- Posts: 236
- Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:45 pm
- Real Name: Julian Böhme
If Blackmagic wants to get more people switching from After Effects to Fusion, they seriously need to overhaul Fusion's UI and UX.
For AE users the node-based workflow alone is intimitating.
On top of that you get a UI that is very reliant on context menus in places you wouldn't expect them.
I've been using Fusion for a few years now, I read a big part of the manual, and I'm still finding out new stuff I should have known from the beginning.
And it is part of the job of a developer (or UI designer) to make the UI explorable and user-friendly.
There should be multiple ways to do an action not just the one way of right-clicking in a tiny little area on the screen to get that one feature. That's basic UI/UX knowledge.
Make features accessable via the main menu and not just via context menus.
Context menus and shortcuts are mainly used by power-users. New users will use the main menu. And Fusion doesn't have a lot of things in there.
Example 1:
And what about the fact, that you can actually create perfect circles and rectangles with the polyline tool?
As opposed to the "Ellipse" and "Rectangle" tools, you can actually edit the spline points of them!
I never knew that! And the only way to get there is to have a polyline in the viewer, right-click -> Polygon: Polyline -> Create -> Ellipse. At least add 2 buttons in the tool's controls to expose this feature.
Example 2:
I never knew I could mark in and out points when previewing loaders, using the transport control under the tool controls.
The in and out points can only be set via context menu, which is super inconvenient and bad design. There is even enough room for 2 more buttons.
Example 3:
What about the "sort" menu in the timeline editor?
All the menu items sort the timeline, apart from "Animated", which doesn't change the sorting, but filters the timeline! It even says so in the manual: "The Animated sort order is not really a sorting method at all. It is more of a filter[...]"
It's not a big thing, but it shows bad UI design. Instead you could just throw "Animated" and "Sel" into a new combo box for filtering the timeline. They are mutually exclusive. Or since it's only two elements: Make it 2 toggle buttons. And: Yes, there is more than enough space for that small additional UI element. It wouldn't hurt, but only help.
Example 4:
Guide List: Why do I have to go to the Timeline Editor or Spline Editor and right-click on that frame ribbon thing to get the Guide List?
I want the Guide List to jump between guides while watching the viewers and different node's settings.
So I have to switch to the timeline editor and back to the flow tab just to get the Guide List up.
Why isn't there a menu item "Guide List" under the "View" menu? Surely not because it's too cluttered, since there's barely anything in there.
More examples:
- Right-clicking on the "play" button to set the step size.
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to Purge Cache (This feature cannot be found anywhere else!?)
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to Re-render Current Frame
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to reload FBX Meshes
- Right-clicking on the "Audio" icon to add an audio file (COME ON! This is getting ridiculous!)
- Right-clicking on the "Audio" icon to set the audio offset
- Clicking on "Idle" in the lower right corner to get to the networks render settings.
- Setting the proxy resolution by right clicking on the "proxy" button
- The only way to scale and rotate a mask is to click "S" and "T" in the viewer.
- Give us a button to jump to the next and previous frames (that's really basic stuff).
I know there's a shortcut, but either I forget it all the time or it's not working on my german keyboard.
- Fusion in Resolve: Right-clicking on the transport controls as the only way to set High Quality, Motion Blur, Proxy, and Auto Proxy?! I only found that context menu because I knew these features were missing. No way a new user would find that. At least add a menu icon, so the user sees there's more.
There's even stuff I have learned about, and then just forgot that it's there!
And I'm sure there is so much more I haven't seen yet. You guys tell me what I missed.
How are new users supposed to pick up Fusion, if even experienced users find new stuff all the time?!
And that is not because Fusion is so deep, but because of bad UI design.
Even for me, as an experienced user, Fusion's user interface and the interaction with the software is just weird. And I have use a lot of programs! Fusion is definitely the weirdest, together with Blender. Imagine how new users must feel. They will quickly jump back into easy-to-use After Effects.
I'm not saying this to rant about Fusion, I'm saying this because I want Fusion to be successful and to increase its userbase.
I understand, that Fusion has been created as an in-house solution by artists for artists. But that was 25 years ago! Back then this User Experience was surely okay, but nowadays when you want new users to pick up your software, it's a big turn-off for new users.
The same goes for Avid's Media Composer. People rather learn Premiere, because Media Composer looks and feels out of date. I'm not saying Fusion feels out of date, but it's UI design and UX is definitely weird.
There are barely any tutorials for Fusion. The only way to learn the software is to use it and explore.
But Fusion makes it unnecessary hard to explore its features.
Remember: We are talking about people new to compositing or new to node-based compositing, coming from After Effects, an application with a simple, explorable UI and tons of tutorials.
If Blackmagic isn't helping new users with tutorials, at least improve the UI and UX to invite new users.
It's the little tings, that can turn new users off of the application.
For example: I heard about new Blender users, who couldn't figure out how to select an object, because selection is on the right mouse button.
They closed the software and stuck with their other 3D software they already knew.
And that even though Blender has TONS of tutorials, Fusion doesn't.
Blackmagic's topmost goal right now should be to make Fusion as appealing to new users as possible.
Including Fusion in Resolve was an extremely important step in that direction.
But making Fusion easier to use and learn, and more explorable and user-friendly is also important.
Especially with the lack of tutorials.
BTW: I just found the "Show Timecode" menu item. Never knew that existed! You wanna know how I found it? Because it was right there in the "View" menu, waiting to be discovered, not just in some hidden context menu. And why didn't I find it earlier? Because I got used to Fusion menu's not being very helpful to find features. Because most of the stuff is only in context menus.
For AE users the node-based workflow alone is intimitating.
On top of that you get a UI that is very reliant on context menus in places you wouldn't expect them.
I've been using Fusion for a few years now, I read a big part of the manual, and I'm still finding out new stuff I should have known from the beginning.
And it is part of the job of a developer (or UI designer) to make the UI explorable and user-friendly.
There should be multiple ways to do an action not just the one way of right-clicking in a tiny little area on the screen to get that one feature. That's basic UI/UX knowledge.
Make features accessable via the main menu and not just via context menus.
Context menus and shortcuts are mainly used by power-users. New users will use the main menu. And Fusion doesn't have a lot of things in there.
Example 1:
And what about the fact, that you can actually create perfect circles and rectangles with the polyline tool?
As opposed to the "Ellipse" and "Rectangle" tools, you can actually edit the spline points of them!
I never knew that! And the only way to get there is to have a polyline in the viewer, right-click -> Polygon: Polyline -> Create -> Ellipse. At least add 2 buttons in the tool's controls to expose this feature.
Example 2:
I never knew I could mark in and out points when previewing loaders, using the transport control under the tool controls.
The in and out points can only be set via context menu, which is super inconvenient and bad design. There is even enough room for 2 more buttons.
Example 3:
What about the "sort" menu in the timeline editor?
All the menu items sort the timeline, apart from "Animated", which doesn't change the sorting, but filters the timeline! It even says so in the manual: "The Animated sort order is not really a sorting method at all. It is more of a filter[...]"
It's not a big thing, but it shows bad UI design. Instead you could just throw "Animated" and "Sel" into a new combo box for filtering the timeline. They are mutually exclusive. Or since it's only two elements: Make it 2 toggle buttons. And: Yes, there is more than enough space for that small additional UI element. It wouldn't hurt, but only help.
Example 4:
Guide List: Why do I have to go to the Timeline Editor or Spline Editor and right-click on that frame ribbon thing to get the Guide List?
I want the Guide List to jump between guides while watching the viewers and different node's settings.
So I have to switch to the timeline editor and back to the flow tab just to get the Guide List up.
Why isn't there a menu item "Guide List" under the "View" menu? Surely not because it's too cluttered, since there's barely anything in there.
More examples:
- Right-clicking on the "play" button to set the step size.
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to Purge Cache (This feature cannot be found anywhere else!?)
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to Re-render Current Frame
- Right-clicking on the RAM label to reload FBX Meshes
- Right-clicking on the "Audio" icon to add an audio file (COME ON! This is getting ridiculous!)
- Right-clicking on the "Audio" icon to set the audio offset
- Clicking on "Idle" in the lower right corner to get to the networks render settings.
- Setting the proxy resolution by right clicking on the "proxy" button
- The only way to scale and rotate a mask is to click "S" and "T" in the viewer.
- Give us a button to jump to the next and previous frames (that's really basic stuff).
I know there's a shortcut, but either I forget it all the time or it's not working on my german keyboard.
- Fusion in Resolve: Right-clicking on the transport controls as the only way to set High Quality, Motion Blur, Proxy, and Auto Proxy?! I only found that context menu because I knew these features were missing. No way a new user would find that. At least add a menu icon, so the user sees there's more.
There's even stuff I have learned about, and then just forgot that it's there!
And I'm sure there is so much more I haven't seen yet. You guys tell me what I missed.
How are new users supposed to pick up Fusion, if even experienced users find new stuff all the time?!
And that is not because Fusion is so deep, but because of bad UI design.
Even for me, as an experienced user, Fusion's user interface and the interaction with the software is just weird. And I have use a lot of programs! Fusion is definitely the weirdest, together with Blender. Imagine how new users must feel. They will quickly jump back into easy-to-use After Effects.
I'm not saying this to rant about Fusion, I'm saying this because I want Fusion to be successful and to increase its userbase.
I understand, that Fusion has been created as an in-house solution by artists for artists. But that was 25 years ago! Back then this User Experience was surely okay, but nowadays when you want new users to pick up your software, it's a big turn-off for new users.
The same goes for Avid's Media Composer. People rather learn Premiere, because Media Composer looks and feels out of date. I'm not saying Fusion feels out of date, but it's UI design and UX is definitely weird.
There are barely any tutorials for Fusion. The only way to learn the software is to use it and explore.
But Fusion makes it unnecessary hard to explore its features.
Remember: We are talking about people new to compositing or new to node-based compositing, coming from After Effects, an application with a simple, explorable UI and tons of tutorials.
If Blackmagic isn't helping new users with tutorials, at least improve the UI and UX to invite new users.
It's the little tings, that can turn new users off of the application.
For example: I heard about new Blender users, who couldn't figure out how to select an object, because selection is on the right mouse button.
They closed the software and stuck with their other 3D software they already knew.
And that even though Blender has TONS of tutorials, Fusion doesn't.
Blackmagic's topmost goal right now should be to make Fusion as appealing to new users as possible.
Including Fusion in Resolve was an extremely important step in that direction.
But making Fusion easier to use and learn, and more explorable and user-friendly is also important.
Especially with the lack of tutorials.
BTW: I just found the "Show Timecode" menu item. Never knew that existed! You wanna know how I found it? Because it was right there in the "View" menu, waiting to be discovered, not just in some hidden context menu. And why didn't I find it earlier? Because I got used to Fusion menu's not being very helpful to find features. Because most of the stuff is only in context menus.
Last edited by julian_b on Thu May 24, 2018 12:28 pm, edited 5 times in total.