In many of the apps I’ve written, users are often unaware of keyboard shortcuts, simpler ways to move between fields in web/Windows forms, and efficient methods for entering data.  I often cringe when I see people spend hours trying to manually perform tasks that are easily automated using application features.  Still, many application users will go to great lengths to avoid having to learn anything new (even if it will pay off in the long run).  But what about those who actually want to learn how to best use specific pieces of software?

Enter The Microsoft Office Labs Ribbon Hero.  Here’s a brief description of how it works:

Ribbon Hero is a game for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel 2007 and 2010, designed to help you boost your Office skills and knowledge. Play games (aka "challenges"), score points, and compete with your friends while improving your productivity with Office.  As a concept test, this add-in is not supported, but is an opportunity for you to try out an idea we are working on and let us know what you think.  For additional challenges and the opportunity to earn more points, download Office 2010 Beta.

The idea is somewhat unconventional, but this demo video provides a great example of how you can use it to make yourself a better Microsoft Office user.

While learning is often its own reward, the game also allows you to automatically share and compare your score with others using Facebook.  Here’s a screenshot from within Microsoft Word.

Of course it’s unsupported code.  So, don’t plan to open up a Severity 1 case with Microsoft Product Support Services if you think you didn’t get all the points you deserve.

Overall, I think the Ribbon Hero project is a fun and useful way to stretch users’ abilities with one of the world’s most popular productivity suites.  I’m planning to rack up a pretty high score.  Who’s up the challenge?

• MSDN Subscriber Downloads
• Microsoft TechNet Subscriber Downloads

Just search for “Office 2010”, and you should see the relevant downloads.  Be sure to generate keys for activation of the beta, as well.  I’m not sure about the exact plans for making the downloads available publicly, but Microsoft will hopefully make the beta easily accessible to a wide range of potential testers later this week.

For more information on what’s new, see the official Microsoft Office 2010 product site.  As far as at the client applications themselves, the changes seem to be largely incremental (all apps now have the Ribbon UI).  I’m pondering upgrading my primary computer to the newest beta and will likely post some more details here if I do.  Particularly, I’ll focus on backwards-compatibility and file format upgrade issues (such as upgrading my Outlook PST files to work with Outlook 2010).  Happy downloading!