Dear all, Since I have noticed that Adobe _is_ watching this list and responding to user complaints much more than some years before, i take the courage to complain about some items in the new interface. I'm a Frame user since version 3 and have provided some useful things to the community.
The CS4 user interface has its merits (more flexibility, definable workspace etc), but it also has its drawbacks, because IMHO it is 'overdesigned'. You may see my personal notes about some details in FM- 9 at http://daube.ch/z_temp/fm9-details.pdf You may also compare my rants with Jakob Niesen's Ten Usability Heuristics at http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html in particular Visibility of system status; Recognition rather than recall. 1) Elements of the UI can not easily be recognised because everything is gray as November. I need to mouse around to find the active areas. In some instances the difference between an active area and an information/label ist nil. Since buttons are coloured only in hovered state, it is difficult to find functions on the large screen - especially if the arrangement in different workspaces is not the same. <rant> Graphic artist seem to have a preference for black. Just look at Adobe's brochures. All seven graphic artist I know personally here in Switzerland wear black - the same as bankers... </rant> 2) I'm working with more than just FM open at a time. Switching back to FM does not indicate in any form whether the window is activated or not! There is no difference between an active or inactive FM window. Oh, yes, the cursor blinks - but find an I-beam on a 30" screen immediately! And sometimes there is no I-beam at all. 3) Font size in dialogs is meager. It is still 8pt (as defined in the various resource files. This size is far to small for the now large screens with high resolution. One takes a little more distance to the screens if it gets larger... The standard UI font on Windows (MS Sans Serif) makes it often difficult to distinguish characters 1Iil, 5S, 2Z, rnm etc. The interface does not honour the Windows setting for "Large Fonts" 4) The application window has no title at all. Hence the full path of an open document can not be displayed anywhere. It can not be determined whether I'm working on a local file or one a copy from the network. Frequenctly I must work on files which have the same file name on different paths. How to distinguish? I can find the full path only in the bottom pod, Insets. And what, if the file has no insets and no pictures? BTW my dictionary says for pod: seed pouch, seed case produce by some plants; fuel container in an airplane; herd of whales; group of birds. I strongly hope that these flaws are not the result of concrete-set properties of the CS4-UI. Klaus Daube http://mymemo.ch und nie mehr einen Gedanken oder Termin verpassen. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Docu + Design Daube; Schäracher 11; CH-8053 Zürich Technical documentation & consultancy; On-line and paper F: +41-44-422 86 25 E: [email protected] W: www.daube.ch _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [email protected]. Send list messages to [email protected]. To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [email protected]. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
