Hey Adobe... Why no startup screen for Photoshop CS4? And about those interfaces...

Question

Hey Adobe..
Kind of like the startup screens available on everything in CS4 Premium but Photoshop. Why not on Photoshop? I think it's pretty handy with the links and recent items lists..
And ( maybe a little whiny here as I have been battling the flu for days now :) is it just me, or does anyone else think the new interfaces look, well, have to be honest, kinda flat, clunky and graceless? I mean, sure they work ok with lots of bells and whistles, but honestly, they look like some stripped down old shareware program interface. Pretty humble for design software. Like paying a premium price for a new Corvette where the only available paint color is primer grey. Maybe somebody oughta offer skins :)
Mike

Answer 1

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"As far as work flow, rather than distracting, it's certainly easier and more functional to be able to locate something quickly with some color or design clues rather than search for something specific in a group of flat black text and links and icons on a sea of featureless grey."
Here's something you may not have ever consciously considered, Mike, though I'll bet you know it intrinsically:
Despite the fact that color and value can be an eye attractant, much of what makes for smooth, almost unconscious workflow is
far more
dependent upon consistency of position than the distinctiveness of color, value, icons or text labels. This isn't just some UI philosophy I'm making up; smarter people than Iand entire institutionshave made deeply detailed studies of this.
Two things you can experiment with that will help you notice what I'm talking about (if you've somehow never noticed it before):
Test 1:
Are there bookmarks or folders full of bookmarks in your browser windows' bookmarks bar that have been in the same place for a long time? Take a minute or two and rearrange them. Maybe add an empty dummy folder or two to the left side of your bookmarks bar. Leave them that way for a few days, so that you kind of forget you rearranged them. I'll bet you'll find that when you move to click on a bookmark you use somewhat regularly, your hand will unconsciously start to move your cursor to where it
used
to be. I'll bet it takes upwards of a dozen or more instances of traveling to the bookmarks' new location before your brain re-naturalizes to subconsciously finding that bookmark in its new position. This is because it's easier for our brains to process a location, rather than having to read and interpret a text label every time it wants to perform a function like this.
Test 2:
Like most of us, I'm sure you have your Palettes/Panels in different applications set just the way you like them. And if you've dug into the app, you've saved that Workspace set-up so you can return things to where you like them in the event of a reformat, or reinstall, or preferences re-set.
Go ahead and move all your Panels/Palette to significantly different positions. Save this workspace, and use it exclusively for a few days instead of the set up you're used to. And again, give it a day or three, so you kind of forget you rearranged your workspace. Your brain will find it a bit of a struggle to negotiate the app's tools and functions because now you're forcing it to constantly hunt for and make a new interpretation about where everything is located. To do that, your eys first have to scan and hunt for the icon or text label of the tool or function you want to use. Then it has to interpret that visual signal that then tells your voluntary motor control "Oh, that's where it is, that's what it is, let's move our hand so the mouse cursor goes there."
That "sea-of-featureleless-gray-with-black-text," as you call it, serves a very important function precisely because of its unobtrusiveness. It gets the heck out of the way and allows your eyeballs and the analytical part of your brain room to focus on the
real
task at hand, that is: To make the best adjustments you can to the image you're working on. And that's not even mentioning the fact that a bright or colored interface can significantly skew your interpretation of color and value (because of the brain & retina's persistence of vision effect) where it really matters: In the image you're working on.
The interface may look different, but give yourself and your (almost)autonomic motor control some honest time to get used to it. As long as you set-up your workspace to suit your needs, I'm willing to bet that soon enough you won't even have to think about looking for differentiating color or reading text labels on a tool...you'll just navigate where you need to, almost without thinking about it.