New Photoshop UI has become a major problem on the official feedback forum | Hacker News Reader

New Photoshop UI has become a major problem on the official feedback forum

feedback.photoshop.com

44 pointsvladdanilov60 comments

That's the problem I have with the creative cloud model of forced updates. Professionals can have years invested in using a tool and becoming incredibly fast at it: all that can potentially be erased by being forced to upgrade to a version that changes the way you are used to working.

I agree. UI versioning should be a standard thing for web apps.

I know Creative Cloud used to allow downgrades, I'm assuming it still does.

> After about eight hours in Photoshop and Illustrator I feel pretty confident in describing the 2015.1 GUI changes as a bizarre gaffe.

It's hard to imagine that Adobe don't follow a UAT and beta test roll out model of their software, so is this just a case of a few users shouting the loudest or is there genuinely an issue with the UI. The comments on the article span a period of 3 months ago to 1 week ago.

> And yet, this subject does not have any response from Adobe. This is getting surreal. HELLO ADOBE-- ANYONE HOME? How many posts before this gets on your radar screen?

That is slightly infuriating, as the subscriptions to Creative Cloud are far from cheap, so you would expect there to be a feedback channel to Adobe themselves.

Personally, I use Lightroom infrequently and always get confused by the user interface - but I always attribute that to the fact I don't use it daily.

> It's hard to imagine that Adobe don't follow a UAT and beta test roll out model of their software, so is this just a case of a few users shouting the loudest or is there genuinely an issue with the UI. The comments on the article span a period of 3 months ago to 1 week ago.

Maybe Adobe pulled this as a joke on designers so they'll start to think twice before redesigning everything into a flat low-contrast mess with no borders on anything.

Sucks when something gets crappier to use in order to look more trendy, eh?

In a few weeks, surely they'll roll it back and say "Ha ha, gotcha! Now quit fucking doing that." Or not. But I can dream.

Have you encountered the video caching error in Lightroom? There is a well documented bug in the import process that chews up massive amounts of hard disk space. I came within a hair of crashing my hard drive because of it. 1 out 5 people I tell about this issue found that they were affected. One person regained about 250gb on their hard drive. I regained nearly the same amount...

Here's the details and where to find the affected target directories:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/light...

Looks like another poorly executed attempt at executing "flat" design: Low contrast wall of grayness with reduced visual affordance. Amateur hour.

Peanuts my friends. It's not a deep technical problem, if users shout hard enough Adobe will either rollback or make it optional. Still amusing to see an 'experienced' company doing such a stupid thing, they know about UIs, at least they knew.

Adobe Photoshop 2016, aka Adobe Gamma Cloud Calibrator.

I understand why people are upset — but let's not pretend that Adobe's interfaces have ever been able to pass any usability tests.

I think the issue is not a good UI going bad. Rather, it's a familiar UI going unfamiliar.

I can use Ps with my eyes closed, and it's software aimed for professional usage. Changing the UI means I'm losing hours and hours of conditioning myself to its quirks, as well as familiarity with the software. Even if the new UI is better, you'd have to weight how much better it is.

That's questionable though — there are a lot of people switching over to Sketch who were previously in Photoshop, and while Photoshop may have never been the right tool for interface design work... plenty of Photoshop users were willing to try something new.

You're right though, it's all a matter of weighing whether or not it's worth it. I wonder what Adobe's methodology for the change was.

I disagree the new ui looks bad, and I disagree Adobe's ui is not important. Even with years of PS under my belt I can't make the transition to Gimp simply because everything is in the wrong place, and I've tried many times.

Part of Photoshops success has been the great layout of its tools.

That's not true at all! Photoshop's UI is awful — their strategy is essentially "space shuttle cockpit." A bunch of mono-colored tools with anachronistic icons (ask anyone under 20 what the burn tool icon means — or even what burning is as a photography concept), tools under other tools, options hidden in drawers, incredibly tiny mouse targets. I'd wager that 90% of daily users touch about 40% of the interface they show by default.

You've just been flying for so long that you can't imagine it being any other way (and you say so yourself).

These flat designs are the WORST. Jira, Office365, and now Photoshop? They're hideous and they're hard to read/use/work within. Who looks at existing flat designs and decides to implement it themselves? It's awful.

In my opinion the worst offender is the stock clock app in Android. I use it almost everyday but I am still confused by it's design.

My solution was to use my second portrait monitor is a perfect place to stack my Photoshop/Illustrator menus: http://i.imgur.com/Y026Goe.jpg . Since the flat UI change it was a bit difficult at first but now I'm on it and know exactly where all my options/functions are.

That's quite neat.

The Solidworks UI also changed this year and users were upset, but Dassault issued a rather awesome reply [1] (although it seems like it was not enough for some):

> SOLIDWORKS users are passionate. We love that about you.

> SOLIDWORKS employees are also passionate about the product we deliver. We take pride in SOLIDWORKS, and in our relationship with you and responding to your feedback. We want you to love SOLIDWORKS.

> We know that some of you are not happy with the SOLIDWORKS 2016 user interface. We are listening, we are working on it, and we will share more about our plans in the coming weeks.

[1] https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/107846

Anyone have a link to the new UI? Couldn't find any screenshots of it and am still running a rather old version of PS.

Here's a side by side comparison of general UI http://i.imgur.com/bViZN6Z.png and dialog UI http://i.imgur.com/AlclEsk.png (by Marc Edwards), and a new welcoming screen http://blogs.adobe.com/richardcurtis/files/2015/12/Screen-Sh....

There are also some screenshots and videos in the official blog post http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshop/2015/11/photoshop-cc-2015-a....

Thank you! Without having worked with the new UI, I do like the looks of the new palette. The form fields on the other hand look like they could be overseen easily.

I can understand people complaining. The dialog UI you linked to is a horrible grey text and grey, it's really hard to read. The rest seems to be a case of "flatten it, because it's modern", it really don't make thing more visible or clearer.

I find it perfectly fine to read and it seems way less cluttered.

Colors in the GUI affect your perception of colors in the image you're working on. I suspect that was the motivation.

Rant mode on:

ugh

Again, this (insert three or four choice expletives) flat design meme that treats contrast as if it's an evil to be exorcised.

Never minding the fact that basic UI elements were moved for no good reason, the old UI differentiates the borders between elements a lot better than the new. Look at the layer selector in the first screenshot and compare it to the new one - the thicker lines between elements gives your eyes something to lock onto, and the elements "stand out" more. Colors are removed for.. why, again?

I know the advice is "engineers shouldn't design UIs", but I'm quickly coming to the conclusion graphic designers shouldn't either. Just about every UI convention of the last couple decades is being thrown out, or at least heavily modified, for something that's not necessarily better in any way.

People don't like relearning how to do a thing they feel they've already mastered. People in applications like Excel or Photoshop are usually quite vocal since many of the changes are for appearance or to help new users, and it feels like a betrayal for all the people who've already battled the application to learn the quirks.

Seems like software design needs a concept similar to the English highbrow/lowbrow distinction (professional vs. amateur?); this change seems to introduce lowbrow UI design into an highbrow product; like if the NYT suddenly started using the tabloid format.

They probably used Microsoft Office as their inspiration on how to create a user interface that makes it difficult to to tell the difference between UI and data. The flat UI's have their use cases but mostly they are just a bandwagon that all cool-kid wannabes are jumping on, without really caring or understanding that a UI is supposed to make things easier and less confusing, not the reverse.

Sounds like they heard the feedback a month ago? See the "Official Response". https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/adobe...

It's not a strong response. Heard it and ignored it--Sass only points out that he has stories of other people say the UI is "relaxing".

Subjectiveness aside, though, my real issues are with Adobe eschewing native windowing and controls to reinvent their own UIs. I'm much more interesting in the apps just behaving as expected than how they look. For example, EVERY time I unplug from my monitor, the windows of the Adobe apps fall off the screen in a way that can't be recovered. They may even be faster than previous versions, but the UI makes them feel bloated and foreign.

Join the extensive conversation at http://bit.ly/21vrZo1 to add more power to our dislike of the new UI. A huge number of rejecting comments may be the only way Adobe will listen to us.

I honestly don't see the problem. Its a matter of getting used to.

Now the question is whether its an improvement visually over the older version. Which is probably not, its just a change for the sake of change.

That matter costs time and money. It's a real problem; for many people, Photoshop is their main work tool. Changing it has a cost.

Not to downplay the criticism (I agree with it wholeheartedly), but this argument can apply to literally any piece of software used in the business world, from Photoshop to Windows to Office.

At least with Office and Windows changes (whether you agree with them or not) they had documented and spoke about rational to an insane degree. There's been none of that from Adobe. This reaks of designers just looking for something to justify their jobs.

Based on my experience, this reeks of management imposing their design decisions (i.e. the buzzwords of the year) on designers and their work.

I didn't even notice there was a change until I saw this post.

Anyone still using a product made by Adobe, in 2016, is cruisin' for a bruisin'.

If you're on a Mac:

1. Affinity Photo replaces Photoshop.

2. Affinity Designer replaces Illustrator / Fireworks.

Anyone have suggestions for Windows users?

Affinity Photo doesn't replace Photoshop.

Also, there are quite a few more Adobe applications than just Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks.

> Affinity Photo doesn't replace Photoshop.

You're right. Photoshop doesn't even compare.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/12/hands-on-affinity-phot...

http://petapixel.com/2015/06/18/hands-on-affinity-photo-is-t...

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/photography-video-capture/c...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU5XpjqtDnw

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/05/review_serif_affinit...

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/photography-video-capture/c...

http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/pc-mac/software/graphics...

> Also, there are quite a few more Adobe applications than just Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks.

Since this post is about Photoshop, is that comment even remotely relevant?

Illustrator and Fireworks are relevant, since most designers have used them as well as Photoshop, while photographers will more likely have just used Photoshop.

Oh wow. That intro video is awesome: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/

Too bad im on windows. :-(

Now would be the time to learn the new UI and write a series of tutorials, videos, ebooks, and sell them. There are a lot of users feeling the pain.

People don't like change?

There is not liking change for the sake of not liking change and then there is not liking change because it is affecting your ability to work.

The linked forum thread seems to have a large quantity of people complaining about the later.

yes, I know the story. I've heard it a million times. Like I said, people don't like change.

Just checking: Are you saying people are wrong to not like change? Or are you saying that it's uninteresting when people dislike change because it's a predictable response?

No, people don't like having their time wasted by clueless product managers who are trying to justify their existence with cosmetic updates.

People don't, on the whole, complain about things that genuinely make their lives better.

People don't like slick trendy shallow cargo cult designs made by imitating popular fads from big corporations based on marketing campaigns dreamed up by advertising executives, in the place of hard earned empirically tested iteratively refined interfaces, made by applying, trading off and balancing user interface design principles based on decades of research by scientists and feedback from customers.

I think that's the big problem with digesting reactions to change. Sometimes a company goes and just arbitrarily changes something because 1 or 2 people feel like it makes sense. Then everyone's paying for it.

But other times they do UX testing and over time discover that B is better than A. But throw that in front of a new user and it's initially harder and therefor frustrating.

If the driving paradigm is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," that's going to lead to a stagnant product. Because sometimes it ain't broke, but it also ain't ideal and people are just used to it.

So when there are fundamental changes to UX beyond color scheme - and perhaps even including - I think there needs to be detailed communication as to why and why it's better now.

People love it.

Why don't we change where the clutch, the break and the acceleration pedals are from time to time on cars? Just for fun.

Why don't we switch riding right side and left side of the road? Every once in a while? Or the shape and colours of traffic lights?

Why do piano keyboards keep the same boring interface since decades (7 whites 5 black keys)?

Why do we have books with always the same size and boring indexes, table of matters and introductions?

Why don't we change VAT tax forms every months?

Oh I know, because changes are costly and not needed.

No they don't. But that doesn't answer the real question here: is the new UI better enough to outweigh the amount of time and productivity so many people will lose while adapting?

Correct, which is why you should, if possible, make gradual changes. These changes to Photoshop seems to be like Windows 8 (or 10), to a lesser degree though. The changes are made because the application looked "dated" not because they where needed to move the application forwards.

Windows of instance could look like it did in the Windows NT 4.0 days and nobody in business would care. Sure update the icons, tweak the fonts, add features, remove features that are no longer relevant, but don't try to revolutionize the GUI.

I know it sound like I'm advocating not moving forward, but the majority of people really just want to get their work done and to radical changes will slow them down.

I don't know, I can't think of a single thing I like better about a previous version of Windows than Windows 10 (maybe a start menu that's slightly more streamlined).

Just yesterday I got the question "Why can't we just use Windows XP" and we're just moving users from Windows Server 2003 to 2008 (Windows Terminal Server). The changes are minimal, yet it's enough to disturb people.

True, given time and education they might like newer versions of Windows better, but let's face it, most companies won't do retraining for Windows and Office.

That's a problem with the companies, not with the software. It's the same with home users. People expect the interface to not change, likely because computers are still new for a lot of people and they can remember a time without them.

I think cars make for a good analogy here. People get a new car, and they have to relearn some things. Not the large things, like how to drive, or the rules of the road, but where the auxiliary controls are, the quirks in how it drives, how sensitive the steering is, where cruise control is and how it's activated, etc. There's a short acclimatization period while you get comfortable and explore or research how to do the things that are different that are important to you.

You get a new version of windows, you may need to learn a few slightly different ways of accomplishing something, but the core experience is the same. You have icons, windows, files with copy/move//delete operations, etc. There's a short acclimatization period while you get comfortable or research how to do the things that are different that are important to you.

Do people complain as much about new cars? Not nearly. They've come to see that these changes are a small price to pay for the advantages we get as the state of the art advances (anti-lock brakes, air-bags, heated seats, parking assist, computer driving...).

It took roughly 40 years for cars to work out what equipment would be standard and where it would go.

I'm reading Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which looks at trends and patterns over the period since the Civil War (1870), most especially what he terms "the special century" (1870-1970), and also examined as three periods, 1870 - 1920, 1920 - 1970, and 1970 - present (almost even 50 year intervals).

I've just read his chapter on cars, and what equipment wasn't on the original Ford Model T: speedometer, fuel guage, headlights, a top, bumpers, electric starter (let alone automatic choke, spark adjustment, or transmission), etc. They weren't really fully settled until about 1940.

Computers still seem to be working these things out.

I think they finished working out most the standard inclusions like that about a decade ago, at this point people get mad over their placement. I would consider the following an incomplete short list of essentials that all (desktop) operating systems offer:

- File storage and manipulation

- File search

- Networking

- Application installation, management and (local) discovery

- Application running and managing multiple running applications at once

- Regular system security and bugfix updates

I think most the complains at this point are on very small changes to those things, such as their appearance or where to find them. Fro example, the whole windows 8 start menu problem. That's purely a matter of different display and slightly different functionality of application discovery.

There's far more that was finalised nearly 50 years ago, with the Mother of All Demos, than anyone today cares to admit.

Computers are problematic in large part because of the tremendous range of environments and uses:

1. Domain experts with decades of experience and highly-tuned, fixed-location, immersed interfaces. Old-school workstations. Heavy on CLI or usually really idiosyncratic GUIs.

2. More casual office users. This is your general file/task approach. I still think that could be improved, though the question is how. Having to consciously consider applications is IMO an error.

3. Mobile. Suboptimal conditions for viewing, entering, reading, etc. Some of the audio input (Amazon Echo, Google Now, Apple Siri) systems may address parts of this.

4. Appliances / controls: anything from digital clocks to DVD/BluRay players to microwaves and kitchen stoves and thermostats and washing machines. LED / LCD displays, anything from 2+ buttons to numeric keypads to dials to full keyboards. Incredible inconsistency across and even _within_ applications.

Of three sets of digital kitchen timers:

One blinks the minutes:seconds colon to indicate it is counting down, the other to indicate it isn't.

A microwave control allows use of either the timer or the microwave, but not both simultaneously.

Several chime repeatedly, others only once (and woe be you if you happen to miss the timer).

None have a count-up feature telling you _when the timer went off_.

I prefer a wind-up dial timer. Simple interface, and it's obvious when and how it's working. The bell is loud enough to hear rooms away.

I won't argue that all interfaces to digital devices have reached a good set of intuitive interfaces, it's clear they haven't. If we're just talking about desktop computers though, I think we're much closer. That said, of the first three groups you mentioned, I think there's relative examples in our analogy group. Workstations (in the professional sense) are like the semi-specialized vehicles that people use. Rock crawlers, off-road vehicles, etc. Mobile is like motorcycles. Each provides the same essential service, but the amenities, configuration and details wildly differ.

I've got to think about this. Not sure I agree or don't, but some good ideas.

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