Adobe gets an e-earful, and listens
Dear Adobe, a site where people can carp about problems with products and pass judgment on others' gripes, has caught the company's attention.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
A lot of people use Adobe Systems software, and apparently a lot of them feel the need to vent.
Web designer Erik Frick created the Dear Adobe site where users can enter gripes and vote for or against others' gripes. "It started from a conversation between Adam (Meisel) and myself complaining about Photoshop. Both of us being Web design nerds, we figured, 'Why not create a forum for people to vent? Who knows, maybe Adobe will listen,'" he said Tuesday on the site's inaugural blog posting.
Sure enough. Photoshop Principal Product Manager John Nack said the site generated more than 30 e-mails within Adobe in the first two days, and Nack himself responded to a few gripes at the site.
"Just because it would be unprofessional of me or others to rant about this or that aspect of the company in public, don't for a second think it's not happening behind closed doors," Nack said, acknowledging complaints about Creative Suite 3's installation and update software.
Frick created a top 50 gripes list. It's possible the results are skewed to early gripes, since it appears the site presents random gripes for readers to vote on and early gripes have had more exposure. Even so, it's still illuminating to see a mass venting of the spleen: some want Adobe to slow down and cut the bloat, others to speed up with new features. One gets sympathy for Adobe as well as for its customers.
On the overall list:
Gripe 126: "Lens flare is played. Let it go."
Gripe 675: "Linux users luvs u. We can has Adobe applications and a currents Flash versions? Kthanxbai."
Gripe 6: "You kindly turn off the highlight on text when choosing a color for it, but not when choosing a different weight. Would you kindly do this, or kindly jump off a cliff? "
Gripe 366: "please don't copy Microsoft's naming and bundling conventions. I want CS3 not CS3 pro, CS3 pro advantage, CS3 pro plus, CS3 no frills, CS3 pro max, CS3 pro extra pro max... "
