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

In any successful business, who should come first: the designer or the client? In this case, Adobe's clients are designers for the most part and we do have some educated idea of what we need.

Why should a company protect a worker's ego? Would it seem like a failure if they adjusted the UI? Geez, no. It would seem like Adobe is a customer-centric company which listens to its users.

I wrote Seth a nice, non-aggressive email asking why he designed the UI the way he did. The article doesn't state any reasons why the UI was designed in this way. We have conjectured here in this forum. But all he did was to describe the changes.

I haven't heard from him.

As far as I can tell Adobe team doesnt care if their customers are happy with the product which they pay for every single month. The way I see it I pay for something I cant use as I had to revert back to the older version of PS. I am going to cancel my subscription and go back to the older version of Adobe CS I had used before. Why would I want to pay for something I am not happy I use.

I've totally had enough of the latest garbage UI so I've gone back to the 2014 CC version which I can read and have no problems using at all. Why is it so hard for Adobe to bite the damn bullet and go back to a WORKABLE interface. It's only little changes (as I'm sure someone else mentioned above) to CSS style sheets and even those four points as shown below from the 2014 version make a LOT of difference to ease of use and blood pressure.

I downloaded and installed the 2014 CC 32 bit version. It's not only legible (faster workflow) but all my favorite 3rd party filters work again. Any future updates will now involve waiting for a 'classic interface' CC option instead of being forced to use that stupid recent UI we all hate. Note to Seth Shaw and the other designers: I'm much happier without you now.

I think it's quite obvious what they can do. Since they already have two complete UIs, they can allow the user to choose which one they want to use in Preferences; one built for touch, or one built for the mouse and keyboard. Then they can get all crazy-go-nuts with the touch nonsense without having to dumb down the tools people have become accustomed to.

Excellent comment by Mike Bruce, and to the comment that there is no protecting egos at Adobe, I've not heard that to be right. There are more than a few there as you'd expect from any wealthy tech company. It's a rarified uber-corporate world, not a little company starting out.For this reason you can be sure there are plenty of company politics at play.

That being said, I simply want software that allows me to easily and quickly perform tasks to improve my productivity in a real world professional capacity. Adobe is losing focus of this right now. I'm afraid that the current UI problem is only the tip of the iceberg with what we may expect in the future.

All I want is the option to revert to the previous UI. The new UI can be the default for all I care, as long as I can either switch to, or download, the "classic" interface. It's gotta be what, 25mb of buttons and a few pages of style sheet codes?

The new UI looks great. The design team did an excellent job of making Photoshop look sleek and modern. Unfortunately sleek and modern doesn't always mean usable. A touchscreen thermostat is awesome, unless you're blind.

I highly doubt Seth Shaw reinvented the entire UI by himself. The onus of usability was clearly not in his wheelhouse. And even if he is entirely responsible for the design, he's just a contractor. Higher ups at Adobe had final approval on the work. Certainly if the new UI has a noticeable negative impact on sales, those same higher ups will have no qualms about tossing Seth's work. Adobe's business is software, not protecting egos.

Then every comment should mention Seth Shaw.  To be fair, comments should mention him whether they're positive or negative.

This is an intriguing topic. I have never seen such overwhelmingly unanimous disapproval for a software update. Normally there are always a number of users who chip in to defend the changes, but in this case there are none.

So what can Adobe do to move forward? Well, as has been discussed before, the changes were implemented by Seth Shaw, and other contributors are listed at the bottom of his blog post here: http://www.setopacity.com/articles/2015/11/28/photoshop-ui-refresh

With a little digging around in google you can try to understand the mindset of the lead designer. For example, on this twitter post Seth is bragging about the new look, and it must be a bit of a shock for it to be widely condemned instead of the expected back slaps all round at Adobe HQ: https://twitter.com/sethshaw/status/671561080972283905

It's fairly clear that Seth is one of the newest members of the team, so it's reasonable to assume that he was hired to shake things up a bit.  You can glean some sense of his previous design achievements on his own website here http://www.setopacity.com/work-1/

I would also suggest that folks read "An interview with Seth Shaw..." http://layervault.tumblr.com/post/101769689424/an-interview-with-seth-shaw-a-member-of-the

There are some telling quotes in the interview, for example:

We love to meet users and chat about how they use Photoshop and what they’d love to see feature wise. It’s all about developing empathy

These tools help designers earn their bread and beans. They’ll be vocal. They’ll be critical. It can be tough to hear when the work is being done but has yet to ship. You have to take it all in stride.

Talk with everyone who might use what you’re building. Really get down to the nitty gritty of how what is being built will have a positive impact on someone. Understand their pain points. This is the best part of the job.

I think these snippets should leave us in no doubt that the team will be taking feedback on board. But realistically, what can they do? Reverting to the old UI would be seen as a failure of Seth Shaw's work. There's no hiding with google these days, and the last thing he wants people searching his name or CV is a damning discussion thread like this where his efforts have been trashed. 

Not a good business plan.