hm933

I apologize for not knowing the correct terms for the symbols in the GUI, but I have fiddled enough with the preferences to do all I can (or at least all that's obvious that I can) to support my vision issues. My point is that in general, tiny symbols with low contrast that can't be picked out from the background or easily distinguished from one another are a real problem for folks with vision issues - and this is not just a matter of "getting used to" a new GUI. I think your designers need to have a hard look at the entire product line with this issue in mind.

@Pšenda
it's not that I don't understand the icons or understand their purpose. I can't see them well enough to tell at a glance what's what - and having to hover over the icon to get the tool tip is a huge time-waster. Same with the lock/unlock icons - it's not that I don't understand what they mean - but they're so small and similar I can't tell the lock from the unlock at a glance.
Please have your designers study this document from W3C, "Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision" https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/
They needn't adopt all the recommendations in the document, but they are leaving many people behind with their design choices.

Here's another example of a GUI that's completely unfriendly to ppl with mild vision problems:

@Pšenda
it's not that I don't understand the icons or understand their purpose. I can't see them well enough to tell at a glance what's what - and having to hover over the icon to get the tool tip is a huge time-waster. Same with the lock/unlock icons - it's not that I don't understand what they mean - but they're so small and similar I can't tell the lock from the unlock at a glance.
Please have your designers study this document from W3C, "Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision" https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/
They needn't adopt all the recommendations in the document, but they are leaving many people behind with their design choices.

Here's another example of a GUI that's completely unfriendly to ppl with mild vision problems:

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

I have to reposition text on artwork all the time. The handles are incredibly distracting when I'm trying to get just the right placement. Actually there is a workaround - awkward, but the spacebar hint helped. The arrow keys (with and without the shift key) will move the text while the spacebar is pressed. The mouse (or keypad), however, doesn't do anything to the text while the spacebar is pressed.
And I just discovered that the "hide while dragging" button does work - sometimes - if you can find it. It's buggy and unreliable and it's not always in the same place. I hadn't bothered with it b/c the first time I tried it, it didn't work and it didn't help that I couldn't find it when I wanted it.

After trying out (Mac) AP v2, I'm really on the fence about whether to actually buy it. Not only are the most annoying features of v1 not fixed, but new annoyances (not necessarily bugs) have been introduced that make it unusable for my purposes. If I buy it, I can't see ever launching it in its present form. I'd be buying hoping that some sort of progress will be made going forward. I have until later today to decide, so I'll be checking back to see what others say. The main thing I learned from trying AP v2 is that I'm stuck with Photoshop.

Here's another example of a GUI that's completely unfriendly to ppl with mild vision problems:

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

I apologize for not knowing the correct terms for the symbols in the GUI, but I have fiddled enough with the preferences to do all I can (or at least all that's obvious that I can) to support my vision issues. My point is that in general, tiny symbols with low contrast that can't be picked out from the background or easily distinguished from one another are a real problem for folks with vision issues - and this is not just a matter of "getting used to" a new GUI. I think your designers need to have a hard look at the entire product line with this issue in mind.

@fotomak and @hm933 I agree. It often takes time to adjust to, and even appreciate, UI changes — I understand that, and I’m getting used to some of the changes — but there are a number of things that make V2 difficult for me to work with. Some UI elements are too small, contrast is poor, etc. The change to the Lock Aspect Ratio icon really surprised me — I could easily recognize it in V1… now I have to stare at it to determine if aspect ratio is locked or not. 

I apologize for not knowing the correct terms for the symbols in the GUI, but I have fiddled enough with the preferences to do all I can (or at least all that's obvious that I can) to support my vision issues. My point is that in general, tiny symbols with low contrast that can't be picked out from the background or easily distinguished from one another are a real problem for folks with vision issues - and this is not just a matter of "getting used to" a new GUI. I think your designers need to have a hard look at the entire product line with this issue in mind.

I apologize for not knowing the correct terms for the symbols in the GUI, but I have fiddled enough with the preferences to do all I can (or at least all that's obvious that I can) to support my vision issues. My point is that in general, tiny symbols with low contrast that can't be picked out from the background or easily distinguished from one another are a real problem for folks with vision issues - and this is not just a matter of "getting used to" a new GUI. I think your designers need to have a hard look at the entire product line with this issue in mind.

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

Here's another example of a GUI that's completely unfriendly to ppl with mild vision problems:

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

@Pšenda
it's not that I don't understand the icons or understand their purpose. I can't see them well enough to tell at a glance what's what - and having to hover over the icon to get the tool tip is a huge time-waster. Same with the lock/unlock icons - it's not that I don't understand what they mean - but they're so small and similar I can't tell the lock from the unlock at a glance.
Please have your designers study this document from W3C, "Accessibility Requirements for People with Low Vision" https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/
They needn't adopt all the recommendations in the document, but they are leaving many people behind with their design choices.

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

Here's another example of a GUI that's completely unfriendly to ppl with mild vision problems:

But making icons understandable / easy readable with the Light UI is on the agenda? E.g. cell strokes at the Table panel.

I have mild vision issues and absolutely deplore the current design trend towards "form over function" when it comes to GUI's and websites in general. There are a bunch of things in the new GUI that make it really hard for people with mild vision problems (which includes many otherwise healthy seniors) to use the product (V1 was bad enough). (In)ability to use the GUI is a make-or-break feature of a product like this. Hoping that some of the serious workflow issues had been addressed in Photo v2, I was considering a more serious trial of v2, but if other people are already complaining about the GUI, I am less inclined to slog thru the process of learning a new GUI and new program. It doesn't help that there's no option to export a document for use in v1. I'll be getting a new computer that will require a Photoshop subscription and sadly, looks like I will have to bite the bullet and pay Adobe.

Definitely need - I use Affinity for collage work and it is a giant pain to have to have to rasterize 20 layers! Even better would be the option to bring in images as pixel layers rather than have to covert them after importing.
I was however, able to create Alex_M's macro. When you move to the next, it's important to tick "one layer below" in the dialog box that pops up during macro creation. Thanks.

Styles seems like an inordinate amount of work if f I'm testing out multiple different color possibilities and going back and forth between possibilities. If there's no better way, I'm thinking I could create a temporary dummy layer masking out all but the single letter, because you can change the color of an entire block of text without highlighting. It's still a lot of work for something that should happen automatically.

I am a Photoshop user who has been using desktop Affinity Photo for several weeks and I sadly have to conclude that AP is a long way from being a Photoshop replacement. Photoshop has many ways to simply accomplish what takes multiple un-intuitive steps in AP, but the deal breaker is turning out to be that neither the app or the documentation is friendly if you have mild visual impairment. So, for example, I can use the "edit all layers" in the layers panel as kind of a way of turning off "autoselect layer," but I couldn't easily tell from the documentation what the button looked like or where it was located and in the app itself and worse, the contrast between the on/off state is so low, I can't tell if I've selected it or not. I would have a hard time recommending AP to older folks who need high contrast and are more than casual users of an image-editing program.
You are not the only folks who seem to be completely unaware of the needs of even mildly visually-impaired people (think all seniors) who use computers and I really deplore the general trend in design that seems to want to make things look "nice" instead of being functional. If I had to recommend one other GUI change besides the ability to enlarge elements of the GUI, it would be to increase the contrast between different elements.