Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#21

Post by frizlab » Thu, May 07, 2026, 12:04 PM UTC

vintagedave wrote: post #8

> It’s not that hard to picture people spending 8+ hours a day going through these windows for years if not decades to come, and it’s not hard to add and multiply all... This is key to being a product manager, as well as a UX designer. It is the single most important lesson to learn for anyone managing stable, longterm software. I used to be the PM for the Delphi IDE (RAD Studio, C++Builder) and we did a UX refresh.…

> I wouldn't be surprised to hear Photoshop was using some web renderer these days to render their UI.

Apparently it is, indeed, just HTML and the likes. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48048363

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#22

Post by DoneWithAllThat » Thu, May 07, 2026, 12:14 PM UTC

Jtarii wrote: post #16

The popup modal is one of the worst things I have ever seen. It's like they are trying to parody bad UI design.

The whole pattern of considering an input field being blank or having an invalid value while still focused causing an error indicator of any kind to appear is surprisingly infuriating to me.

Like it’s actively frustrating to focus a field like a phone number entry and already the field is red and says something like “must be a valid phone number”. Yes I know that! I’m trying to enter one! Stop drawing my attention to useless information!

Displaying some kind of error if I focus away and the input is invalid or blank is marginally better (and I can see how in some cases might be a better choice, even), and displaying an error “on submit” (for some definition of submit) seems utterly reasonable. But before the user even has a chance to enter a valid value is just a good way to piss them off.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#23

Post by timedude » Thu, May 07, 2026, 12:32 PM UTC

This is so depressing. It feels like all around me every product is being enshittified to hell. I am afraid for the future and for all the good we are losing.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#24

Post by MontagFTB » Thu, May 07, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me.

Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been on the team more than 15 years for a reason) and this migration is far from over for us.

These sharp edges are acknowledged, and we are working on them. Some of them are already addressed.

I know this will be of little comfort to some. But to the rest, we are still here. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#25

Post by somebehemoth » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

Why were these sharp edges not discovered in UAT? It seems hard to believe that the people who make Photoshop do not use Photoshop to the degree necessary to notice these regressions. How will you avoid these kinds of problems in future updates as your transition to a modern design continues?

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#26

Post by PKop » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

What was the point of this upgrade? Do you not actually use Photoshop yourself, or have people on your team that use Photoshop? Aside from the mea culpa and assurance it will be fixed, user deserve an explanation for why this basic, obvious buggy functionality wasn't discovered immediately during development? Like seriously, you should explain yourself.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#27

Post by pwg » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

somebehemoth wrote: post #25

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

Why were these sharp edges not discovered in UAT? It seems hard to believe that the people who make Photoshop do not use Photoshop to the degree necessary to notice these regressions. How will you avoid these kinds of problems in future updates as your transition to a modern design continues?

> Why were these sharp edges not discovered in UAT?

These kinds of sharp edges should *never* have made it as far as UAT. All of these should have been caught in the first prototype and never made it beyond that point.

The fact that they made it all the way to the shipping product shows that too many responsible parties were asleep at the switch.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#28

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:32 PM UTC

somebehemoth wrote: post #25

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

Why were these sharp edges not discovered in UAT? It seems hard to believe that the people who make Photoshop do not use Photoshop to the degree necessary to notice these regressions. How will you avoid these kinds of problems in future updates as your transition to a modern design continues?

> It seems hard to believe that the people who make Photoshop do not use Photoshop to the degree necessary to notice these regressions.

Why? The actual people who make Photoshop are programmers, and this is a tool for image editing.

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#29

Post by sinpif » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

How many UI migrations has Photoshop gone through over the years?

Re: Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

#30

Post by MontagFTB » Thu, May 07, 2026, 1:33 PM UTC

somebehemoth wrote: post #25

MontagFTB wrote: post #24

Hey all- I am Foster Brereton and Principal Scientist for this UI effort. Suffice it to say, the article and this thread have had their impact on the people behind the software. We are aware we got a lot of things wrong. As the primary technical lead on the UI migration, a lot of the implementation details ultimately fall up to me. Two things I can tell you: the engineering team does care about Photoshop (I’ve been o…

Why were these sharp edges not discovered in UAT? It seems hard to believe that the people who make Photoshop do not use Photoshop to the degree necessary to notice these regressions. How will you avoid these kinds of problems in future updates as your transition to a modern design continues?

In a word: they were. We do use Photoshop (though not to the level or extent of most users) and noticed the regressions. Shipping software is in perennial tension between getting it perfect and getting it out the door.

Going forward, we would like them fixed, too. Personally my hope is the message from user feedback like this is heard loud and clear, and we respond appropriately.