Astro Hacker News - Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

vintagedave |next [-]

> It’s not that hard to picture people spending 8+ hours a day going through these windows for years if not decades to come, and it’s not hard to add and multiply all...

This is key to being a product manager, as well as a UX designer. It is the single most important lesson to learn for anyone managing stable, longterm software.

I used to be the PM for the Delphi IDE (RAD Studio, C++Builder) and we did a UX refresh. The software needed it, it wasn't arbitrary (there is an old product management joke: if you don't know what to do, do a UX refresh. Same as a CEO: don't know what to do, do an acquisition.) But it was needed, and IMO we did a good job.

This specific view -- that people use our software eight hours a day and we need to respect that through retaining expected behaviour, not arbitrarily moving things, and so much more -- was the guiding principle through that work. Toolbars stayed with the same contents; when settings pages were reorganised, it was with thought and care and we communicated why so that people would understand; UI was more adjusted than redone.

It was not perfect work, but it was done with an attitude of respect for users, and an attitude of minimising surprise. I hope and believe that was visible.

None of it lost functionality like this, which looks like they used an entirely new UI framework under the good. I wouldn't be surprised to hear Photoshop was using some web renderer these days to render their UI.

rob74 |root |parent [-]

I was a heavy user of Delphi from when it first appeared in the 1990s until 2010, and I can't remember ever being annoyed by a UX change across all the versions I used over all those years, so thanks for your efforts! I guess this is one of those things that you only notice when someone doesn't respect it, like in this case (or Microsoft feeling obligated to do a UX refresh for the bundled applications with every new Windows version), but when you notice it, it annoys you even more...

northernsausage |next |previous [-]

I use PS every single day and I can't tell you how frustrating the select and mask tool is to actually use. I've rolled back to 2020 version that seems to be easier to use but dumber product.

voidUpdate |next |previous [-]

> "What is that weird clump of pixels on the left of the bottom edge!?"

Looks like the very top of another, secret checkbox. Mystery checkbox!

xattt |root |parent [-]

I sure hope that’s a “enable one-time purchase” tick box.

prawn |next |previous [-]

I've used Photoshop for about 30 years. For a fair early portion of that, I absolutely enjoyed using it. It was easily my favourite piece of software, and I remember one week in particular after Photoshop 3.0 was released, dreaming in layers. For a fair while though now, I've resented the baffling interface changes and the pricing model.

In a multi-display macOS setup, do you think my layout is ever remembered? Nope. If I save a layout preset, and then try to use that, do you think that works? Nope. If forced to stake my life on being able to position or use palettes in a predictable way, I'd be long gone.

One pet peeve related to a mention on the page is when you typo an alphabetical character into a dimension, Photoshop steals focus with an "Invalid numeric entry" popup. Just strip it and leave it at that. Stealing focus is a high crime, IMO.

Jtarii |next |previous [-]

The popup modal is one of the worst things I have ever seen. It's like they are trying to parody bad UI design.

vardump |next |previous [-]

I've been too scared to buy anything from Adobe anyways, because I'm worried I can't get rid of them.

xg15 |next |previous [-]

Not a Photoshop user, so I may be misinterpreting that, but doesn't this outright remove some functionality from the hue/saturation panel? That "global colors" dropdown seems to be gone and the two "before/after" color bars were somehow merged into one.

This looks like it would require deeper changes to a user's workflow.

(Of course the missing focus/tab functionality does the same in breaking keyboard-driven workflows that worked before)

bondarchuk |root |parent [-]

No it's just the contents of the dropdown menu (master red yellow green cyan blue magenta) split out into radio buttons.

twhitmore |next |previous [-]

What an incompetence & embarrassment. This seems like a failure of product management, management & executives rather than actual software craftspeople.

Those responsible -- all of the people -- should be promoted to digging ditches.

prawn |root |parent [-]

Ditch digging is too important for these people.

cwillu |next |previous [-]

That popup when the field is emptied via backspace made me angry just to see it inflicted on a user. What the actual fuck

Sharlin |root |parent [-]

Yeah, that one belongs to r/badUIbattles, not production software. What the actual fuck indeed.

abstractspoon |next |previous [-]

Useful read for all ux designers

meindnoch |previous [-]

Holy shit. How the mighty have fallen.