UI too small

[Oval]

On 3/20/2021 at 11:05 PM, ymugmike said:

Come on Affinity.

Affinity is not the name of the company that created the Affinity apps …

[Oval]

On 3/20/2021 at 10:01 PM, Alinoyan said:

one other feature that has more requests

For example: 12 pages for the free transform feature, 15 for a tracing tool, …

[thomaso]

On 3/20/2021 at 10:01 PM, Alinoyan said:

in fact I'd challenge you to show me one other feature that has more requests than the proper UI scaling.... You can't..

1 hour ago, Oval said:

For example: 12 pages for the free transform feature, 15 for a tracing tool, …

Note: The number of responses within a thread does not equal the number of requests AND some feature requests are spread over several threads.
Some more samples of frequent desire (in no specific order):

• global layers
• apub spreads with more than 2 pages
• GREP styles
• limiters for F & R (selection / frame / page …)
• span columns
• global colors in application palette
• 1-bit support for image im- & export
• XML (IDML) .afpub file format
• RTL support
• Ebub (eBook-reader) export
• finalised bug fixing before new feature development

[RalfL]

Thanks, thomaso for that extensive list. I cannot judge how important these issues are for others. For me, none of those would keep me from using Affinity products. But the UI issue does. If I cannot see what I'm doing, then it doesn't really matter what I could do if I saw something ...

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, RalfL said:

I cannot see what I'm doing

Thanks to WYSIWYG you ARE seeing what you are doing … there is a lack of comfort, "only" 😎

Unfortunately – and luckily, too? –  all feature requests, even many bugs, are more or less a matter of missing comfort, good UX feeling, and efficient workflows … while almost every can be circumvented by a workaround. Luckily?

 

[Fritz_H]

5 years later (after the original posting) and still no option to get bigger icons...

[ymugmike]

Do we think that Affinity are reading any of these posts?

[walt.farrell]

21 minutes ago, ymugmike said:

Do we think that Affinity are reading any of these posts?

They should be, but this particular topic is in the Questions forum, and for enhancement requests the team would mainly be looking in the Feedback forum, not here.

[ryobg]

47 minutes ago, ymugmike said:

Do we think that Affinity are reading any of these posts?

Do you? Literally one the previous page, before one week, there was feedback from one of the mods. 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Thanks to WYSIWYG you ARE seeing what you are doing … there is a lack of comfort, "only"

But because it is often hard to tell what feature(s) or tool are enabled in the UI, it is only after starting to do something that it is obvious what exactly it is that you are doing. IOW, it is "what you see is what you got" not what you (will) get. That is not good UX design!

[thomaso]

@R C-R, I totally agree the impression that the Affinity UI has various lacks, imho not only regarding sizes of its elements. I just literally disagreed above the ideas "show me one other feature that has more requests than the proper UI scaling.... You can't.." or "I cannot see what I'm doing". Both are closer to feelings than to facts *. The first is a statement without being proofed by the author, the second possible maybe avoided with choosing a different screen resolution (which, of cause, the author might not want)

* I am curious, why the Serif team didn't notice UI issues during first development. Were their monitors smaller? One reason might be they are younger (incl. their eyes) than many forum members? – From a github account:

 

 

[ymugmike]

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/profile/71387-waltfarrell/

Hi Walt,

Looks like somebody has previously mentioned the problem with the development team (15 March 2021) -

'Affinity apps already ship with regular and high resolution versions of all icons for normal and high def/retina displays which should be legible/clear on most common screen size/resolution combinations. I understand some configs, namely the 27inch 5K iMac or other screen size/res combinations may render them a bit smaller than usual (some users may even find them small at  27inch/4k display) and the OS is not always flexible enough to offer a proper solution without some compromises. I have raised these issues with the management/dev team. I can't say for sure if they will move forward with improvements here but they are being considered/discussed for an eventual implementation in a future version. Thanks for your feedback/understanding.'

Doesn't sound too promising does it?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

* I am curious, why the Serif team didn't notice UI issues during first development.

My (half-baked) theory is that during development they became so familiar with the appearance & function of each tool, button, & all the other UI elements that they never considered what it would be like for those who were not.

[thomaso]

@R C-R, so wouldn't they initially have started with a new, unknown UI at some point. What happened at that moments, how did they experience/feel the UI? Didn't they notice its ... as disturbing and improvable (whatever "..." had been) and keep it on its to-do list?

[R C-R]

46 minutes ago, thomaso said:

What happened at that moments, how did they experience/feel the UI?

Who knows? Maybe there was just a very simple UI to begin with, just enough to test features & functions.

[Granddaddy]

Serif seems remarkably unaware of the elements of good graphics design, product usability, and customer relations. Last year I described the Affinity Photo Workbook as a monument to poor design and inadequate proofreading. Using that book, a business school could make a case study about how to drive away customers. 

See my post at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/89394-official-affinity-publisher-desktop-tutorials/&do=findComment&comment=576285

@Patrick Connor commented: "The saga as to how it happened is barely credible (and I think may be told one day) suffice to say we got compensated."

 

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Maybe there was just a very simple UI to begin with, just enough to test features & functions.

If such worked from the beginning without causing issues – what made them change it? In my understanding the UI is a main matter of interest at certain stage(s) of development – besides testing of features and functions and regardless of before or after. So, I can't imagine what UI was used or happened exactly that Serif didn't notice the later/current user complaints about simply the visual appearance, the recognizability.

[R C-R]

Just now, thomaso said:

If such worked from the beginning without causing issues – what made them change it?

What I mean by "very simple" is almost devoid of detail or identifying characteristics, like icons that are basically just placeholder shapes (stars, cogs, dingbats, whatever). Early on, there may not even have been any way to customize anything so each tool, button, etc. was always in the same place.

[thomaso]

45 minutes ago, R C-R said:

What I mean by "very simple" is almost devoid of detail or identifying characteristics, like icons that are basically just placeholder shapes (stars, cogs, dingbats, whatever). Early on, there may not even have been any way to customize anything so each tool, button, etc. was always in the same place.

Maybe – but this would not at all have been the period where they got used to the current UI (as you assumed before) and also not the time where they discussed & judged it (which I assume happened at some stage).

[jp.rioux]

I am planning to purchase a 4k, 27 "monitor but the scaling issues are stopping me. I found this article on this for windows 10. Can anyone check if this is working?

Make Your Capture One Pro Menu Font Look Normal Again on HDPI Windows 10 Devices | by James McCarthy | Polarized | Medium

It is for Capture One Pro but the solution should be the same for Affinity Photo

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, thomaso said:

Maybe – but this would not at all have been the period where they got used to the current UI (as you assumed before) and also not the time where they discussed & judged it (which I assume happened at some stage).

I never assumed it was the current UI, just some bare bones one that might have been used in the early stages when they were sorting out the functions of the tools, buttons, & so on.

[Patrick Connor]

@Granddaddy

My comment about Affinity Photo Workbook was about the saga of the physical manufacturing process and how it wasn't straight forward, and external parties were to blame not Serif.

Please don't at me when you are talking down our products, it's like telling a musician you don't like their music to their face. You're welcome to your opinion, just don't scream it at me

[Oval]

20 hours ago, thomaso said:

Note: The number of responses within a thread does not equal the number of requests AND some feature requests are spread over several threads.

Das dürfte ja den allermeisten Mitgliedern klar sein, aber Alinoyan wollte ja ein Beispiel genannt haben und im ersten genannten Beispiel sind Seitenanzahl und Postings um den Faktor 3 höher, woraus sich überschlagen lässt, dass das Beispiel die von ihm geforderten mehr Anfragen hat. Eine wissenschaftliche Abhandlung hatte das Mitglied ja nicht gefordert.

[ymugmike]

I trust that Patrick will be taking on board the many comments about the small UI icons that cannot be adjusted. I am not technically minded, just an end user, but seeing how the open source Blender has achieved a solution to this problem, I wonder what is stopping Affinity from adopting a similar approach?

[Fritz_H]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

My (half-baked) theory is that during development they became so familiar with the appearance & function of each tool, button, & all the other UI elements that they never considered what it would be like for those who were not.

... that is exactly the reason, why analysis/evaluation by external (= independent) Usability-experts is urgently required.
(for every software-project, btw..)