The (un)Usability of Photoshop
The following is a reflection piece for UX Academy
When I enrolled in DesignLab’s Design 101 course, I almost dropped out before it even started. The reason? Photoshop. As I was working through the pre-course exercises to get familiarized with my design tool of choice (not much of a choice, as without a Mac my options were limited), I became so frustrated with the program I nearly threw my laptop out the window on multiple occasions. To be fair, Photoshop was never intended to be a web design or UX design tool. It was created for photographers, and slowly became more bloated and more unwieldy as Adobe piled on more and more features. Nevertheless, Photoshop remains an industry standard with its powerful and limitless capabilities.
Learnability
There is a steep learning curve to Photoshop. Getting acclimated to the layers environment takes some getting used to, as it’s unlike any other program I had ever used before. While learning the most basic tools is simple, good luck finding them quickly. There are 67 tools in the toolbar. And they’re all represented by tiny icons, and the icons themselves aren’t self-explanatory unless you’re familiar with traditional design tools. Additionally, some of those icons are nested inside of others like an endless Matryoshka doll of design insanity.
Luckily, Adobe does give the user some clues with visibility and feedback. Hovering over the tool tells the user its name and keyboard shortcut. The layer that is currently active will be highlighted in the layers panel. And once you click on a tool, the cursor will become that tool icon, letting the user know it’s activated.
There’s also a wealth of documentation, help forums, and Youtube walkthroughs for Adobe products, although I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing, or a sign of just how un-intuitive Photoshop is. Adobe provides their own short tutorials and user guides, but unfortunately with the constant updates to their programs, some of the tutorials are out of date.
Efficiency
It takes time to get comfortable in the Photoshop environment, but I’ve noticed that as I get more familiar, my work becomes faster and faster. After discovering some key tips and tricks (for instance, always uncheck the layer auto-select feature), I’ve found that Photoshop is extremely flexible. Photoshop also allows for all sorts of customization. If the layers thumbnails are too small, you can make them bigger. You can hide unused tools, and save a library of swatches, textures, and fonts for easy access.
Memorability
With customizable features like the Library, Photoshop helps ease the memory load on the user. And once you experiment with some of the tools, you are able to quickly identify their use based on icon recognition. Unfortunately, because Photoshop is so robust, it’s impossible for every option or action to be shown all at once. I’ve spent more than a few hours looking through endless dropdown menus searching for a feature or tool, only to eventually give up and google the question.
Errors
Lucky for me, there’s nothing you can do in Photoshop that can’t be undone. Sure, you may have to reset all your preferences to default in order to figure out just what panel exactly you accidentally deleted, but with a limitless Undo tool, you can always retrace your steps and avoid mistakes.
Accessibility
Given my own struggle learning Photoshop, I can’t imagine that it’s any easier for those with disabilities. The icons are miniscule, which means those who have difficulty with fine motor control would have a tough time clicking on the tool they want to select with accuracy. For those with visual impairments, the dark, low-contrast color palette would make it difficult to navigate. And lastly, Photoshop isn’t cheap. However, they do offer an affordable $10 monthly subscription, which suits my simple UX needs just fine.
Satisfaction
Overall, I have a love-hate relationship with Photoshop. It’s bloated, but also extraordinarily powerful. It’s not intuitive, but it remains an industry standard. The learning curve is steep, but it will make learning any other program, like Sketch, a breeze in comparison. While I don’t particularly like Photoshop, I have no doubt that becoming comfortable with it will serve me well in the long run.
