P: New user interface lacks contrast and many usability cues, lots of other problems

You know what I miss in this new version? The move tool icon. The new one just DOES NOT cover the functionality of the move tool, and is visually utterly inconsistent with the mouse cursor that is used for this function.

Interestingly enough, the idea for the four arrows icons is not new: in Photoshop 3 (not CS3) the traditional move tool icon was switched to the current version.

Bad ideas remain bad ideas, and it was changed to the one which we all know (and love?). One has to wonder why this new move tool icon was considered a better one than the old one. Especially seeing the mouse cursor still acts just like before.

Looking at the graphic below, it is also interesting to note that the latest dark versions are arguably the worst from the viewpoint of perceivability. The older light versions just work better in terms of usability. They might look somewhat clunkier - but the icons are easier to identify, as are the icon groupings.

The Photoshop GUI team ought to read up on some of Nielssen's Flat Design reports and conclusions:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/

Especially the second article is of interest here: many users so far have complained about the lack of visual signifiers in the new GUI, and, consequently, it takes them longer to find what they are looking for.

In short, the new PS GUI decreases user efficiency, and with longer-term exposure this will only worsen.



Also interesting: Photoshop started out with "flat icons", and the latest versions re-introduce flat versions. Albeit within a less usable lightgray-on-dark visual context.

Dead on, Ann. Dead on. Now Adobe will never be able to take the phone and call the Big Brothers. Give a call to the guys at Apple. Or if you hate them too much, give a call to the guys at Microsoft. True, Windows 10 isn't my favorite, but Windows 7 is pretty decent and I can work with it without any problem.

I agree. His observations are entirely anecdotal, and Jeff's comments only weaken his case.

Well said.

These changes were tested with many customers in our prerelease program. They were also used at Adobe MAX 2015. I was a teaching assistant for about 10 classes that used Photoshop and received many specific comments about how the UI was cleaner, easier to use and made using the product feel more "relaxing". These comments were from long time Photoshop customers as well as new customers. We made improvements even after Adobe MAX and will continue to make additional updates in future releases.

You made a classic mistake in usability testing: instead of relying on actual quantitative testing, and observation of actual user behaviour and measuring performance, you seem to have relied only on what users subjectively TELL you.

Without knowing the circumstances and your comments made prior to showing the new GUI to these users, you may well have coloured and influenced their opinions.  For all you know, those users may have felt intimidated by your presence (being an official Adobe Photoshop team member), and Groupthink may have occured.

What a user (group) tells you, and their actual USE of the GUI are often two entirely different things.

Anecdotal "evidence", such as those user comments you mention, has some use, but should be backed up by quantitative UX research of the product  in question.

I installed the latest version two weeks ago, and from my personal experience with the GUI so far, I have concluded that many PS GUI design decisions which your team made fly in the face of established usability heuristics. That much should be entirely obvious.

And based on your comments it seems rather obvious to me that your team has not done much or any quantitative user testing at all. Please prove me wrong in this.

Ann, if I remember correctly, you can find towards the beginning of this long thread that there were some guys from New York (don't remember who they are, but a big retouching outfit) that were called in to test the thing. None of them were amused by the new UI. They were very much against it in fact. So Adobe has known for a long time that the working guys did not, would not like it at all. But this doesn't matter at all to them.

I'm thinking about this mobile thing... whaaaaaatttttt? Hey guys, I'm not alone with a loaded Mac Pro (the flower pot...), or the equivalent in the Windows world, and two 30 in graphic monitors! Mobile? Am I to rent to truck to go mobile or what?

Photoshop is an expensive piece of software, for people working with expensive equipment, people that don't have much time to lose. We are the ones bringing in the money to Adobe. Leave us alone with your mobile thing. Or your touch thing. And I just learned that they are going to massacre Adobe RAW that they had kind of overlooked.

I've been protesting for two months now, and had quit because I was in a fury. Hence my new name "gone". Well, I'm going back into hibernation. Have fun, guys.

P.S.: BTW, ask the guys why, instead of messing with the UI, they don't fix the Refine Radius Tool  in Refine Edge. No contextual menu. Nothing with a right-click or a control-click. Worse than that: you have to make the control bar appear in the Options bar. And then, you cannot even type it the number you want. What a shame.

I too was disappointed by Jeff Sass's comments, especially: "I was a teaching assistant for about 10 classes that used Photoshop and received many specific comments about how the UI was cleaner, easier to use and made using the product feel more 'relaxing'"

I find it extraordinary that these changes were based on a sample of 10 sessions. What level were the classes? How many participants were in each class? What was the duration? You'd think Adobe would do more in depth research before making such bold changes.

Jeff Sass is joking. Must be. The conclusion is simple: he knows nothing about UI, his testers were biased or paid to be happy about the darn thing, or high on Québec Gold.

Adobe should be on its collective knees and abjectly asking for forgiveness. This guy is not interested in what we're telling him, he doesn't hear us at all, he doesn't know what we're talking about.

Adobe just broke this delicate thing called customer loyalty. Forget about loyalty. I'm now ready to jump ship at first chance.

Remember what happened to other companies that ignored their users! Remember Quark! What you did to Quark (they asked for it), somebody will do it to you (you're asking for it)!

It looks as if a young, inexperienced (but exceedingly arrogant?!) Design Team is being allowed to run wild; and do exactly what they please; with total disregard for the requirements of Adobe's customers.
Perhaps it will take either some firm re-education or, ultimately, some Rolling Heads to fix this major UI and UX blunder?

The response so far has been shocking; we are witnessing not only a disastrous implementation, but inability to recognise the seriousness of the mistake. Adobe would get an awful lot more people on side if it recognised rapidly that it had mis-stepped with this design, even if it then tells everyone that it will take a bit of time to rectify. But to suggest that all is ok, while it clearly isn't, will only infuriate more people - and increase the clamour for action. This is basic customer management.