're writing an document. Would you like me to:
"Sod off and die."
"Oh."
"Yes, 'Oh'! Now get out of Emacs before I drag Donald E. Knuth himself over here."
"No need to get nasty. Hmmph."
A few hours later:"Hello! It looks like you're trying to evaluate an integral. Would you like me to:
- Add limits?
- Draw a graph?
- Do a trick?
Oh, and by the way, it's very roomy in here!"Who killed Clippy? (Score:5, Funny)
Clippy: Do you need help with a post? (Score:1, Redundant)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 13 2007, @05:31PM)
-Fence-
-Slashdot-
-Last-
You chose -last post-, do you want help writing a suicide note?
Re:Clippy: Do you need help with a post? (Score:4, Funny)
(http://ettlz.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 12 2006, @06:53PM)
clippy lives in vi! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.s5h.net/)
It was a quite reasonable way to get help... (Score:2)
(http://www.robbak.com/)
I'll agree that Office's help system was is quite good: It just didn't need Clippy. Or any of the other... <action type="gags" level="lethal" />
Enjoy the respite (Score:3, Interesting)
So far the most memorable I've seen was a shareware "Southern" parody of Microsoft Bob that involved an outhouse and, if I remember correctly, a possum.
Clippy - Lite Bright (Score:1)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28608553@N00/3855030
No more Clippy (I say Clippit) for President? (Score:2)
So that's Office 2007 major new function? (Score:3, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 29, @07:20AM)
While you're at it (Score:4, Insightful)
The Death of Clippy (Score:1)
(http://www.dvstocklocker.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 20 2004, @06:21PM)
Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
Even on different stories ?It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment
On a different story !Could you house a poor, rejected help agent? (Score:1)
(http://hub.jonathan-rothwell.co.uk/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 24 2006, @09:13AM)
Clippy Cartoons :-) (Score:4, Funny)
(http://mgran.blogspot.com/)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJCv8ru3L98 [youtube.com]
Clippy Gets Clipped
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB03aRifPLU [youtube.com]
Clippy faces facts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMShkAZR1-Q&NR [youtube.com]
He will be missed (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with the new notions that the Office user interface team has chosen to adopt, like only being able to access a feature from one place. Jensen Harris is a smart guy and I've been enjoying reading his weblog and the trials and tribulations of the Ribbon and the new UI as a whole.
Big Hello to those missing clippy (Score:1)
Clippit (Score:2, Informative)
The original clippy was good (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.derol.com.ar/)
The mostly crappy AI made it extra annoying, the rest is history.
My prayers have been answered. (Score:1)
There is a God after all.
Clippy was vicious... (Score:1)
Apparently the paper clip was making fun of her...
They killed the role (assistant), not Clippy! (Score:2)
So please stop whining about Clippy, and think for a minute about all the other characters!
Clippy falls on hard times (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/desk
One of the characters is wearing a ghost outfit. Occasionally the white sheet slips, revealing the thin curve of steel underneath.
You have died (2nd time!) (Score:3, Informative)
(http://dementiaofmagic.net/)
Give it another six years when Windows Vienna comes out (given how much a success Vista is). We'll be able to relive this story all over again!
fully sentient users, too (Score:2, Informative)
Sentient, and semi-sentient, Office users were not the target audience of Clippy, unless it was always intended as annoyance, leaving
Now that OpenOffice is usable enough, for me, I have stopped editing RTF in emacs. At one job, I was asked to explain to a co-worker how to create PDFs. I started with "go to this address
http://www.openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org]
download and install OpenOffice, then call me to come over".
right (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://en.wikipedia....vated_protein_kinase | Last Journal: Monday April 30 2007, @06:22AM)
i thought clippy had already died (Score:2, Informative)
Ding-dong... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.fishgame.com/)
Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead...
So when will openoffice kill (Score:2)
And can I pull the switch?
overlord (Score:1)
Sheds a tear for Links the Cat (Score:1)
(http://misondau.spaces.live.com/)
If the assistant had defaulted to Rocky the Dog and the first alternative on the menu was Links the Cat then you would have had 99% of people with something that they at least thought was cute.
In all seriousiness though I think a big opportunity was missed to use the assistant idea as a friendly frontend to intelligent agent functionality. It should have been an OS-wide feature that lived in the task-bar. Hell give it network storage & make it aware of being run on different machines.
Clippit, not Clippy (Score:1)
Clippy was my savior (Score:2)
Evil Empire (Score:1)
(http://wstewart.php0h.com/)
You mean..... (Score:2)
Clippy freaked me out... (Score:1)
Burning in Effigy (Score:1)
(http://www.uaf.edu/ | Last Journal: Thursday April 28 2005, @03:45AM)
Re:I hope slashbots end the joke as well (Score:1)
(http://home.primus.ca/~ronsharp/tororg.html)
This must be a sign that Bill is really not as (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lucky Clippy! (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:Clippy (Score:2)
Actually, in addition to the problems you noted were the following problems:
- You could not choose, in a custom install, not to have the damn avatars in the first place. You had to install, then disable them
- The method for disabling the avatars is placed in a non-intuitive location
- You could not reliably disable avatars in the first release of Office to have them; like things buried in the Pet Sematary, they kept coming back.
Similar problems exist in the "Clipboard Enhancement" that allowed Office apps to store more than one item in the clipboard, and pop up a stupid dialog to select which thing you wanted to paste. That turns off by dismissing the dialog 3 times (WTF, MS?), and can come back if you copy twice without pasting.
"Bad Pet Rock! We do that OUTSIDE!" - Peter Griffin, 'Family Guy'