Model Builder - last weeks update
Hi, Broken Record here.
I am disappointed with the design team. It's all fine and good to make something prettier but why are aesthetics prioritised over function in a tool that is used to swing money around?
We use Pro to make money, save money, distribute money, create money. I would hazard a guess the majority of users are employed by the public sector (your tax dollars are spent in every pause, hiccup, bug, user-searching-for-tool, etc), followed by national or multinational entities. Not trying to be trite but to achieve anything these days, you have influence or manage budgets, and GIS is a critical tool in that space.
Intuitive design means that new and old users can interpret, use, and be efficient with a tool without needing a lot of training. Part of that is being able to see what's going on at a glance, without needing to look 'hard' (technical term....) at something to figure out status or intent.
So many things in Pro (and AGOL for that matter) are in pastels & shades, with barely a hint of change to indicate status. Some choices in AGOL are particularly confusing with faint shades for a selected layer and a prominent outline when it is not selected. My design brain does not compute that.
With large monitors pretty common these days, visual blindspots (think of find the black dot optical illusion) are more of an issue and having clear, high contrast visual design cues are more important than ever.
ModelBuilder can be an extremely effective yet complex tool. Using pastels and light shades that just mush together when you zoom out is not cool or fresh. If that is what the focus group picked, the wrong questions were asked.
My gut says people want to use ModelBuilder to be more efficient. Please Esri, let them achieve that goal.
Oh, and with everything changed to look nice, why does the P still stick out on the corner to indicate a parameter?
I can think of a few aesthetically pleasing yet functional ways to show the same.
