The Swiss Army Toolkit

You've probably heard a lot of different pieces of software refer to themselves as "the Swiss Army Knife" of this or that (video editing, photo editing, data management, whatever.)

I was talking to a colleague of mine the other day about the concept of the Swiss Army Knife (hereafter referred to as the SAK) software. The problem that SAK software faces is that it usually does several things, but none of them well. In the attempt to bring together too many different functions, you end up with bloated software that has menus and palettes too complex to navigate.

So Justin (my colleague) and I talked about how maybe the answer is, instead of having one piece of software that does everything, how about a suite of applications that integrate really well together, and each one performs a specific purpose?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Adobe Creative Suite. While there's some crossover between the applications, as a whole, each has its discrete functionality that it does well, but by the same token, it's easy to transfer your work from one place to another. I can produce a movie in Adobe Premiere, but edit the sound in Audition. I can create vector graphics in Illustrator, and then place one or more layers in Photoshop.

The best part about Adobe products is that the interface is reasonably consistent across the applications; I can count on finding the Direct Select tool or the Eyedropper tool in the same place every time.

I'm no Adobe acolyte, don't get me wrong. I just think this is one area where Microsoft has laid a good foundation, and still has some work to do. I'd love to see some small, subtle changes in the interface that takes it to that clean, usable interface that Adobe has mastered. We're almost there.

The one program in the core MS Office suite I see needing the biggest facelift, by the way? Word. Word needs to decide if it's a word processor or a lightweight desktop publishing application. I'd love to see some of the publishing-oriented features taken out of Word, and become the purvey of Publisher. Make it easy to just import text from Word into Publisher, and go from there. Make Tables of Contents, indexes, and other publishing-oriented features the realm of Publisher; slim Word down.

Just a thought. I know it's rare you hear someone talk about removing and slimming down features instead of adding them, but I think it's time. Write and tell me what you think. In a near-future blog, I'll post my MS Office Wish List; love to hear your thoughts.

Until then, be well.