The CS80 panel UX.
1. The text labels on parameters do not render clearly, and even in larger resized windows they are very difficult to read. They are less clear than v2. Font needs to be crisper/clearer/more legible. Needs to render clearly even when small.
2. Not much contrast between the background colour and the font colour, makes labels harder to read. Perhaps darker panel, brighter font colour?
3. The parameter value is no longer displayed next to the control you are editing, it's now at the bottom window, which forces you to jump to the bottom of screen and back. In larger resized windows you sometimes lose the bottom of the app window frame off screen, and so the value is not visible. My preference is to have the value appear near the mouse arrow (like v2, or like XFER Serum). If this is no longer feasible, make the value appear at the top of the app window frame as that's always visible.
4. Not enough contrast between push button states 'up' and 'down' e.g. ribbon 'pitch', 'midi sync' buttons. Would be good to have more visual feedback the button is 'down'.
5. Same as '4' for black rocker waveform switches. Not enough visual feedback to indicate states up, down, or midway.
6. VCO,VCF and VCA parameter/slider text labels in v2 took up entire width of slider size i.e. 'HIGH' was the width of slider. In v3, the slider labels are now way smaller in comparison i.e. 'HIGH' is slimmer than the slider.
You could make each slider label/text larger width wise considering you have about 25% more horizontal room now. Touch Response labels use a different, large sized font than the rest (Brill, Level). Perhaps all values could use this size?
Panel 'Look and Feel'. These are totally subjective..
7. Some slider knobs are not aligned in centre, while some are e.g. channel I VCF sliders for AL, A, D, S and R. Actually, it looks like those sliders' slots in the panel are out of whack. Looks unfinished.
8. Ribbon controller texture looks like no-dimensional rubber, not like the real world velvety thing. V2's looks better.
9. I get the super authentic look (beaten up) you're going for, but i'd prefer mine to look like 'Brand New Ultra Clean CS80'. Nice to have would be a selection of panel textures maybe?
10. It looks brown. Brown is the colour of sadness, decay. That may be authentic, but it's ....ugh. I prefer the v2 dark steel blue grey charcoal...
New style Application window UX
11. No indication if modulation is being used unless you open up the multi mode hatch. Would be nice if this was indicated without needing to look under hatch i.e. on a window bar?
12. Multi mode is indicated at the bottom of the application window (unless you open multi mode hatch) but in larger resizes the bottom goes off screen, and therefore cannot be seen. Nice if this indication was at the top of the app window, always visible.
13. Any bottom window bar info (parameter value, multi mode, midi ch ) is very hard to read, not enough contrast between text and background.i.e. just not clearly visible.
Top window preset browser UX
14. Font is difficult to read at 100% e.g. 'a' looks like 'o', impossible at 60%. With all that new space devoted to label text areas, the text is scrunched up in the middle of the text area.
15. When a preset is selected, the right hand side shows features/meta data. There are drop down arrows left of the values, which only seem to do something when in User patch editing mode. They are visible for factory patches and template patch meta data yet they do nothing when clicked. ideally you would not offer these drop downs if the user cannot use them e.g.grey them out or similar when not applicable.
16. When saving a patch in 'save as' and selecting the existing text to overwrite e.g. 'name' 'author' etc, the selected text disappears, meaning, when you select the text, the selection becomes a totally opaque blue blob. I have not ever seen this convention before. Would be more user friendly to highlight the selected text yet keep the text visible.
Multi Hatch - Multi mode UX
17. Circular pots are hard to see with only half the annulus width (the outside of the ring) changing colour, and not much contrast between value and background.
18. Circular pot value is displayed at the bottom of window, which may not be visible in larger resizes. Would be good if value appeared near mouse arrow, or if no longer feasible, at top (always visible) window bar.
19. The zone drop down is in French 'Affecte_Voie1'.
20. Legend font hard to read. Values font as above for preset browser.
Multi Hatch - Modulation UX
21.Same font/text contrast and visibility as above.
New Application Window look and feel (preset browser, info bars, settings etc)
These are totally subjective..
It feels clunky, and looks like it was done without much visual or UX design input. The font sizes are inconsistent depending on the field, the highlighting is inconsistent depending on the field, and the contrast between the text and background is not friendly and is difficult to see clearly.There's wasted large spaces, then tiny little labels and values.
The dark colour scheme and low contrast makes it difficult to read.
I think there are many better fonts than this one. It is hard to read, it's too thin, and the round letters too fat and are confusable.
Sorry to go on, hope this is of help, looking forward to future revisions. I love how it sounds by the way, amazing synthesizer, one of my favourite plugins. I have a bunch of your stuff. Eager to get CS80 as good as it can be.
cheers Jeff
