UI designers a bit ticked at OG5

[William Van Hecke]

Hi Nick,

> I felt like saying something when I first upgraded to OG5.  I  
> absolutely abhor the interface changes.  OG4 was perfectly usable,  
> and now I feel like someone turned my world upside down, shook it a  
> little bit, and then put it back together, but not quite the same  
> way.  I'm still having trouble accomplishing basic things that I had  
> down in OG4.

Can you mention any specific tasks that have become more difficult in  
version 5, even after the adjustment period that's to be expected for  
a major upgrade? We are careful to change things only when we think  
they'll be a worthwhile improvement, but the nature of software is  
that an improvement can take a bit of relearning. If we've actually  
made certain things worse, I'd love to hear about it so we can try to  
fix the problem.

> I also have a general "feeling" that the interface is much more  
> dreary as well - the  inspector icons greying out when they're not  
> applicable is actually really disturbing to me.  I know that isn't  
> really much to work on, but the general interface just "feels"  
> clumsy and unfamiliar, and that is not something I'm used to with an  
> Omni product.

We did consciously tone down the interface from the shiny, candy-like  
Mac OS X 10.3-like buttons, to fit in better with the admittedly  
dreary Mac OS X 10.5 environment. We used iWork as our model for  
designing the new toolbar buttons, and I think they do a good job of  
being findable without being distracting. As for the inspector icons  
turning gray when they're inapplicable, that's a pretty concrete  
usability benefit, and we've been doing it since OmniGraffle 4.

If you have any specific feedback about features that are awkward to  
get at in the new version, or other usability problems, please go  
ahead and use the Send Feedback command in the Help menu. We'd be  
happy to hear your comments.

Thanks!
William Van Hecke
~User Experience Lead~
The Omni Group