Adobe Updater
Of the three auto updaters I see with some regularity, here’s my order of preference: Apple, Adobe, Microsoft with the latter two coming in distant second and thirds. I know that Adobe puts a lot of effort into usability as I met a handful of them at a training class. It’s a shame someone tasked programmers with the design for the update process. There’s no other explanation. Actually it could have been done by an intern, in which case you can’t fault the person too much.
…and when you press “Cancel…”:
Here’s what I like:
- Automatically begins downloading in the background.
- Good progress indicator telling you how much time is remaining.
Let’s examine a few of the issues:
- Unfortunately the worst issue is one you can’t see here. I’ve canceled the “Stock Photos 1.5″ update countless times. I don’t use it, I’ve never used it, and my only experience with it is it’s never-ending attempt to update. When it comes time to look for stock photos, what are the chances I’ll get over the negative feelings about “Adobe Stock Photos” and go there first?
- “Pause” and “Download only…” Options: Both are unnecessary. If, like the Apple Updater, it silently downloaded in the background when my connection was idle, you wouldn’t need “Pause” and “Download” options. Just do it and let me know when you’re done.
- “Minimize to Tray”: Adobe’s products (save perhaps for Elements and Album) aren’t generally used by computing novices and I would argue that even novices have mastered the min-max-close window controls. Adding a button for this… blows my mind. Worse yet, what’s a “Tray”? In windows, your little status icons at the bottom right side of the screen reside in something called the “System Tray”, another red flag that this was designed by a programmer.
- Inconsistent Capitalization: Buttons are title case as are the two labels above the progress indicator, whereas the two labels below are sentence case.
- Label Alignment: None of the text values are aligned, increasing processing cost.
- Too Many Cancel Options: These updates are never irrevocaby lost. I can call up the Adobe Updater at will from any of my Adobe applications. When I can “Cancel”, just cancel! Because the “…” is added to “Cancel” (by convention to indicate a prompt afterwards), “Cancel” appears off center as the ellipses have less visual weight than the lettering.
- Cancel Dialog: We know this is wholly unnecessary so I won’t belabor its many issues. The first is that if I hit “Cancel” my most likely course of action is to “Resume”? This fear of accidental clicking screams “designed by a programmer”. Give me the little “X” in the top right if I made a mistake to get here; I’ll hit ESC or close the window, just like every other dialog in the world. Second, the “Select an option” fluff text is unnecessary as there’s one thing I can do in this dialog. Third, there’s too much space; no need for such a wide dialog.
Less is more!
