1. Content-Aware Patch
2. Faster rendering with Liquify and Puppet Warp
3. Some UI improvements
4. Blur Gallery
5. Improved Crop tool
6. Video creation
7. Migration/Sharing thing
8. Adaptive Wide Angle
9. Background Save
10. Auto-recovery
11. Improved auto-corrections
12. Content Aware Move
13. Skin tone aware masking
14. Erodable brushes
15. Layer search
16. vector layers
17. Lighting effects gallery
18. more…

My Persona:  I am not a full time graphics designer.  I use Photoshop a few times a year.  However, I am pretty proficient doing the basics.  Mainly, I am manipulating a photo or possibly doing some web production design work.  The reason I upgraded was that I needed to do some production work this week and I figured I would try the new version.

Generally, I LOVE new software.  I want to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade.  I never downgrade.  Until now.  I literally went back to CS5 after 2 days of CS6.  Here are the main reasons:

No compelling feature
There wasn’t anything I said, “I have to have that!”.  This is usually not that big of a deal, maybe I will want that stuff later.  However, because there wasn’t anything that changed the game for me, I could go back.  I realized how to change the colors back, from black to gray.  The black was actually straining my eyes after a little while.  This was the least of the issues.

Slower,  Alot Slower
This was the primary deal-breaker.  It literally pulled my system to a crawl.  I have a Windows 7 (32-bit) desktop with 4G of ram.  The CPU is a Intent Core 2 Duo @3GHz.  This is not the latest greatest machine, but it should run Photoshop on basic files, shouldn’t it?  CS5 runs fine, I have no idea why this got so slow.  Speed is a feature.  I want it to launch quickly, open files quickly, switch between layers quickly.  At one point, I tried to move a folder with alot of layers in it.  It took 20 seconds to nudge 10 pixels.  In CS5, it happened almost right away.

Crashes
In addition to being slow, Photoshop crashed twice in 2 days.  In addition to crashing, the last saved “recoverable” version was OLDER than the version I had actually saved.  I don’t get this at all.  Is it not saving a “recoverable” when I actually save to disk?  Bizarre! So this is actually two problems: Auto-save doesn’t save when I do a full save and the fact that it crashed at all.  This tipped me over the edge.

Summary
I will eventually upgrade again, I can’t help myself.  However, I am going to wait 6 months and let them patch a bunch of bugs and optimize the speed.  As a low-end user, I don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles.  Truthfully, Photoshop was a “finished” product a long time ago.  More features doesn’t excite me.  Speed is what I want at this point.

It’s interesting to think about products that have reached a high degree of maturity.  Like almost all of Intuit, Microsoft and Adobe’s products fall into this category.  There is something depressing about a mature product.  There isn’t much room for innovation and creativity.  I am trying to think of a product that was mature and then revolutionized itself.  Maybe MacOS 9 to MacOS X?

Anyway, that’s my review of PS CS6.  It needs performance and bug fixes.

However sometimes, like this week, I literally ran through all of the people I would delegate to and had to dive in and do the work myself.  In this case, it was Photoshop production work.  This puts a major cramp in my style because I need to spend all my time at my desk instead of interacting with a broad set of people.  Making things with quality takes time and energy.  It’s hard to do this and go to meetings at the same time.

In some ways it is very fulfilling.  In others, it was highly frustrating.  This may help illustrate:

I don’t need things to be perfect, although that is exactly what I strive for.  I can get pretty happy with about 85% quality.  This means 1 out of about 5 things are messed up.  Pretty high rate.  However, I find that when I am doing the work myself that want to spend the time to bump up the quality to 90%+.  When it’s someone else, I think I hold them to a lesser standard.

The frustrating part is that I know I am not spending the time to “do it right”.  I know what it is supposed to be like but just do not have the time.  Not sure where that leaves me.

On a related note: I downloaded and started using Photoshop CS6.  I really don’t see anything that makes me go “oooooh, ahhhhhhh”.  It is lame.

Product Marketing has the role of translating specific product features into more outbound messages.  They create messaging “marchitectures” (It’s a play on words, get it?) and frameworks where all of the features support a grander vision of the company story.  Great product marketing creates a narrative that puts the sales and marketing departments in a place to beat the competition.

It’s incredibly specialized and difficult work, when done properly.  A great story doesn’t come from thin air.  The “turn of the phrase” is a key skill that makes all the difference in the world.  It’s almost like writing lyrics for a song.  Coming up with that perfect phrase, the perfect rhyme, the perfect idea will make the difference between a hit and a dud.

Recently, I have been watching Mad Men.  Don Draper is the classic genius at product marketing and advertising.  He wants to control the conversation through messaging and storytelling.  When a company can control the conversation, they will win.  In fact, it’s not just a company that does this.  Politicians whole careers are based on their ability to control the conversation.

The turn of the phrase is so important.  I make the same wish every year over some issue, but I will make it one more time.  I wish our education system had REQUIRED classes on things that really matter.  Like:

1. Public Speaking and making compelling presentations
2. Managing a bank account
3. Creative problem solving
4. Business writing (like emails and memos)
5. Business Storytelling
6. Mentoring / Managing
7. Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Access)

I’ll make the wish again next year.  When you hear a good way of putting something, think about the elegance of it and how you can use it.  A good phrase is worth a thousand bullet points.

What is the point of a photo like this?  What does the photographer think they are accomplishing?  Couldn’t we live in a world where the photographer took candid photos of each kid in class?

Something like this makes me infinitely happier.

He looks normal here.  The other one, he looks like a psychopath.  Maybe not oo much UX in here.  Candids are better than staged photos.  How’s that?

I asked a candidate to look at a table we eating at in a restaurant.  I asked him, “What do you see that could be improved?”  He said, “Nothing.”  Bad answer.  His dial was up to about 3, not 11.

There were tons of issues to be improved including (but not limited to)

1. Napkins weren’t folded neatly
2. Utensils were crooked
3. Table actually rocked slightly if you leaned on it
4. Salt was not full
5. Scratches

To be great at UX you need to obsess about the details.  You need to see every tiny flaw and think “How would a world-class awesome version of this look?”  In a fancy expensive restaurant, you bet your ass they line up the fork and knife and fill the salt shaker.

When I look at a User Interface, I imagine myself as an extremely impatient, distracted and nit-picky user.  The worst case scenario.  Then all of the sudden, little annoyances that are really fine look like glaring screwups.  It doesn’t mean you need to fix every single thing before you ship, but you should strive for excellence.  I am proud if I can ship 70-80 of what I consider perfect.

Look around you right now.  If you had a staff of world-class people making everything perfect, where would they start, what would they do?  Could you do any of that?

What about your product or service?  If it was perfect, what would you change first?

My whole team (5 designers) use Macs.  They all have MacBook Pro laptops.  The tools we use are:

1. MS PowerPoint for storyboarding designs
2. MS Outlook for corporate email
3. Adobe CS5
4. Chrome/Firefox
1. Jira (Bug Tracker)
2. Wiki
3. Google Docs
5. MS Excel (rarely)

I truthfully have no idea why they use a Mac.  I am the only one who doesn’t.

Hardware
My Samsung Series 9 is lighter, sexier and faster than their MacBooks.  It has a solid state hard drive, lots of ram and a fast processor.  It doesn’t get hot.  It’s much lighter and truthfully, no one with a brain can say the MacBook Pro is sexier.  The series 9 is gorgeous.  It looks unique and is super strong. No scratched or dents even though I drop it often.  The only complaint I have is that the AC plug is cooler on the Mac, with it’s neat magnetic design.

PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook
There is no comparison; these are BETTER on Windows.  Seriously, Outlook on the Mac is way behind.  PowerPoint is much easier and more powerful on the PC.  I know some Mac users who run a virtual machine just so they can use the Windows version of MS Office.  Many plugins like SFDC for Outlook only work on the Windows, so basically the Mac versions are second-class citizens.

Adobe CS5
This is the same on both platforms.   Both work just fine.  I am excited to see CS6.  I think it comes out next month.

Everything in a Browser
Who cares?  They both work exactly the same.  I could be using Linux.  It doesn’t matter.  Chrome is chrome. Firefox is Firefox.  Oh but wait…What if you need to use Outlook Web Access?  Or if you want to use Microsoft Dynamics.  OWA works MUCH better with Internet Explorer and Dynamics is ONLY supported using IE.  You might say that is a mistake for them, but it is the way it is.  You can’t use IE on the Mac.  Personally, I hardly ever use IE, EXCEPT for when I am trying Dynamics or using OWA.  This is the thing, I need it once in a while.

Summary
I actually bought a Mac Mini for the house.  Specifically, I wanted to use Garage Band.  However, for work, there really is no reason I can see to use a Mac.  The PC is wildly superior for the programs I use.  Windows 7 works great. It works with everything.  I just don’t understand why the rest of my team sees it the other way.  I think they are succumbing to peer pressure from the engineering team.

Engineering
They all switched.  For them, I think this makes sense.  They are running PHP and mySQL.  This runs faster on the Mac.  So for them, logical.  For the design team…I don’t get it.

Comments
Feel free to comment, HOWEVER, please don’t say, “I use this other software and that’s why I use Mac.”  We don’t use that software.  All I am saying is that if you use the software I listed above, there is very little incentive to use Mac.

This week is a big change week for me.  Lot’s of things I had gotten used to are changing, especially at work.  New people are coming in and old people are leaving.  How will the new people be?  Will I miss the old people?  Or will I get used to them being gone in just a few weeks?

New people have optimism and energy and no baggage.  Old people had rapport and experience and institutional knowledge.  You very rarely get people with both.  Change creates a wide variety of emotions in people.  They go through the 5 stages of grief. (Kübler-Ross model)

1. Denial — “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
2. Anger — “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; ‘”Who is to blame?”
3. Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
4. Depression — “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die soon so what’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?”
5. Acceptance — “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

It’s interesting to me that change and grief go so hand-in-hand.  When you change part of your software or service, do people not go through these stages?  I think they do.  Right now, I am in the depression phase.  Am I really dealing with change? or with grief?  Am I sad to see people go?  Possibly.  It seems highly intertwined.

As always, it is important (in the craft of UX) to always be thinking about how something feels and how it makes others feel.  This is one that I want to keep an eye on.

1. My clothes don’t fit well.
2. The material was poor quality.
3. I didn’t look good.
4. I wanted to look nicer.

I really didn’t know where to start.  I didn’t have much fashion sense.  I found Trunk Club, which seemed compelling.  They do a skype with you and a consultant and send you a truck of clothes.  You keep what you want and send the rest back.  For some reason though, I never followed through with it.

Then a co-worker volunteered to go with me to the Stanford Mall and shop.  She had good fashion sense, so we gave it a go.  We went to Nordstroms and Macy’s.  I basically was a mannequin, but I did my job well.  I didn’t get impatient or frustrated.  This is impressive (to me) because it was a 5 hour marathon.

In the end, I spent about $2,000 on clothes which should last me (hopefully) a year.  Although I heard I might need to do it a little more frequently.  The clothes fit.  They are made of better materials.  I look good.  When I got back, I put my old clothes in a box for Goodwill.

OK, here is the UX part.  I feel so much better when I walk around.  I feel better when I see myself in the mirror.  My chest sticks out a little further.  My mind does not get distracted with thoughts of how I look.  I just feel more confident.

I didn’t expect this.  Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how the new clothes would affect me.  The end result for me was an significant change for the better.  I don’t think I am ready to shop for myself, but having the new clothes has been great.  This has been the first time in my life that I have done this.  Call it a mid-life crisis, but it seemed to work.  Also, it was cheaper than buying a sports car.

Press Enter to Exit.  It’s like Windows 95-Windows Vista: Press Start to Shut Down.

I don’t ask alot.  Just make sense.  They had buttons for Yes and No on the pad.  Why not say, “Exit Now? Press Yes”.  Bad Designer…bad!