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Question

Why is this app lacking severely in usability

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
April 8, 2020
9 replies
1649 views

Why is this Premiere pro app such a pile of crap! I would use stringer language, but dont want offend or be removed.

Usability issues:

First of all, in the tutorial, it names the 4 panels but the four panels arent named. Why not place the name of each panel at the top, with so much to learn and remember, having to memorise the name of each panel (because they are nameless) is a waste of time

Second, it doesnt explain where to find things, for example: "In the effects control panel" - where is the effects control panel? There is no direction, i found "effects" at the top of the page, that didnt have what I need in it. So where is it? If I have clicked on the right tab, why is "motion settings" not visible? And if I have clicked on the wrong tab why do you have two tabs called "effects"?????

Third: Why can you cut but not paste? I cut a section, but then I couldn't paste it back in somewhere else. And if you can, why is that option not apparent with a right click?

Fourth: You can't go backwards or undo. What a pile of crap that is, you make a mistake and there is no obvious way of undoing it. I tried a shortcut

I have only tried to use this piece of crap twice, and I am so shocked at its crapness. I did video editing years ago on windows 7 movie maker, that was relatively easy and straight forward. But the windows 10 version has very little functionality/use. Hence me downloading this. I have to say I am shocked and appalled that such a big company can launch something so bad and called it a complete product.

I'm guessing this is just the tip of the iceberg of crapness too, only having just started to use it. So angry

P

ptography

Participant

I 100% feel you on this. And it doesn't really seem to matter what tutorials you watch sometimes certain features in premiere pro just don't work. It's very clunky.

To those who sit here and say well there's a learning curve because it's a professional application, I was able to figure out Lightroom and Photoshop fairly simply as a beginner. This program is a maze of confusion. I recently ditched this program to use final cut pro and I got to tell you, the interface, the usability, it is far more user friendly.

But to those who enjoy Adobe premiere pro and use it regularly, especially if you are in the movie industry, I understand why it's a little bit more complicated. They don't want just anybody to be able to come and pick up the program and put out movie style content that competes with the pros. That's what Adobe Rush is for if you want things simpler.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

User to user differences in UI "understandability" are simply a thing. I work in both Premiere and Resolve daily ... Premiere isn't so bad, Resolve ... a decade of working in it, and I still struggle to remember where all the context menus are hidden across the app. Among many other issues with the UI there.

But a good friend thinks the Resolve UI is the most amazingly wondrous, natural UI ever made. To him, it's freaking obvious where everything is, and why it's there and not elsewhere.

We look at each other and ... smile. We are never going to agree on UI construction.

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Something like Premiere Elements is quite useful for many projects from beginning through prosumer work. That's designed to give you automated ease-of-use work. Select a type of effect, the app does a lot of work, you make a few minor changes. That is a lot easier to learn.

The pro level apps, whether Premiere, Avid, whatever ... assume you are using them heavily and they just build an app to do a ton of heavy lifting as the user commands. But they are very "manual" in operation because pro users do not want extra interface space taken up by panel names and explanatory verbiage. They want stripped-down interfaces with the tools as large as possible and as little wasted verbiage as possible in the graphics design.

Full-time users tend to know their keyboard shortcuts to get away from using the mouse as much as possible ... may have professional control surfaces or special keyboards for editing ... and often work with the app spread over multiple screens and still complain that the UI wastes too much space.

So some of the extra things you would like to see are things most users do not want ... and would complain vociferously about.

You see the conundrum here? For getting started in the app more descriptive "titling" of areas would be nice ... but as soon as you get working in it a bit, you won't want that space wasted on something "obvious". That is why for these apps it is really necessary to get at least a month of studying some detailed and complete instruction material while working with the app yourself.

One of the great things about the LinkedIn courses is you can download the media of the project for the course, and practice doing exactly what the instructor is demonstrating. Spending some time learning the app this way will provide a massive boost to your ability to get going.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

B

BoblaramosAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Neil,

Thanks again. But, as I said before, I'm sure these buttons and tags can be "overlapped" to the main working display. So, as soon as you don't need or want them, just remove them. Really simple, and I believe quite easy to do.

The difference it would make is incredible. Imagine not having to put new users through a month of frustrating learning. What if Joe public could get on here and actually use the thing straight off the bat, because it was easy to follow and intuitive.

That would convert more "triers" into users, more users = more money. No brainer

R

RjL190365

Legend

I have one thing to add:

You are (literally) stuck between a rock and a hard place. Companies either make things simple but severely lacking in both performance and features (versatility), or make things that are powerful but require a ton of experience and knowledge - and absolutely nothing at all whatsoever in between (other than those products that combine only the worst of both worlds).

I jumped to a more pro-oriented NLE years ago when the consumer ones that I was using back then could not handle framerates above 30 fps. I had a lot of 59.94i/p videos that did not transcode or encode properly in those cheapo NLEs because they simply dropped frames and fields.

B

BoblaramosAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for your input, and for backing up my point that this is not user friendly.

I fear you may be right, which is madness in itself. I am sure it can be done well, but no one bothers to do it. It is a real shame

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Premiere Pro ... notice the second word there? ... is designed for daily use by experienced users. Like any other pro-level non-linear editor (NLE) it is complex and deep in available tools ... and is built to be run "manually" with little guidance from the program itself.

Yes ... it is very unwieldy at first. And it's got a heck of a learning curve ... it's plain steep.

Which is why taking a month or two of a subscription website like Linked In Learning is so valuable. The basic tutorials on the Adobe site show a number of things, but the ones on LinkedIn are far more detailed and you can select ones that work for your current knowledge and the type of material you want to work with.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

B

BoblaramosAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Neil,

Thank you for trying to help, I may come back to it at a later date using the "linked in learning" when I move onto more advanced stuff. For now, filmora9 will do, and it might just stop me smashing my laptop to bits with a baseball bat! lol

However, I'm pretty sure the "pro" in Premiere pro doesn't mean for pro's only, but rather it has feature you would find on "pro" level software. I'm fairly sure if I could speak to a member of staff directly they would tell me "it can be used by anyone with its user-friendly interface!" lol. Which is another thing, from the UK the help phone number is of no use, and there is nom other form of personal help - hence why I am here! Again, if it is available and I couldn't find it, this is poor.

So no, the word "pro" shouldnt mean it can't be used by beginners. there is no getting around my earlier point, it could include tags and buttons to make it more user friendly and vastly improve the tutorial (which can later be removed). The fact it doesn't makes it poor. It needs a learning expert to write the tutorial programme, not a software expert that loses sight of the beginners perspective which is what I suspect has happened here.

And the fact you need to go off-site to learn it is also a damning indictment.

Peru Bob

Community Expert

I realize that you are frustrated, and I can understand that. Premiere Pro is a professional level application and has a bit of a learning curve. Please be patient with it and you will find that it will become easier to use as you learn.

"having to memorise the name of each panel (because they are nameless) is a waste of time"

Learning the interface of an application is part of the learning process.

"where is the effects control panel? "

You need to click on a clip in the timeline to see it.

"Why can you cut but not paste?"

You can with Control+V, but the tracks need to be targeted:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/source-patching-track-targetting.html

"You can't go backwards or undo. "

You can have many undos:

1) Control +Z

2) Edit > Undo from the top menu

3) Open the History Panel and you can choose points to go back tofrom the opening of the project:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/correcting-mistakes.html

"But the windows 10 version has very little functionality/use. "

Major motion pictures have been created with Premiere Pro.

If you have specific questions, please post them in separate threads on this forum.

Stay calm, be polite, and we will try to help you get through the learning process.

B

BoblaramosAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you Peru Bob for trying to helpo me in a constructive manner. Lets go back through the points:

"Learning the interface" - would be made much easier by adding labels to each window, therefore when a window is referred to in the turorial, the learner knows what is being referred to without having to waste time figuring it out and building frustration. There is no reason why an option can't be added to remove these labels at a later date when they are no longer needed

"where is the effects conrol panel" - it's okay telling me now, why didn't the tutorial tell me that? There was no way of knowing, I'm searching everywhere, again getting angry and frustrated at not being able to find it - it's so easy just to say "click on the desired clip"!!!!!!!!! and yet it doesn't. Poor

"why can't you cut and paste?" - you refer to a shortcut - shortcut's are additional learning, not learning the basics. Why on earth can't you click on a space and paste the copied/cut clip into it? I can't see why not? That's how we have been doing it on our computers for years, now that function is missing from this software? Not good enough

"why can't you go backwards or undo" - None of those options you mention are visible. They are all hidden behind another button or option. You make a mistake, you want to just undo it. Why not have an undo button? For a new user, thats a big issue. In fact, even for experienced editors, surely a simple undo button displayed on the screen would be handy? Rather than having to open the edit menu? Crap

"But the windows 10 version has very little functionality/use" - I was referring to windows movie maker, not adobe premiere pro.

I will admit, it's not like Premiere pro is on its own. I have tried 5 different video editing tools, all of them are flawed, one had almost no features, one made a constant clicking noise in the background when playing any audio, one wouldn't even let me create an account, this one lacks a functional tutorial/walk-through process, and the last one was actually really good (filmora9) - very easy to use, everything you needed as a beginner was displayed on the main screen, nothing was hidden behind other tabs or missing completely. It lacked some of the functions Premiere pro had, but I was able to fully edit, add effects, greenscreen effects and more all in my first go! But it crashed for no reason at all and lost some of my work. Fortunately it auto-saved most of it. So, despite its failings, it is the best of a very bad bunch. I've already deleted this Premiere pro trash from my laptop, but just felt I needed to reply to open some eyes.

Just because you know how to use it, and like it's features, it doesn't make it a good app. It is very closed off from the general public in terms of learning how to use it period. Unless you are in the same boat, you just won't get it - as highlighted above by Peru Bob - despite his valiant effort to help, suggesting "well you just use this shortcut" shows the lack of understanding of what a beginner will go through when using the system for the first or even second or third time - if it's not visible or labelled, its hidden and not user friendly. Remember that when assessing any software for beginners. And there is no excuse, because any label or button can be removed/altered using an option when you no longer need it............. Mic drop

Jeff Bugbee

Community Expert

"I can't figure out X, therefore X must be bad!"

B

BoblaramosAuthor

Participating Frequently

First off, that's not helpful.

Second, its not about figuring it out, it's about being guided through a process. When there are obvious features missing from that process there is nothing wrong with calling it out.

If it says click on "blah blah" window, but none of the windows have "blah blah" written on them, how do you know which one it is? You have to sit there for a minute and work it out - that's the waste of time. Label them, even if it's just 1, 2, 3 and 4 - when it says click on window 3, I will know what it is referring to! It's simple enough to add an option to remove the tags for a later date/those that just know what they are.

Let's put this another way - It's the tutorial process that is poor and clearly not been designed for a newcomer. Too many things are assumed - such as expecting you to know how to go "back" and going through a bunch of stuff before showing you how to go "back" is even mentioned. So, if you make a mistake or get curious, you get stuck. You have to start the tutorial process over again. A nice big, clear "back" button would be a winner - again, no reason why you can't add an option to get rid of it when you no longer need it.

This could be the best piece of editing software in the world, but I would never get to find out due to the extremely poor tutorial process. That's what I'm complaining about. And if the tutorial process is poor and i can't get past it, well then it doesn't matter how technically good the app is.

[abuse removed by moderator]

MyerPj

Community Expert

Wow! 😞

R

RjL190365

Legend

In addition to what Michael and Bob stated, that initial post reminds me of other software makers now charging me fees for features that were formerly free in older versions of that same software. That is especially true of utility software such as registry cleaners, where only the basic cleaning functions are still free but more thorough features that used to be free now cost money.

Peru Bob

Community Expert

LinkedIn Learning is a good source of tutorials:

https://www.linkedin.com/learning

They have a free trial.

See here, too:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/tutorials.html

M

Media Editor

Inspiring

You need to go on line and search for tutorials that will help you. Hopefully, you will find that Premiere is not crap.