New UI
I just updated Fusion for the first time in a few weeks and I am disappointed by this new direction in design. That color screams 1995, and the irony of announcing it like it's something to be proud of is both a credit to your company as serious engineers, and also speaks to a desperate need to hire some better designers.
That's the title bar for Firefox in Windows 10. Just look at it.
- User configurable
- No dead space
- Hideable
- Note the lack of additional color. It's a canvas, not a showpiece.
Where to even begin?
- That color. Even if I loved that color, what design has a single block of isolated color? It's not repeated anywhere, it has no compliment, it just isn't needed. It's an awkward block of 1990's glory mixed in with the 3 well-chosen shades of grey used to highlight and control the elements of the UIX. Why?
- The waste of space above the tabs. No professional, and I'm willing to stake everything I own on this, is going to agree that you should spend extra pixels simply to show how "tabby" your tab is. (It's not even an unknown area of UIX, just look at the evolution of tabs in browsers.)
- You still have a dead titlebar. It's the first thing everyone sees and it's shamefully amateur. (It's the solid block of white above the 1990 blue in above screenshot)
- I'm glad your icons are finally an adequate resolution to not look like pixel art on a HiDPI screen, but you made all of these poor designs with fixed sizes. Switching between my 4K and 1K screen, the bars are the same physical size. (Maybe not what everyone wants, but I use a HiDPI screen to see more, not for pretty)
- The top bar should go. Who still uses any of these shortcuts? The only unique button that must be kept is the show/hide data panel, the rest is just another appalling waste of space. (Job status, notifications, undo/redo, save, open, options, help. Who doesn't know the shortcuts for what they need by now?)
This is a private account separate from my main work account, and I've been quietly familiarizing myself with F360 before moving more of my team / investing. Overall I've been highly impressed, with F360 being the best CAD software for 3D printing and tackling the fringe cases we encounter everyday.
You also had one of the best designs in the CAD environment. Similar to Chrome, it was clean, efficient, and just got out of your way. The only CAD software I could show to a designer, or any non-engineer, and they weren't instantly confused. I know none of your users seem to take issue with your new design but I humbly beg you to reconsider. Knowing the average engineer, they just don't care, but all you need to do is add a toggle to enable this change, and watch the usage metrics to see what people really want.
In summary:
- Your new design is dated, and your pride is misplaced
- You're not in beta anymore, how about some UIX choices
- Not using the titlebar in W10 is sloppy
- This cannot be understated, you're not a UIX leader, stop reinventing the wheel.