Simplified Affinity Photo UI / UX?

[tariq]

I love Affinity Designer and I'm really pleased that both Designer and Photo are starting to provide stiff competition to Adobe.

 

In my many years I've used a range of tools .. from xfig (!) .. through to CorelDraw! ... Inkscape .. Google Drawing ... Adobe Illustrator ... Gimp .. Lightzone ... Photoshop ... etc etc

 

I think Designer's UI works well. Some bits need a new way of working and thinking but once you've invested in the effort to overcome them .. you can see the reason why it is a better way.

 

BUT

 

I don't have the same feelings with Affinity Photo .. the UX is overcomplicated .. too much of the screen is taken by the pre-set tools which also seem to behave in counter-intuitive ways .. They also hang around with the last used settings (which may have been regretted experiments) .. and it isn't clear how to undo them or re-layer them in the stack of applied filters ...

 

Inconsistencies also around where to locate filters .. some are in the fliers menu .. others in the 'apply layer' .. 

 

Has user research and testing been done with the Photo UI?

 

I would love the next Affinity Photo (2.x?) to have a redesigned UI ... I would pay again for that .. 

 

Am I the only one who dislikes the Photo UI and UX .. despite putting some effort in?

[R C-R]

I do not understand what you mean by "too much of the screen is taken by the pre-set tools which also seem to behave in counter-intuitive ways." Which tools are you talking about, the items on the Tools panel, something in the Studio panels, something else?

 

Regarding undo, there are multiple ways to do that, including the familiar CMD+Z (or Windows equivalent), the history panel, snapshots, & the undo brush.

 

Regarding filters, typically destructive ones that have user adjustable parameters have "Apply" & "Cancel" buttons in their windows (so users can cancel destructive ones without applying them) & their windows are dismissed because they are destructive, "one-shot" actions. Non-destructive ones (live filters) do not have those buttons, since even after they have been applied they can be modified or deleted at any time. It may not seem entirely consistent or logical at first but, at least for me, it is one of those workflow oriented features that I now appreciate very much.