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

[J Isner]

I just updated to Photoshop CC(2015) version 2015.1. Adobe changed the UI to the flat look you see on phones and tablets. I do not see any way to select the classic interface, which I'm sure many desktop users of PS prefer.

This feels yet another attempt by Adobe to be trendy without caring about what users want or need. Didn't they learn anything from the dumbed-down Lightroom import fiasco?

[brucet53718289]

Chris, to save time I would humbly suggest your UI design team simply reads all these posts. As others have said before, the latest UI appears to be a change for change sake, with no advantage whatsoever to the user...in fact it is a hindrance to workflow.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

They are reading them - but most don't have any specific issues that can be acted on.

[Roger the Photographer]

Chris, I understand your dilemma. You're here on Saturday night, almost Christmas, trying to cope with us - and them. That's it, eh? You have to cope with us and them both?

At the same time, I despair we will be able to get our point across. I'm known as a rather articulate man, but here I am at a loss. At the same time, English is not my language, I hope you can understand my "charabia".

Several guys have put it plainly:

• The UI in 16.0.1 was maybe not perfect or ideal (what is?), but it was good, we could work with it without too much strain on the eyes.

• Then comes 16.1 in which, without any warning whatsoever, the UI went berserk. Nobody had any idea it was coming, no warning, no nothing, everybody thought here comes a minor update making things a bit better about everywhere. But bang! This. Had we known it in advance, we would have politely said that we were opposed to it and we would not have downloaded it. End of story.

But now, even if the majority of us has either gone back to a previous version or is looking feverishly for a way to do it, we're kind of caught in this maelstrom.

Quite frankly, the whole interface has many many many problems that relate almost all to legibility.. Too many. They really went hard at it.

They did the previous versions and proved they could do it, right? Nobody can tell us that they cannot, they can. Bu God it will take a whole load of humility,, this forgotten virtue.

They have to reboot the whole process. And make us happy again. And I mean again, because we were happy with the product, the very good product that Photoshop had become, the King. Give us the King again.

If they dont get it, then they have to meet with some of us, with our own equipment which is not always perfect, and have real people telling them "Look at your grey on grey, I can't stand it, I cannot".

Tonight I will put online two or three more examples with both 16.1 and 16.0.1 running simultaneously, showing mistakes and inconsistencies. But...

But the problem is global, not local.

[Bob Laughton]

Chris, your latest comment is the crux of the whole problem.

Adobe are obviously not prepared to waste the time and money they have already spent on the latest upgrade - but they really should. To paraphrase Bruce Thomas, the whole thing needs tearing down and starting from where we were and then adding any improvements. This isn't going to happen though, is it?

I think we all understand your problem with us just saying we don't like it, without a whole list of specifics, but I'm afraid you are just going to have to take our word for it.

In summary, having reverted to 16.0.1, I certainly won't be touching this upgrade until I hear something positive - which makes me question why I'm paying a monthly subscription now, when I already "owned" the version prior to CC?

Edit: I've just seen Roger's latest post while I was typing this. Surely you/they must now be getting the message loud and clear?

I would genuinely love to know who were the people this was tested on.

[allebarat]

With all due respect, i understand that it's probably frustrating dealing with a group of users who speak in generalities, but from our perspective, what we hear is "please tell us how you would improve it and if you could provide code samples that would be even better". The specifics are Adobe's job, not ours.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

For us to get changes made, we really need specifics.

Nobody asked you to code anything - but without specific complaints to address, nothing will change.

[allebarat]

Good natured sarcasm appears lost here. Please do away with the gray on gray. I used to like the medium gray theme, now I find it unusable because there is much less contrast than before. If you feel led to change up some icons, have at it, but there's really no need to.

[AnnShelbourne]

I fear that the problem here my have stemmed from Adobe hiring slick young designers, who are more in tune with iPads and smart phones, than they are with the requirements of professional-level production programs like Photoshop or InDesign?

Chris asks for specifics so lets start with READABILITY.

Readability for anyone using professional-level 30-inch monitors, went down the drain in the new UI. The Background greys are simply not sufficiently differentiated from the Type (which needs to be fully 100% BLACK ) in the lighter skins; and we simply MUST be given a way to enlarge the SIZE of the Type and the Icons to suit our individual screens and the needs of our eyesight.

Many of the icons are now meaningless and indecipherable scribbles and we need an experienced UI Designer (who has real expertise and experience in this field) to be put in charge of this project.

Another area which needs immediate attention is the visibility of both Paths and active Selections. Use of the Pen tool has become almost impossible unless you turn image-opacity down.

I really can't believe that the people who were responsible for this appalling UI have had much experience in using these applications for real-world Professional Production Output?

[Guest]

I'm referring to Andi's claim that she can no longer change opacity values with one click. We both seem to have confirmed that it still works the same way as before; it only looks different.

[Guest]

> without specific complaints to address, nothing will change.

Gotta laugh at that one. Were people complaining about too much contrast in the UI before?

[Roger the Photographer]

Chris, here is a screenshot made from a 27 inch monitor I just received and put alongside my two 30 in. This image will tell you what I think ion the most general way I can think of. But looking at this image, you will also see all that is wrong with the new interface.

This image now has a title: How to go too far.

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Nothing will change, you say, if we don't do the work ourselves? Really?

I don't really care. My wife just told me to stop this useless thing, and I've been married for a very long period of time.

I don't car, now that I have reverted to usable 16.0.1, and I encourage everybody to do exactly the same.

[brucet53718289]

Chris, the big issue here is that Adobe has suddenly alienated a very large number of long term customers (and now subscribers) by thrusting upon us a UI change that was not required and with no option to retain the 'classic' look. This very web page we are currently writing on is a fine example of legibility and function, the new Abobe UI's are definitely not. There was a time I enjoyed clicking on the 'Update' button to see what Adobe had improved. Now I am afraid of that button...very afraid.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Actually, XD had specifics that they wanted to change. Without specific issues about the new UI design for us to bring to XD, they are not likely to change the design.

[Roger the Photographer]

Chris, you're a scientist, aren't you? From one scientist to another, this line of reasoning doesn't work. We cannot discuss like this, the premises are wrong. Without the right premises, we'll get nowhere.

They want us to suggest changes to make a bad thing a bit less bad. In other words, they want us to start from THEIR product.

We're telling you, no. Start with the previous UI and then explain to us why something so drastically wrong has to be done.

I'm turning the tables a cute 180 degrees.

If they stick to their guns, as I told you, they will have a victory à la Pyrrhus. A victory à la Napoléon over the burned Russian steppes. What a victory! A victory with all the seeds of defeat.

I have dumped Lightroom for cause of non readability. I have dumped 16.1 for reasons not as bad but near it.

I abandon this useless discussion slowly evolving in a battlefield,never to come back. I will never use their ridiculous UI I swear it. I swear it. Never.

After the word below, I'm gone. Good luck with a doomed interface.

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I hope you reproduced the CTL-TAB bug. Here we get it on every machine. Tomorrow James Longster from Indiana comes here for a couple of weeks to cool in head in the snow. He also reproduces the bug at whim.

Adios, I'm stopping following this completely.

[AnnShelbourne]

Indeed you can (and I have); but the type is still at 48,48,48 which is too light to provide sufficient contrast.
The background grey of the second-lightest skin is much too dark at 183,183,183 to be viable against the type which, in that skin, is even worse and appears to be running at 63,63,63 on my machine.
That skin would normally be my choice but I am now having to use the lightest version from necessity.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Roger - imagine if you said "relativity is all wrong" without any specific evidence? How would that be treated by other scientists? If you had specific evidence, they might listen. With just hand waving and nothing specific, they will not even start to listen.

We really need specifics about the new UI to bring to the XD team.

[samasante]

When the time comes for a User Experience Design team to consider themselves too high & mighty to actually read and respond to floods of real *user* feedback then surely a change of job title is in order?

As a power user spending upwards of 10 hours of day in the shop I am not only extremely disappointed with the latest update, but astonished at the level of incompetence involved in some of these unwarranted visual changes that have had a detrimental effect on overall readability and accessibility.

Respect to you for having the decency to follow this thread and respond personally Chris, but as I expressed in my initial reply - they should be ashamed of themselves. If nothing more I would be very grateful if you could relay that message to them.

[Guest]

I keep reading "we need specific feedback".

"Please roll back or allow users to opt out of the new interface" seems pretty specific to me.

Tell your UI team to stick their heads into a commercial airline cockpit the next time they fly. Will they see panels of touch screens with low contrast quasi-stateless buttons? Of course not. They will see row upon row of analog dials and physical switches with bold colors indicating various states, because a professional technical environment requires foolproof visual cues.

Photoshop is a professional technical environment. It does not need to appeal to millennial Instagramers or soccer moms...that's what Elements, and myriad other tablet/phone apps are for. The latest Photoshop has stripped out much of its formerly foolproof visual cues. THAT is the specific feedback.

Do you guys really expect US to take dozens of before/after screenshots of YOUR interface to prove our point? That's what beta testers, focus groups and professional UI designers are for.

When an angry mob with bats and torches is outside Frankenstein's monster's window, they're not there to discuss the finer points of the monster's faults. They are there to run the monster out of town.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Totally agree. We professionals do not have time to point every aspect of this new crippled interface. Do they expect us to forge our own interface by spending all of our free time on this forum? Well ok, make software open source then.

Many of us disappointed with the new UI. This "sudden new interface" is acceptable within a separate public beta-testing branch, but not within a stable release branch, why can't Adobe admit it?

As for me, I use Photoshop much less than Lightroom in my workflow, but this situation shows me what can I expect from Adobe in the future. I can expect countless moves that ruin my workflow. Clients' trust is earned by years and decades, but can be ruined in a moment.

I'm probably quitting Creative Cloud when my yearly plan expires, and have already purchased and using another product from a different company, which has already replaced my Lightroom workflow with minimal efforts. Photoshop replacement is on the way too.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Boring user interfaces need to be avoided for the same reason that boring grey offices need to be avoided. Human beings feel happier and have better morale overall when colour and texture are both used.

Flat design represents the ultimate in human sheep like behaviour, calling something better when it's a throwback to the days of rubbish graphics cards.

If we applied the same logic to cinema we'd be going back to scratchy 1910 cardboard cut out animation and calling it progress.

[Earth Oliver]

From my perspective, the biggest disappointment is not how much changed with the new UI, it's how little did. Everything is still exactly the same as it ever was and nothing has been done to optimize any of the behaviors or tools which slow us down.

Want to change the color of a gradient adjustment layer? That'll be 3 windows please!


Need to adjust a hue/sat layer? Well, you'll need to click through 6 different drop downs to see if anything other than Master has been modified.


Would you like to be able to see your paths on a busy background? Not this decade, Mr!

Thinking of saving/exporting your image(s)? Well, we'd like to make it as difficult as we possibly can! Here are six windows to keep you busy... sometimes we like buttons in the top corner, sometimes in bottom!


You'd like to crop or change your canvas after using Liquify? Ridiculous!

The list could go on and on and on.

[Bob Laughton]

Has anyone updated to the latest 16.1.1 version yet? I'm terrified to do so. Ha!

[allebarat]

Nope. I'll wait to see the feedback from the community.

[grauenwölfe]

Ahaha. Sorry to laugh but this is too good. What an absolute joke the Photoshop interface has become. It looks like some low-grade, knockoff software from China or something.

It looks so damn sloppy I won't be surprised if there are typos yet to be found too.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It only contains bug fixes.