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October 21, 2006
Interfaces fit the audience
Interfaces fit the audience: TechMeme has a top story now of "If You Use Photoshop, Check Out Paint.net". Holy smokes, there goes our revenue stream! No, this app's like a better MSPaint, but I think the interest shows something important. Almost everybody these days can capture digital images, like the one in the product screenshot... there's been an explosion of ability recently. Five years ago just the early adopters looked at their photos on computer, and today millions of people want to not only edit images, but also manage their photos, sequence and publish some, archive others... there's a big workflow that didn't exist five years ago. Few of these folks have the time to learn what a "gradient tool" is, much less lament its absence. The interface for such audiences is better when task-oriented, not process-oriented... instead of "first lasso-select then new layer and then" you'd just say "get rid of that glare". Check the feature comparison for Adobe Photoshop Album and Elements. The free Album Starter Edition does basic lighting adjustments, redeye removal and other editing tasks without needing to understand the sequence of processes to employ. But Album also contains basic publishing abilities (slideshows, online printing) and metadata management (tagging content, indexing). Adobe Photoshop Elements costs a nominal amount, but adds selected task-oriented creative, publishing, and metadata abilities beyond Album. My point? The procedural approach to image-editing gives great control to professionals using Adobe Photoshop, but these learning costs are too high for the everyday person who may just need to take care of their photos. The interface must conform to the audience, not the other way around -- the total workflow must fit the person, and the learning and other costs need to fit the task.
Posted by JohnDowdell at October 21, 2006 12:30 PM
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