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Photoshop's challenges with focus, pt. 2

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

#31

Post by Neywiny »

MontagFTB wrote: post #30
somebehemoth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So just to confirm, Photoshop is willing to ship regressed products to paying customers and views that as preferable to just not doing that?

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

#32

Post by PKop »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #28
somebehemoth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the people who make Photoshop

Obviously they should have a few power users on payroll that find these obvious regressions quickly, and we can call them part of the team who make Photoshop. I'm not sure why this, and what the lead scientist said is valid justification. Just hire "people that use Photoshop". If they already do this, then the people that make Photoshop use Photoshop to a sufficient degree.

But moreover, if one has developed Photoshop for 15 years, I'm pretty sure they are aware of power user table-stakes features.

And then one more point:

> Why?

Because that's what it takes to develop high quality software tools. This shouldn't even be up for debate when charging money for software.

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

#33

Post by MontagFTB »

sinpif wrote: post #29
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?

Well it depends on how you define it. We have done several re-skinnings. This migration is a transition from one framework to another, which we’ve never done before. The reasons to leave the old framework lie on several axes (eng, design, product, etc.)

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

#34

Post by PKop »

MontagFTB wrote: post #30
somebehemoth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Shipping software is in perennial tension between getting it perfect and getting it out the door.

First do no harm. Changing functionality that works is not in tension with getting regressions out the door. Assure it is working before shipping by hiring testers that use the product to the level or extent of most users.

> We do use Photoshop (though not to the level or extent of most users) and noticed the regressions.

Is there something you want to tell us about management? This is crazy, if what you mean is you know you broke this for power users but shipped it anyways, or that you don't have power-users on payroll to constantly test your product that you can call "part of the team".

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

#35

Post by alex_c »

This feels particularly egregious because of our unspoken assumption that Adobe, of all companies, should have "excellence in design" somewhere on its list of core guiding principles (I know, I know, hear me out). It feels like there should be someone internally at some point who says "hold on, this really goes against who we are as a company, what happened here".

It's instructive to look at how a company presents itself to the public, so I went looking at what Adobe says about itself, and what is the first instance I can find of a principle or value that this bad UX violates.

Google result:

> Adobe: Creative, marketing and document management solutions > Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. We help our customers create, deliver and optimize content and applications.

About page:

>Changing the world through personalized digital experiences. >Adobe empowers everyone, everywhere to imagine, create, and bring any digital experience to life. From creators and students to small businesses, global enterprises, and nonprofit organizations — customers choose Adobe products to ideate, collaborate, be more productive, drive business growth, and build remarkable experiences.

>Creative Cloud >Industry-leading photography, design, illustration, and video apps that professionals rely on to do their best work.

Company values: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2023/03/07/evolving-adobes...

>Creativity is not only what we enable for the world but it’s also core to the fabric of the company. It has driven our curiosity to look around the corner to transform the industry and ourselves. Over 40 years, we launched the desktop publishing revolution with PostScript, innovated and led every category that we are in — creativity, documents, customer experience management — to serve a wider customer universe. Create the future is all about being the customer and being relentless across all the elements that make up customer centricity to delight them, deliver unparalleled value and innovate to address unmet (and possibly unknown) needs.

>Raise the bar is about continuous evolution and never being satisfied with the status quo. It’s about never settling for good enough and always striving to be first, only and best. It’s about being intellectually honest and direct in talking about the things that aren’t going well and always looking to do better. At the end of the day, our ultimate measure of success is the customer and today more than ever, we need to surprise and delight them at every turn.

So really, the closest I could find to guiding principles being broken are tangential concepts like "remarkable experiences", "customer centricity", and "surprise and delight". Good goals for any company, but not especially design focused in my opinion.

Paraphrasing, Adobe as a company thinks of itself as a provider of technology to fuel content, marketing, and advertising money-making machines. Design at this point is incidental to who their customer happens to be.

I am sure individual employees might feel different, but as a company, we have no more reason to expect excellent UX from Adobe than, for example, Oracle or Salesforce.

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

#36

Post by somebehemoth »

MontagFTB wrote: post #30
somebehemoth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Shipping software is in perennial tension between getting it perfect and getting it out the door.

Photoshop is the premiere image editor that has been in existence for decades. The issues you are responding to are fundamental changes to how the application behaves. It defies belief that your team and its processes have this little respect for dedicated users who have spent thousands of dollars on your product over the course of years. I understand shipping software. Do you understand your users?

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

#37

Post by ManuelKiessling »

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…

This is only a tangential question, but anyway: I‘ve read several years ago that since around Photoshop version 4, 99% of the work is about keeping the application UI usable with all these new features, and not about „hard“ technical challenges within the features themselves. Is that true?

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

#38

Post by MontagFTB »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #37
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…

This is only a tangential question, but anyway: I‘ve read several years ago that since around Photoshop version 4, 99% of the work is about keeping the application UI usable with all these new features, and not about „hard“ technical challenges within the features themselves. Is that true?

There is a lot of effort put in to making the application usable, no question. At the same time, we have added a litany of new features and tools since Photoshop 4, many of which I would describe as extremely technically challenging.

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

#39

Post by freedomben »

MontagFTB wrote: post #30
somebehemoth wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disclosing my bias up front: I think Adobe is an evil company and I actively avoid them. This is not personal against Adobe employees however. I know there are a lot of people who want things to be better and work their asses off toward that goal.

Indeed, I don't think most people can appreciate how hard the tension is between shipping and perfection. As a fellow perfectionist, it kills me to ship things that I know aren't perfect, but I've had to work on becoming more of a pragmatist because if I had my perfectionist way, shipping would take years and feedback loops would be so long that it would be somewhat self defeating (though that's a personal problem). I appreciate you taking the time to respond here, even knowing you'll catch some heat.

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

#40

Post by freedomben »

Neywiny wrote: post #31
MontagFTB wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So just to confirm, Photoshop is willing to ship regressed products to paying customers and views that as preferable to just not doing that?

I'm far from an adobe fan, but I feel the need to defend them just a little here.

Everyone with non-trivial software has to do this to some extent. Perfection just isn't possible. The real measure is in where the company finds the balance. I think Adobe needs to tilt toward the perfection a bit more, but this is not something that people can do unilaterally without buy in from the very top of the chain, which I'm guessing GP is not.

Keep in mind that photoshop isn't the near-monopoly that many people think it is, especially in light of generative AI. If they take too long to ship features, it will similarly be criticized by paying customers who feel Photoshop is hobbled.

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