UX should be massively updated

[Horo]

Hey there,

I've been using Affinity Photo for quite some time now, I used Photoshop before. I tried my best to align with Affinity but I always felt, that something.. was off.

Don't get me wrong, Affinity Photo is great, you can do much things it can do stuff better than Photoshop in some cases, but there is something other than It's features that just puts me off, and gives me a feeling that there is just something wrong with the programm.

I recently let my girlfriend, someone who had no experience with any type of graphics programm work with both Affinity and PS. The result kinda got stuck in my head: Affinity is just weird to use.

Basic things like filling a selection are akwardly placed in either a sub menu or on the side bar. Certain Key Bindings can't be altered (ignoring that finding certain keybindings in the options can be super frustrating), but I'm not sure if that's a bug, as another user stated that he could insert that certain keybinding (maybe got something to do with german keyboard layout / windows?). And generally working with menus is a hassle.

From my point of view, Affinity needs a major UX update, especially for first time users it feels bad to traverse, even as someone who stuck some hours into it still feels off.

This became inherintly clear to me after opening the Publisher Open Beta, as it is advertised as "leightweight" while sharing the same cluttered UI, but I guess I should also ask what others think about this, what are your experience  do you feel the learning curve is off due to certain UI/UX decisions?

[IPv6]

Disagree... AP UX much better that PS //

[Fixx]

Disagree disagreeing... PS UX is pretty good. Most operations are quite simple and straightforward. AP operations are in comparison often convoluted – convolution though sometimes help achieving some workflows which would be harder with simpler UX, sometimes it is just too many clicks to do a simple edit.

[Steps]

Coming over from Photoshop Elements to Photo I share the feeling that the UI could be easier to use. It's a bit cluttered.

For example it took me some time to find out how I can use the impainting brush on a new layer rather than working destructively on the same layer.

If you know that it's a combobox all the way right beside many other things it's not a problem, but on first contact with the UI it's hard to find compared to PSE where it is presented in an more eye-catching way.

I think Serif should hire some Usability experts that help them make it more accessible.

It now looks more like something a developer and not a trained UX expert would come up with. Devs, I really mean no offense. I'm a developer myself and I designed GUIs for years that were functional, but not really user friendly. Today we have dedicated usability experts on our team that do nothing else than research, talk to users and design GUIs. The outcome is far better now.

You can take a look at GIMP. This is how a tool looks like when developer and UI designer are the same person. You can do everything, but is it easy to use? I think it's pretty bad. Just because these are things that require different skills.

I'm certain Adobe did a lot of hallway testing and research effort to get such an easy UI. This is nothing that happens on accident.

I bet that especially for Photoshop Elements they catch non-experts all the time, watch how they use the tool and try to achieve things and if they search for functions they will ask Where did you expect it?".