Feedback about Update 11th June 2018

[Anonymous]

Autodesk Fusion360 Team,

Every change comes with ups and downs. I always respected you and appreciate the work you do with Fusion 360 to make it "the best CAD/ CAM market." And seriously I admire that.

After the last update of the program, I could not help but feel a strange sense of lack of empathy for the common user (like everyone else) and even after years of asking upgrades to the UI/UX the currently update is, from my point of view, to the detriment of the user.

I will present to you my views on where I think Fusion360 is focusing wrong  the UI/UX:

1. 

   New blue background: After reading the post of "the why" of this blue bar, I still don’t understand what has it with refreshing at all. A basic design principle states that "a strip of dark color over a light-colored strip of the same dimensions, takes visually more space than the light-colored strip". By placing this dark background the only thing that is created is that the window seem even more narrow than before: the visual field is reduced; there is a feel of "heaviness" in the top of the window, etc. I ask you to reconsider the "blue bar" interface, as for users who use Fusion360 on screens 13 ", that bar reduces significantly the work area.

2. Line of unnecessary pixels: In order to optimize working space as far as possible in Fusion360, I wonder why you decided to further expand the thickness of the title bar, and leave unnecessary spaces like the thin blue line above the title. Virtually nobody wants to see that the taskbar has a "feeling" of fluid ... what we all want, is that Fusion360 works fluid, not closing spontaneously and in a near future, become the optimal software for professional work. After getting that, you can study how to transmit such fluency UI. Consider guys that this extra line of pixels takes a precious space for users with small screens, that all they want is to work best without distractions.
3. Giant title bar: In addition to the already said, the title bar became even larger than it was previously. Why? To force the user to purchase a 42 "screen for graphics work again without interruptions?
4. Icons not centered: Both "dedication" to add a giant blue bar and title bar icons that all the Taskbar are offset.

See the blue line below? That is the extra space which makes everything off! And why placing down a bar of another shade of gray, as no other bar has that line?

It may be a "detail" but for someone who works in a fairly small monitor each wasted pixel is a serious mistake.

5. Hide Toolbar: Previously there was the possibility to hide the Toolbar for ... wait for it ... have more space on the screen! to hide icons that are not used all day. Now that's no longer possible. I strongly ask for a reconsideration abour re-positioning the small arrow next to the user name (Number 10) so that each user can decide whether or not to see these icons in the workspace. In addition, all Toolbar’s commands can be "invoked" by Keyboard shortcuts, so ... which is the purpose of that bar anyway? You taught us to use the radial menu on right click, could teach us to use more the Keyboard Shortcuts as well.

6. Giant Environment bar: I had previously commented this in another post, but as it was never taken into account by the developers, I mention it again: The toolbar with the corresponding icons to each Environment (Model, Sculpt, Render, etc) is giant! (Or at least they look giant on a 13” screen). Please guys ... Make them smaller, or at least that fit the resolution and size of then according to the displays where Fusion360 is used.

7. Comments rebel bar: There are many things that Fusion360 UI remembers. Those customizations made by the user as "Visual Style", "Environment", are things one appreciates, as they facilitate the "focus on work rather on graphic details" ... well, there are a couple of things that doesn’t fit on that pattern. Comments bar and navigation bar (No. 9) are those rebels who NEVER disappear from the UI, even if the user hides them again and again everytime he/she opens the app again. For some, these bars are simply visual "obstacles" because they simply are not used: "Bar Comments? It is not necessary, I communicate via Slack / Whatsapp / personally with my team...." “Navigation bar? Why I need that if I am already working with my keyboard and have the visual style I want?”. Please make such bars also" remember "customizations made by the user, who all he/she wants is to work with no distractions!

8. Timeline bar very wide: As I said in point 2, each splurged pixel is a mistake for someone who uses Fusion360 on a small screen. At the top of the Timeline bar there are several lines of pixels that are unnecessarily thickening the bar and reducing the workspace. Please correct this too!

9. Already mentioned in point 7

10. Already mentioned in item 5

11. Too many colors: And finally I emphasize again the effect of the blue bar at the UI: Going from top to down we find first the Apple’s menu bar, which has its own color (white or black); then the “Application top bar”, which has also the characteristic gray color (Mac); After that we find the new blue bar and finally we find the background of the workspace which in my case is white. 4 colors are in a very small space “too much”. They distract and hinders the correct approach to the user in the work itself. Now that the Dark Mode is going to be implemented in Mac, the contrast of these colors will be even greater. I ask you guys to reconsider once again this blue bar, decrease the color transition, and focus more than anything in the user experience; particularly those working on small screens, as they are (we are) those who most suffer such changes.

Thank you so much for everything,

Rafael Mongelos Martens

Industrial Designer

[TrippyLighting]

While there certainly is a little bit of space wasted here and there, I believe the "common user" does not run CAD on a phone as opposed to a 42" screen. In general the trend is going towards larger screens, not smaller screens.

Overall I find starting a discussion about the UI based on choices of color an some wasted pixels by far the most irrelevant part of the UI.

There are much bigger UI fish to fry that has a lot less to do with appearance but usability etc.

[Anonymous]

You've obviously thought a great deal about this and I can see a lot of effort went into your post. I also have concerns about aspects of the UI but I think some of your complaints fall more into personal aesthetic preferences that may or may not be shared by others.

Why not take your ideas a step further and produce a mockup showing the result of the changes you'd like, like I did here?

[keqingsong · Accepted solution]

Hey @Anonymous, really appreciate you sharing your feedback around the UI. You've definitely got an eye for UX design, especially if you're coming from an ID background. Some of the things you've pointed out are fit and finish improvements we need to make and are already in the backlog, whereas others like the comments bar coming back even though you've hid it sounds like bug and we need to look into that.

Many of these things you mentioned are totally valid concerns, and we're definitely taking these concerns into consideration when we are designing for a better UI/UX. Some decisions were made based on technical limitations, as well as benefit-to-cost ratios. We're looking at a wide range of use cases, large and small resolutions, accessibility issues like color blindness, touch compatibility, and are trying to strike the right balance so that it works for a majority of our users. It's not going to satisfy everyone, but we hear you on your concerns!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Keqing for your reply and thank you that you have taken the time to read my last post.

I really appreciate the work you do, and hope that Fusion360 will work and satisfy the vast majority of users.

I hope that Fusion360 can resolve some of the afore mentioned problems and be one of the best CAD/CAM softwares in the world!

[Anonymous]

This idea sounds great actually. Let me see if I can do something like you idea, which I found pretty clever!

[Anonymous]

Hi @keqingsong,

Please check my new post (https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/mockup-ui-fusion360-after-update-of-11th-j...)

and let me think is something of my suggestions could be done.

Cheers,

Rafael

[Anonymous]

Hi @Anonymous,

thanks for your idea. Now I uploaded a mockup about how I think Fusion360's UI could look like

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-design-validate/mockup-ui-fusion360-after-update-of-11th-june-2018/td-p/8066541

[mavigogun]

Just ran the update on a new Fusion window while maintaining a previously running Fusion window for comparison.  Rafmongelos is right on the money: useful space is sacrificed with zero utility gain; the color contrast adds noise to a region that should not draw my attention.   Simply, the opposit of better.   Like putting sand in my previously comfortable shoes: it ain't a stone- I can still walk with it -but would very much like to take the UI off and shake the debris out.

Question: what problem were these changes aimed at addressing?

[mroek]

I agree on a lot of this, but my biggest gripe is your number 1. That heavy blue bar is really distracting, and should never have been introduced. At the very least it should have been smaller, and with a lighter color.

[mavigogun]

Hey, @keqingson-what problem were these changes aimed at addressing?  Specifically the colour and margin size changes?

[keqingsong]

Thanks to all of you for your feedback - we hear you on the your concerns and thoughts and really appreciate you taking the time to share them! The way the UI colors were wired on the backend was convoluted and made it really hard to scale if we continue to improve on existing functionality/introduce new functionality. The UI will continue to evolve to address performance issues, usability issues, and scalability issues. Rest assured, every change is based on valid feedback, research, what we can/can't do technically and time-to-delivery influencers. Nothing is done without detailed analysis of all the potential consequences. There will be trade-offs, but we are very aware of certain requirements of the UI that we absolutely need to meet.

Fusion 360 is still relatively new compared to well established CAD products, and we believe making these changes early in the game while we're still maturing sets us up better for the future. You can learn more about the direction we're going by checking out this blog post I made recently: 

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/fusion-360-fresh-new-look/

[mavigogun]

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@keqingsong wrote:

Nothing is done without detailed analysis of all the potential consequences. There will be trade-offs, but we are very aware of certain requirements of the UI that we absolutely need to meet.

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Should that be taken to mean the infringement on usable work space was considered and judged necessary- and that we should expect to be stuck with the results indefinitely?   If so, it is what it is.   That said, it would be... unfortunate were these impacts made for the sake of branding or differentiation.   The history of designers impairing application function for the sake of a 'fresh new look' is not new; suspecting as much here isn't unreasonable- even if inaccurate.

Thanks for your efforts,

Christopher

[Anonymous]

Hi @keqingsong!

About the Navigation and comments bar bug, I found a really old post from 2015 (!) were I already showed up this not pleasant behaviour.

Please share this to the Dev Team to find if is possible to fix it for a next Update.

Thanks!

Rafael

[adamwoster]

A lot of the users giving feedback are using iOS, so I will add some Windows color. (I erased my customer's name so disregard the white spot mid image.)

Combine the tabs, and upper bar for the program like my web browser does (Opera, Chrome, IE, Firefox). There is no reason to separate the program name from the tabs. Also, as previously stated. reduce waste pixels through verticaly symmetrically orienting the icons. Asymmetry here makes no sense. It would make the most sense (screen usability-wise) to hide the current data panel, save, etc... buttons in the Fusion logo of the upper left so you can use them via mouse when clicking on the Fusion logo, or access them anytime via hotkey.

Additionally, I believe there needs to be MANY more customizable hotkeys (ie, ways to automatically go back to home view, front view, start a sketch). I know you trained us on right-click, but the reality is that hands on keyboard is by far the most efficient. Simple commands via keyboard in parametric modeling have rocked since day one. Bouncing between hand drags and keystrokes slows all of us down when we're seriously modeling. That said, when I get serious, I go straight to the Python API commands (THANK YOU FOR USING PYTHON!!!)

Finally, allow the comments bar to be reduced in width independent of the feature tree. These two should not be coupled from a UI standpoint unless they are obviously coupled from a UI standpoint. When I reduce the comment width, it is not intuitive that the feature tree gets narrower also and vice versa.

Also, the green circle showing save state is not sized well, it should be the tab height like it was previously.

All in all, I like the intent; please get more focused on actual visual streamlining, this update reduces visual streamlining.

[davebYYPCU]

Yes I noticed the changes, and the first thing struck this old bloke, was scaled down articles, including the browser entries, gives more space, but made it a bit more difficult to read the labels, not such a drama,

but since the update I can't find the right spot to put the mouse, to open close the browser folders, reliably first time, so at first I though the battery died in the mouse, but then I found the repeatable works / doesn't, without moving the mouse.  The area for the button is either reduced, or just a narrow band, from NEast to SWest, as far as I can test...

all files since noticing the effect, so annoying.....

Is it just me?

[mavigogun]

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@davebYYPCU wrote:

but since the update I can't find the right spot to put the mouse, to open close the browser folders, reliably first time...

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I would go test this right now, but don't have time to clean brain off the keyboard this morning.

[Phil.E]

Hi,

Sorry for the trouble. I'm looking into this issue. It's not generally reproducible. So since several people are reporting it, I need to figure out if you all have something in common so I can find a reproducible case to debug.

Would you say this only occurs after extended modeling with a large model? Or can you reproduce it with a new empty design browser?

Are you scaling your display? (e.g. 150% scaling) What are your resolution settings?

And last, can you use the Graphics Diagnostic tool, found in the Help menu to copy and paste your graphics information in a reply here? 

Thanks and again apologies for the inconvenience.

Regards,

[mavigogun]

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@Phil.E wrote:

I'm looking into this issue. It's not generally reproducible.

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I, too, have experienced this browser selection issue- but intermittently.   When next it manifests I'll launch a second instance of Fusion and see if it occurs an empty document.

The requested diagnostics:

[GPU Information]
GPU Device: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
GPU RAM: 4096 MB
GPU Driver API: DirectX 11.0
GPU Driver Version: W\S.ystem32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvacwu.inf_amd64_31f4ef4821269ebb\nvd3dumx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\F:21.21.13.7654
GPU Driver Date: Unknown

[Graphics Effects Settings]
Anti Aliasing: Off
Ambient Occlusion: Off
Object Shadow: Off
Ground Shadow: Off
Ground Reflection: Off
Selection Display Style: Simple
Transparency Effect: Better Performance

[Limit effects to optimize performance]
On