Known Participant

Question

Adobe's appalling UX in their own products. "What's new" is unreadable.

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 21, 2022
3 replies
1889 views

Adobe makes a whole range of excellent products for people who work on UI. But do they USE any themselves? How can we get Adobe to put some effort into making their products easier to use?

For example ... My Creative Cloud just updated my Photoshop to 23.2.0 20220210.r.277 189394e x64 But the "What's new" panel is impossible to read without a magnifier, or without copy and paste it to another app where I can enlarge the font, and change the background colour. What's wrong with it?
[A] font size looks to be 6pt - certainly too small to read

[B] the subject headings embedded in the text are dark blue on a dark grey background. Cant be read, even WITH a magnifier.

On a more general level, you can't alter any of the User Interface settings on any of the products to make them easier to read. When I get a new version, I have to cut and paste a lot of stuff from the UI (if it'll allow me to) to another app to see what it says. It's no good just learning where to find something because next version that menu item has probably been changed and/or moved.

Lots of people clearly like the way Adobe CC products look. I dont have an argument with that, but every other software developer in the world has learned that USERS are the boss. WE get to say how we'll look at something, based on our own limitations, such as eyesight.

This is now the 4th time I've brought this topic up on this forum and never had anyone at all respond. Am I the only one this affects?

Cheers

Mike Kear

Web Developer since 1996
WIndsor, NSW

This topic has been closed for replies.

jane-e

Community Expert

@c.pfaffenbichler wrote:

If I understand correctly the Discover Panel is subject to the Interface Preferences.

Maybe a light Color Theme might work better for readability?

Good idea, @c.pfaffenbichler !

Jane

Per Berntsen

Community Expert

Indeed, I overlooked that, @c.pfaffenbichler

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

Graphics drivers and hi-dpi displays are a mess on Windows. The Mac handles all this much more gracefully. FWIW.

M

mkearAuthor

Known Participant

Ok so your solution is I should get rid of my computers and buy a whole new lot? Seems a bit extreme for a high-end graphics program like photoshop that ought to be able to handle high-end graphics cards.

And software that ought to be doing what we in the web business have been saying for a couple of decades now - that users have a whole variety of equipment and software ought to allow users to use them to suit their own needs. Ever heard of RESPONSIVE WEB SITES? Why can't I be allowed to alter the font size and colours on my high-end graphics set up to suit my own needs?

Cheers

Mike Kear

Windsor, NSW, Australia

ColdFusion Web Developer since 1996

Per Berntsen

Community Expert

Ok then . Look at the two screen shots - one is using Adobe Audition - I do radio editing about 20 hours a week - this is how I have to work. It's a top left corner of Audition, showing the Adobe UI with some tiny, unreadable, gray on dark gray filenames - i have to guess which is the one I want usually. Compared to the icons that are on the desktop. Also the main menu items on Audition (File, Edit, Multitrack .. etc ) are following Windows settings, allowing me to manipulate the sizes and colours so I can read them However all other menus wihtin the application are unreadable Even many of the icons are indistinguisable from each other.

The second screen shot is wihtout altering anything- just when I was working on the first screenshot - showing Photoshop in use. None of the text in the panels is readable without making me get my face about 4cm from the screen and using a magnifier. Display this image full size, 1500x820 px, at 100% size on your screen and tell me it's perfectly ok to make them non-adjustable characters there.

This is discrimination against me because I have a disability when Adobe ought to be allowing me to alter the UI settings to meet my needs. jeez just making the text in those panels bold white would make a HUGE difference!

If you use a light color theme, the panel becomes much easier to read.

Preferences > Interface.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Could you post a screenshot of the offending »What’s New«-panel?

I am not having issues with the readability of those so I wonder if something else has gone wrong.

I personally think the customisabilty of Adobe applications’ interfaces is not exactly great so far but certain issues might need to be adjusted on the OS level anyway.

M

mkearAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for responding to me. I have raised this topic several times before, most recently in the Audition forum - much the same problem. No one else seems to be bothered enough to reply, (Not a surprise - i have rarely had responses from anyone at Adobe in more than 20 years as a ColdFusion site developer) so I have to just prevent Creative Cloud updating it and let updates happen when I have a day to relearn all the navigation through it.

OK here's a screenshot of the Photoshop. The example I have given is only an EXAMPLE of what i described. The entire UI of all Adobe apps is almost unreadable for me without peering through a magnifier, and taking a guess whether what I want to do is going to happen. I have taken a shot of the whole screen, because when I just capture the "What's New" panel, the screenshot ends up about 3 times the size of the actual one on my screen. This screenshot shows my whole photoshop UI - almost none of the characters in the interface can be read by me without my getting out of my chair and moving my face to about 6-10cm from the screen.

The What's New panel cannot be changed in size except by changing the amount of content - that's determined by who writes the "what's new" info, not the user. The preferences do not provide for changing the font sizes in the US nor the font colours, hyperlink colours or the background colours. On just about every other piece of software I use, those elements are in the control of the user (me) and I can change them to suit my failing eyesight.
(Even the icons in windows can be changed in size. Although, to be fair, every time there's an update to Windows they change back to "smaller-than-minute" so I have to go through and set up my Win10 all over again.)

Cheers
Mike Kear
Web Developer since 1996
WIndsor, NSW, Australia

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Just to make sure: I am not an Adobe employee but a fellow user of Adobe software.

If I understand correctly the Discover Panel is subject to the Interface Preferences.

Maybe a light Color Theme might work better for readability?

You probably already tried this but how about scaling down the screen resolution »globally«?

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