Introducing the new Revit user interface

One of the motivations for starting this blog was the introduction of the new user interface (UI) in the forthcoming 2010 release of the Revit products. This is the most significant change to the Revit UI since the introduction of the product in 1999. The most striking change out of the box is, of course, the use of the ribbon as the primary access point for commands. For many of you, especially those who have been using AutoCAD^® since last year's release, this will probably not come as much of a surprise. This is part of a corporate effort to unify the way our flagship products (that is, AutoCAD and it's verticals, along with Inventor^®, Revit^® products and 3ds Max^®) look and behave. This corporate-wide initiative started with the introduction of the ViewCube^®, SteeringWheels^® and the ribbon in AutoCAD 2009. For more on the Autodesk ribbon, see the June 2008 Cadalyst article in which Matt Stein gives some insight into the inception of the ribbon. Although the foundation for a new UI was set by AutoCAD, integrating this new UI into the three Revit products was a daunting task that required not only redesigning parts of the ribbon component itself, but also a complete re-thinking about how we design and implement the Revit user experience. I realize I am not the first person to post this, but for those that have not seen it yet, below is a screen shot of Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010. In the coming weeks we will be diving deeply into the design process that lead up to this transformation.

Comments

[Geoff Briggs]

The introduction of the Ribbon seems to driven by forces external to Revit. The UI elements it replaces are not the ones that needed attention. The toolbar and design bar were compact and simple. The project browser OTOH is crowded and inflexible. And what about some real time parameter editing instead of the rather primitive properties dialogs?

It’s not that I don’t like the Ribbon. It just appears that it consumed all of your resources this cycle (OK more like half), which is somewhat disappointing considering Revit’s many more pressing needs.

[Tom Vollaro]

Thank you Geoff,
Some known items can be addressed opportunistically while others require dedicated resources and careful planning. As an example in 2009 a project unified open and save dialogs. Prior to this dozens of unique layouts existed for the same operation creating a very inconsistent experience.
2010 has addressed other known issues that may take some time to notice.
Rest assured we will continually improve and are always collecting additional data on work flow and usage.