Kevin Pöhl Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 I was surprised to see in the second version of Affinity Review that you guys mentioned that the next phase of improvements on Affinity Designer would be focused towards UX & UI Designers. I'm a UX & UI Designer myself, but I find very basic things in Affinity Designer missing, like the ability to layout a typical 12 column grid for instance, or smart guides even which seems left out needlessly, not even to mention artboards. These kinds of features are basic and expected. I was hoping that seeing as you guys are going up against Adobe and Sketch, what you plans are to improve in these areas. Would you shed some light on what's next for us UX & UI Designers? Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon1 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/11124-rotate-canvas-tool-for-affinity-photo/?p=61692 #rotate canvas #artboards (I know # has no purpose here but it looks kinda cool :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon1 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/14131-about-colors/?p=62631 #linked colors/ global colors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted October 21, 2015 Staff Share Posted October 21, 2015 Hi Kevin Pöhl, Welcome to Affinity Forums :) Most of the developments coming for UI/UX weren't released yet. They should become available soon in the Betas. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 22, 2015 Author Share Posted October 22, 2015 Hi MEB, any chance on sharing what is planned for UX / UI related features? Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted October 22, 2015 Staff Share Posted October 22, 2015 Hi Kevin, Have you checked Affinity Designer's roadmap? There will be improvements to grids/guides/snapping, Export persona (live preview, more flexibility to set up slices), pages/artboards plus pasteboard, symbols, text styles, multiple Effects/Fills/Strokes per shape etc. Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 22, 2015 Author Share Posted October 22, 2015 Ah awesome, thanks MEB, the roadmap looks good. There is some interesting things in there. Are you guys setting a specific release schedule? What I mean is, would you guys take a similar approach to Adobe and have feature releases every couple of months? When can we look forward to seeing these in the current roadmap implemented? Are you guys involving some industry pro's to consult on these UX & UI Design features? Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 24, 2015 Author Share Posted October 24, 2015 It would be great to get some answers from you Affinity guys about what & when you are planning to ship these features targeted at UX & UI Designers. Obviously you all know that market is pretty large right now, and that we need more than just Sketch. A few months ago I sat down with the devs from Bohemian Coding, they came to our offices to demo some latest features and to get insights into our workflows. I laid down a few things that are essential for UI Design specifically, and specifically in the areas of grid making, nested grids, bitmap tools etc. Unfortunately these guys didn't care to actually implement many of these features they came out to chat about, or even fix major bugs that were holding us back. I hope the Affinity Team will be different. Transparency is key, and the UX / UI Designer community would like to be involved. Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anon1 Posted October 24, 2015 Share Posted October 24, 2015 They don't use to give deadlines for specific features because when they miss them everybody is disappointed. But they work as hard as they can so it's available as possible. If you have any question about the things on the roadmap it might be helpful to specific them... And there is this nice feature request section were you're free to explain your ideas and request them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 26, 2015 Author Share Posted October 26, 2015 I find that straight forward transparent communication about deadlines work much better than keeping everybody guessing. In Affinity Review issue 2, there was an interview with Matt Priestley where he states and I quote "People are generally very forgiving if you're just actually honest and humble". Not answering these simple questions, or broadly just ignoring the topic of release dates is not being honest or humble. In the same interview, Matt says that they will "start looking squarely at UI/UX designers." , this was in May I believe, it is almost November now. Features like artboards & pages, grids and smart guides are pretty much the core of what UI designers need. Affinity Designer remains largely useless (for UI Design) without these. Yet I've already committed to buying this software. All I'm asking for is some insight into when we can expect these features incorporated. At least humour me with some ballpark estimates. Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VIPStephan Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 I don’t intend to be a dick, but personally, perpetual questions about when a certain feature is coming are annoying the hell out of me. And I would very much understand if the people at Serif ignore those kinds of questions because they might come across as ungrateful demanding. It will be done when it’s done. Signguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted October 26, 2015 Staff Share Posted October 26, 2015 Hi Kevin, It's not a question of honesty. It's also hard to predict when something will be ready for release. There's always bumps during development. Sometimes, some code must be rewritten or approached in a different way or even simply put on hold until something else is completed because it's tied to another feature. There may be some additional research needed or issues that weren't anticipated. So rather than pointing and force a tentative date which we may or may not meet and that eventually would lead to a subpar implementation just to meet a deadline, it's better to simply made new features available when we feel they are ready for testing/public release. Signguy 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Harris Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 We also have a lot of openness through our customer beta programme. Often you can see the state of a new feature changing as it gets developed, months before it hits the Mac App Store. Kevin Pöhl 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MattP Posted October 27, 2015 Staff Share Posted October 27, 2015 I find that straight forward transparent communication about deadlines work much better than keeping everybody guessing. In Affinity Review issue 2, there was an interview with Matt Priestley where he states and I quote "People are generally very forgiving if you're just actually honest and humble". Not answering these simple questions, or broadly just ignoring the topic of release dates is not being honest or humble. In the same interview, Matt says that they will "start looking squarely at UI/UX designers." , this was in May I believe, it is almost November now. Features like artboards & pages, grids and smart guides are pretty much the core of what UI designers need. Affinity Designer remains largely useless (for UI Design) without these. Yet I've already committed to buying this software. All I'm asking for is some insight into when we can expect these features incorporated. At least humour me with some ballpark estimates. Hi Kevin, Things may seem 'basic' from the outside, but internally they may require months of development in order to even start to see them working - and this is the case with Artboards... Sure, we could release an Illustrator-style 'rectangles in a separate list' artboard feature in a matter of days, but it's just not what you actually want and it doesn't work the way you'd like it to, so we've been making our own version and it takes a lot of engineering and thought. It's nearly done now - we're expecting it to go live in the beta version next week if all goes well :) As has been mentioned before there are very good reasons why we won't ever commit to a schedule for anything - we've seen the results of releasing software to a schedule (at any cost!) and it just means poor quality results with lots of bugs - so we will always try our best to be as quick as possible and as responsive to input as we can be - but we won't ever promise a date because it just leads to the developer stressing and implementing the first thing that appears to work - not necessarily the best version... 6 months have passed since that interview you quoted - and we're nearly there with Artboards and at the same time we've released feature and stability improvements and also a whole new product - Affinity Photo - that required all of our input, so 6 months to get to the stage where we're delivering on our promises is really not so bad at all - but I can appreciate it seems like a long time when you're waiting patiently for something :) I'd be very happy to hear your UI/UX design input or chat about other matters if you ever fancy sending me an email? I'm obviously trying to finish off the features right now so will happily consider anything you have to suggest :) And yes, we do take advice from professional UI/UX designers, but obviously each one has different requirements and preferences, so it's good to hear more opinions so we can make the most balanced feature set. Send something to support@seriflabs.com and I'll reply with my personal email :) Thanks again, Matt Kevin Pöhl, A_B_C, Patrick Connor and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 I don’t intend to be a dick, but personally, perpetual questions about when a certain feature is coming are annoying the hell out of me. And I would very much understand if the people at Serif ignore those kinds of questions because they might come across as ungrateful demanding. It will be done when it’s done. Thanks so much for your contribution! Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 Hi Kevin, It's not a question of honesty. It's also hard to predict when something will be ready for release. There's always bumps during development. Sometimes, some code must be rewritten or approached in a different way or even simply put on hold until something else is completed because it's tied to another feature. There may be some additional research needed or issues that weren't anticipated. So rather than pointing and force a tentative date which we may or may not meet and that eventually would lead to a subpar implementation just to meet a deadline, it's better to simply made new features available when we feel they are ready for testing/public release. Thanks MEB, I can understand that. Building products is hard. It is also hard for us to keep up with what's out there right now. If for example we need to wait very long for certain features, we tend to just go with what we have right now, whether that is broken somehow or not. When you buy a ton of licences for a design team, then you at least want to know what you will get and by when so that you can make informed decisions. Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 We also have a lot of openness through our customer beta programme. Often you can see the state of a new feature changing as it gets developed, months before it hits the Mac App Store. I am gonna get on that Beta right away, thanks! :) Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 Hi Kevin, Things may seem 'basic' from the outside, but internally they may require months of development in order to even start to see them working - and this is the case with Artboards... Sure, we could release an Illustrator-style 'rectangles in a separate list' artboard feature in a matter of days, but it's just not what you actually want and it doesn't work the way you'd like it to, so we've been making our own version and it takes a lot of engineering and thought. It's nearly done now - we're expecting it to go live in the beta version next week if all goes well :) As has been mentioned before there are very good reasons why we won't ever commit to a schedule for anything - we've seen the results of releasing software to a schedule (at any cost!) and it just means poor quality results with lots of bugs - so we will always try our best to be as quick as possible and as responsive to input as we can be - but we won't ever promise a date because it just leads to the developer stressing and implementing the first thing that appears to work - not necessarily the best version... 6 months have passed since that interview you quoted - and we're nearly there with Artboards and at the same time we've released feature and stability improvements and also a whole new product - Affinity Photo - that required all of our input, so 6 months to get to the stage where we're delivering on our promises is really not so bad at all - but I can appreciate it seems like a long time when you're waiting patiently for something :) I'd be very happy to hear your UI/UX design input or chat about other matters if you ever fancy sending me an email? I'm obviously trying to finish off the features right now so will happily consider anything you have to suggest :) And yes, we do take advice from professional UI/UX designers, but obviously each one has different requirements and preferences, so it's good to hear more opinions so we can make the most balanced feature set. Send something to support@seriflabs.com and I'll reply with my personal email :) Thanks again, Matt Thanks Matt! Appreciate you replying. I'm very happy to hear about Artboards going in soon :) I can understand not putting a specific date down for the reasons you mention above. What is scaring me though is that you mention having to work on Photo as part of the delay. Now I'm wondering how you guys are gonna cope with all the needed features when you still have to split the work on Photo and now the new Publisher as well. It seems like we will start waiting for features a lot longer in future. Thank you for your invite to send you an email. I do want to get involved here, so I'll get on top of it right away. Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MattP Posted October 28, 2015 Staff Share Posted October 28, 2015 ...then I'll quell your concerns and mention that I'm not likely to be involved in Publisher - it will mainly have the vector functionality that's there currently and the rest is a focus on typography, flowing text, text avoidance, text styles, pages and comprehensive input/output of your books/publications.... and I'm rubbish at text so I don't think I'd be invited to the party ;) Send me an email whenever you get time and we'll see if I can cover your use-cases :) EDIT: Oh, and Photo required work to make sure it was solid and dependable when it went out of the door at version 1.0, now that we've got a solid base, the Photo team are happily adding features to it by themselves... Designer is my thing (I'm into vectors) so it's always at the top of my list. Thanks, Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Pöhl Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 Thats awesome to hear Matt! I just dropped you a mail. Quote ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Innovation is often the product of constraint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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