I just came here to say the tool icons are 90s looking, amateurish and unintuitive.

[ennuied]

Maybe you guys need to hire a professional graphic designer.

[loukash]

What a "constructive" feedback, huh?

[ennuied]

I posted constructive feedback months ago, no one gave a F. Now I'm trying to be non—constructive. Maybe reverse psychology will be more effective?

[Jyscal]

Hectic

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, ennuied said:

no one gave a F

Of course not. Before posting feedback, you may want to read the message on forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/52-feature-requests-suggestions
Staff has read it, but they usually won't comment on feedback and feature requests.

8 minutes ago, ennuied said:

Maybe reverse psychology will be more effective?

I sincerely doubt that.

[Alfred]

31 minutes ago, ennuied said:

I posted constructive feedback months ago

Why didn’t you ‘bump’ your original thread by posting to it again? Creating a separate thread in the same topic is likely to dilute any resulting discussion.

[dominik]

1 hour ago, ennuied said:

Now I'm trying to be non—constructive. Maybe reverse psychology will be more effective?

Je suis ennuyé.

d.

[Renzatic]

4 hours ago, ennuied said:

Maybe you guys need to hire a professional graphic designer.

They look fine to me, and I'm unusually picky about this kinda stuff.

[Dan C]

@ennuied I must ask you to be mindful of the guidelines for the Affinity Forums, specifically point 1 & 2:

Quote

1. Be nice. Do not insult, harass, or "SHOUT" at anyone. Any personal criticism or attacks will immediately result in your account being suspended or removed.
2. Try not to multi-post the same issue. It really helps us and our community out if you search the forum first to see if your topic has already been covered.

We appreciate the feedback that our users have, but when posting on these forums you must respect these rules, many thanks.

[ennuied]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:55 PM, Renzatic said:

They look fine to me, and I'm unusually picky about this kinda stuff.

Fine as in intuitive? Not to me, and I'm only a moderately picky type. I've been using the app for quite some time now and I can't get used to how these tools are being represented, to me they look like some kind of Chinese characters, as in you just have got to know what they mean (even though ancient Chinese characters looked more like what they represented, but this is beside the point). To be specific the node tool is just an arrow that looks like a cursor, corner tool looks like some kind of constellation, pen tool draws lines but pencil does not, in reality both can do same function, fill tool is very strange, vector crop tool, again, looks like some alien symbol. I don't think there was enough thought put into this, it could be done so much better, more intuitive and modern.

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, ennuied said:

fill tool is very strange

What would you suggest as a better way to indicate its function?

1 hour ago, ennuied said:

vector crop tool, again, looks like some alien symbol

Any Crop Tool icon that I’ve ever seen has been just like that one or a variant of it.

[ennuied]

24 minutes ago, Alfred said:

What would you suggest as a better way to indicate its function?

Any Crop Tool icon that I’ve ever seen has been just like that one or a variant of it.

Well, as a quick example this symbol is quite universal, thus intuitive. But I would go just with a 'drop' symbol, literally, less is more.

Yes I think you're right about the crop symbol, still, photoshop 2020 it seems is using a simpler version of it, but me personally I would chose a symbol which is closer to life, maybe dotted square with scissors, which yes, would be too cluttered, but maybe it is possible to simplify it.

 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, ennuied said:

Well, as a quick example this symbol is quite universal, thus intuitive. But I would go just with a 'drop' symbol, literally, less is more.

That’s a flood fill tool, for which a paint bucket icon is fairly standard. The (gradient) fill tool in the Draw persona in Affinity Designer is a different beast altogether.

[Renzatic]

20 hours ago, ennuied said:

Fine as in intuitive? Not to me, and I'm only a moderately picky type. I've been using the app for quite some time now and I can't get used to how these tools are being represented, to me they look like some kind of Chinese characters, as in you just have got to know what they mean (even though ancient Chinese characters looked more like what they represented, but this is beside the point). To be specific the node tool is just an arrow that looks like a cursor, corner tool looks like some kind of constellation, pen tool draws lines but pencil does not, in reality both can do same function, fill tool is very strange, vector crop tool, again, looks like some alien symbol. I don't think there was enough thought put into this, it could be done so much better, more intuitive and modern.

Designer's icons are following the same basic paradigm defined by Adobe Illustrator way back when. Just like Illustrator, they're not immediately intuitive to the point that any newbie can roll in and start using the program after staring at it for 2 seconds, but they're easy to spot once you know what they all do.

I mean, look at Illustrator's width tool icon. It makes sense once you know what the width tool does, but at a casual glance, it looks like a one-eyed ghost trying to pick a fight with you.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

Designer's following the same basic paradigm defined by Adobe Illustrator way back when…

I fear this may be much of the problem. Despite the dark, modern looking interface, the Affinity apps actually feel rather dated in both their iconography, but also their overall UX; with all of the panels/studios and often arbitrary feeling 'modes/personnas'. More and more application teams today are simplifying their user experiences and visual languages—making the user interface serve the user by presenting them with the tools and properties they most likely need at that moment, rather than having the user frantically open and close numerous panels, menus and modes trying to remember where the various tools and properties they need are. There's an argument that power users prefer meticulously arranging panels to set up their workspace 'just so', but more and more we're finding most users are happy to let the application present tools and properties as required.

As for the icons… they are always problematic. Some folks will love 'em, others will hate them. In so long as they clearly communicate what they do, and are instantly recognizable from other icons within the application I don't see a problem. That said, I'm never really gotten the transparency or gradient icons in designer, and it always takes me a second to remember which ones they are—especially if (like me) you prefer the monochrome icons setting. Colour icons, especially those that are less abstract and more literal often have a way of looking dated and garish as fashion changes—when they're very small even more so.

[Renzatic]

28 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

I fear this may be much of the problem. Despite the dark, modern looking interface, the Affinity apps actually feel rather dated in both their iconography, but also their overall UX; with all of the panels/studios and often arbitrary feeling 'modes/personnas'.

I'd say this is due to Serif's strategy to combating Adobe, the yee olde entrenched industry standard. They set out to make a better, more affordable Photoshop and Illustrator, and for good and ill, they've succeeded. We now have these nice alternatives that fit like an old glove for those who have used the aforementioned apps, but are just as dense and unfriendly to the newbies.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

We now have these nice alternatives that fit like an old glove for those who have used the aforementioned apps, but are just as dense and unfriendly to the newbies.

I'm not entirely sure these gloves are what many seasoned folks are looking for today. Most professionals are always looking for new ways to improve their workflows with new tools and techniques, which enable them to take their work in new directions. Many 'pros' who were more than familiar with Illustrator and Photoshop gleefully jumped to Procreate, Sketch and Figma when it was clear that these new tools enabled them to do things that were either impossible, or incredibly difficult using their existing other tools. One thing I often hear from folks who make the switch to 'simpler' tools is how much they enjoy using them, and that their work has become fun again. 

[R.I.P. Affinity 26.03.2024]

I'd change Fill Tool [G] icon, cuz it looks bad for me and it was hard to understand what this is, especially using monochrome icons.

Something like this would be fine, I guess. I love Transparency [Y] icon.

[Wosven]

I don't mind the icons, I use the black & white ones, keep the colored ones for the regular app I also keep in English for screenshots.

The difficult icons are the small ones  in the context toolbar with the node tool.

For the other I use daily, I choose them with the appropriate one character shortcut.

The more important is for icons and translation terms to stay in the general scope used by other apps, since we use different apps everyday. No need for an app to create its own "language" -- visually and vocabulary -- for tools that already exist. No need to "réinventer la roue", as we comonly say in French.

 

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, Wosven said:

No need to "réinventer la roue", as we comonly say in French.

Or ‘reinvent the wheel’, as we commonly say in English. 

[R.I.P. Affinity 26.03.2024]

3 hours ago, Alfred said:

Or ‘reinvent the wheel’, as we commonly say in English. 

🤔 But...

[Wosven]

But... Materials are different and modernized, but principle is the same: round shape, on an axis.

[Guest]

There comes a point where you do have to ask yourself whether or not you actually need wheels though.

[ennuied]