Hi ProDesignTools,
Thanks for your thoughts and your responses. I believe that your quick negative responses to commenters has been covering up patterns in the comments that should be pointed out. I have reviewed every comment in the thread and categorized the comments to reflect different issues that may be impacting user experience. As you will see, these categories are not something that your single experience using a direct download link downloading a single program within the CC suite can address. Please hold off on posting until you've read this entire response.
There are some common features to the reports that I noticed as I was reading the thread. There are commonalities about those who initially report an issue and their are commonalities about why people are getting upset with the responses being provided. I am going to summarize both sets of problems in hopes that both problems can be solved.
First, let's review the patterns in the initial reports and regarding the slowness that folks have experienced.
Patterns in initial reports (N=25)
- 13 mention slowness during a whole CC download (often mentioning for the first time, new user. This slowness and these forum posts complaining about Adobe non-responsiveness to the slowness are part of their first impressions of your software and company!): johnnyå53665128, hellobub, neebedankt, Dryfly3, rcruzn, BookGirl$ (over two weeks to download CC on a new laptop), cthombor (36% in 15 minutes and then 40 min no progress, reboot helped), dave.guyre@gmail.com, quentins28655812, default79mre399pfil, rickb-sgu, cynglas, TOYSTORYLAB.
- 7 mention slowness while downloading a single larger program full install. tlw22, BrianGoebel, bryanf62224688, default3wddmtoblvvx, justincrossley (5 users Photoshop); lorev54627894 (InDesign 30% after left overnight); grantl86025163 (Premiere, 37% after 4 hours)
- 5 mention IT department, are IT admins, or mention their workplace/firm: johnnyå53665128, neebedankt, Fred23898025890q, scottf82225499 mentions that direct links had older versions which required IT to log back in, uninstall the old ones and then reinstall the new software. Even Abambo who is critical of those who are complaining admits that a 2GB Illustrator download took 16 minutes on a shared but high speed line, much longer than expected.
User Counts and Patterns they fit:
A few interesting commonalities between the cases when collectively reviewed:
- All users reporting a problem are performing the download through the Creative Cloud app (N > 25)
- Most users use language suggestive of downloading multiple CC programs and the full initial installers instead of incremental updates (e.g. "clean install", "new laptop", "for the first time", "fresh install") (N ~= 12 - 15)
- Photoshop and the flagship products with bigger non-essential brushes, tools, menus, and featuresets are mentioned exclusively when a specific program is called out (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects). The smaller helpers Media Encoder, XD, Dimension, Animate, Acrobat, etc etc never are mentioned (these are usually optional howver they also aren't nearly as big so prone to drag like the others)
- Western Europe is mentioned in a few posts (interesting in the fact that they are using different servers, have different working hours and are subject to different load balancing considerations for when their workday starts.
- Leaving the download for overnight or weekends fails to significantly help (this presumes load is equally available in the evenings and in their local evenings as it is in the day; dynamic load distribution switching and capping to optimize streaming during off hours in that region would in fact worsen the problem in off hours)
- IT departments, workplaces, lack of privileges are mentioned frequently suggesting that part of the frustration includes the problem that a single IT appointment doesn't give enough time to install these theings. This can effectively double or triple the install times as they are scheduling IT, waiating for an agent to help with the install, the IT person moving on because the download is too slow to wait with the user, needing to reschedule and wait for the tech to become available again, waiting for drop off or pick up their machine, or just waiting for the IT staff to get out of a meeting that they had to get to while waiting for a download. Losing IT department focus only compounds the impact of the server delay by creating knock-on cascading delays.
So now that we have a list of commalities and thought about how those commalities might be causing the problems the users are reporting, let's turn to a summary of the posts which lash out at the respondents.
Patterns of messages about "unhelpful" responses:
- Discuss that the response is using a method that is unavailable or not the official method of performing the task. Telling folks to use direct downloads over and over doesn't help those who prefer or must use Creative Cloud app to update. You are choosing to ignore the issue that people are reporting and make excuses for not fixing our problem because you have a workaround that you can use. If the workplace limits internet traffic to unofficial download sites or uses filtering or blocking software they may not be even able to access your solution or if they have user permissions denying updates from non-whitelisted installers.
- Failing to discuss the screenshots and evidence provided by users. Users have multiple times included screenshots directly showing evidence of the slow speeds. None of the responses discuss the evidence presented and instead refer to the respondents own tests on their machine or workaround link. Look at the evidence being provided and ask if you'd be satisified if those were the speeds you were seeing, don't tell us how your computer looks, talk about why our computers are showing something different.*
- Ignoring the problem as reported. Most of the comments that draw the ire of the commenter at the respondent point out that the respondent created a strawman and then knocked him over. When the respondent uses different program, only downloads a single program, is in a different part of the world, is in a different time zone, and just glibly says "works fine here" you're not helping the person you're responding to. The commenter has a problem with an initial clean installation and yet the respondent mentions that a single program downloaded from a direct link not through CC works faster. This doesn't help explain why the Creative Cloud download for the app the commenter mentioned is slow. Stop knocking over strawmen, if you can't reporduce some aspect of the commenters problem you aren't helping to narrow the possible problems impacting the user. If you are also in Europe or using Creative Cloud or on a weekend which can help narrow the potential causes to say insufficient servers in Europe, load redistribution overnight, on an ultra fast connection and seeing ultrafast documented speeds, als o doing a clean install of the entire suite, that adds evidence that can be used to compare and contrast outcomes. (ProDesignTools, i'm looking directly at you here)
The resposnes to PhilMichigan who shows evidence, states that people shouldn't require a workaround, and updates on the progress is particularly galling. Every one of the above poor response tactics (ignoring evidence, ignoring the delivery method mentioned, and providing strawmen) is demonstrated in the responses that discuss his results. You're two for three of the bad behaviors in the responses to me so far. Look for yourself, when poeple get update at least one of these behaviors is mentioned every time.
What I'm doing here, looking for patterns, accepting the reports as stated, and trying to put myself in the commenters shoes is not rocket science, it's empathy. It's also good problem solving and reducing the problem space in helpful ways looking for reasons that these users are complaining. There are folks who have stated that they needed IT support to do the install or that they won't use an unofficial download channel, it's not a huge leap to surmise that these are institutional users and that telling them to use a workaround won't help them. At least three times, people asked that responses stop suggesting the workaround and fix the primary update method. In four years only for a brief period is there a gap where new posters weren't adding complaints. That's the brief period that things were working well, that people are back on this thread suggests something new is causing delays that is likely similar to what was happening before. Saying it works for you is just as unhelpful now as it was then.
Adobe should be worried about the way that threads like this reflect on their business. A toxic forum culture where power users punch down at new users is not a company that cares about its users. A company that doesn't monitor its forums or whose power users tell others that they don't review the forums (even if its untrue) is not a company that you want to be in an endless SaaS payment model, dependent on their slow servers, watching their profits reports in the stock market, while you are waiting for updates to restart your work and with no evidence of responding to consumer concerns.
Adobe has already pissed off its user base enough by making the SaaS change. The resentment is palpable in this forum. Not responding to users and letting the toxic power users respond without any employee input and without addressing the rudeness helps zero in retaining these customers. There's a reason that people post here about using Adobe because its an industry standard and near mandatory not out of devotion or loyalty. It's the attitude Microsoft displayed very shortly before anti-trust actions were taken against them. The SaaS model has felt like blackmail payments since it started.
At some point, we're just going to stop commenting and stop paying if all we get for having notified Adobe of problems we're experiencing is a punch from a goonish power user that they don't have a problem. These are unhelpful knee jerk defenses of indefensible failures to address user concerns, You're only making me even more fed up than I was before I ventured onto the forums waiting for my updates. You all encouraged me to openly discuss the need for real competition, anti-trust, and an end to the abusive SaaS model. You all through this interaction have made me angrier at Adobe and the toxic culture it has not improved at all in the last five years I've been on these forums. You all have made me want to raise red flags so newer users can see what they're getting into before they have sunk so much money in. I think we users need to get over the "sunk cost fallacy" and start turning to the competition because this nonresponsiveness and extremely toxic culture is proving to me repeatedly that they have no interest in changing.
*This specifically is why I'm incensed enough to waste so much time breaking down why all the responses are inadequate, in bad faith, and infuriating. Unless you face the fact that users are demonstrating how bad it is, you're just making excuses and not addressing their problems.
2 Correct answers
.png){kind=avatar}
78
Replies
AdChoices