Mac and Windows Users Agree: Adobe’s New UI Design Sucks
There’s quite a heated debate brewing over some of the user interface elements in Adobe’s recently released CS4 beta applications. Adobe has, at least for the betas, has elected to ignore long-established platform conventions on both Windows and Mac OS X in favor of its own user interface, which has angered many early testers.
Even Windows users — generally far less picky about UI design than their Mac brethren — are unhappy. Complaints in an Adobe forum thread seem the indicate that many people are unhappy with Adobe’s choices. One user went so far as to post a screenshot critique (the image at the top of this post) listing all the UI inconsistencies.
Another user by the name of Al Sparber sums up the thread’s common theme: “Fireworks Mac should use OS X conventions and the Windows versions should use Windows conventions. I consider the interface amateurish, overtly somber, and a very bad piece of UI design.”
Much of the complaints center around two somewhat bizarre design choices in the new Fireworks CS4 beta. First of all when you launch the application on a Mac by default it takes over your desktop and hides all your other applications, making it difficult to drag and drop files the way Mac users are accustomed to doing.
The other chief complaint is that Adobe has created its own widgets for things like the close/minimize/maximize window buttons, as well as the main menu and tabbed palettes which look out of place on any platform, Mac or Windows. Fireworks CS4 also eschews other platform standards by making all edges of the app resizing handles.
While it’s true that these main be fairly small issues for many users, these UI changes seem to be symptomatic of a trend at Adobe, which is that Adobe thinks it has better interface designs than the standards on the OS of your choice.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with that, the results are apps that look out of place and behave differently than what users are accustomed to. And in the long run that may alienate many new users.
Julie Baher, at Adobe’s Creative Suite Design Team, has responded to the forum thread writing: “as far as the OS controls… we went with a hybrid graphite-blue theme approach… I want to let you know that we are hearing you loud and clear about how you feel about that.”
Adobe’s John Nack, Senior Product Manager of Adobe Photoshop, has promised to post about these changes in the future and keep in mind that Fireworks CS4 is a beta so it may well change before the final release — especially given the number of user complaints.
If you have strong opinions on the new UI elements in Fireworks CS4 beta, be sure to let us know.
[via Daring Fireball, photo credit]
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