File:25 Years of GUI Design Experience And Adobe Just Ignores It.png

English: When you open the Adobe CS install DVD by double-clicking on its icon, a folder opens (top window) containing what are obviously three PDF read-mes, and something else which looks like a closed carboard box. That something else turns out to be a sub-folder (bottom window) containing a dmg, four folders, and another something that has the exact same cardboard box icon as the earlier something (which was a folder).

The new something, however, is an application. It is called Setup, and this is what you have to launch to start the installation. Windows users will recognize something called Setup to be the thing to double-click on to start an installation, but Mac users don't, and I know of no other software product for the Mac whose installer application is called Setup. This is sure to confuse Mac users, and, just to make it clear, this is actually an installer DVD for the Mac.

The presence of the Bootstrapper.dmg adds a little more to the confusion, as Mac OS X users will recognize a dmg to be a disk image which is very commonly used to distribute new software. If you ignore the Setup and double-click on the Bootstrapper.dmg in the hope that you will be presented with a volume containing the installer, you will not get anywhere.

Let's not even talk about the inconsistent and confusing use of file icons here.

What makes this all just a little bit worse is that the PDF read-me states, in the installation instructions for the Mac – let me repeat this – these are the installation instructions specifically for the Mac, not Windows:

Insert the DVD in your drive, and follow the on-screen instructions. If the installer does not launch automatically, navigate to the application folder found at the root level on your disk and double-click Setup Mac OS® to start the installation process.

• There are no on-screen instructions. • The installer does not launch automatically. (As far as I know, Mac OS X does not even contain the functionality that will allow an application to launch automatically when a volume is mounted!) • The application folder found at the root level on your disk is not identifiable as such. It is not even identifiable as a folder. • There is no file called Setup Mac OS® there. The file is called Setup.

I'm nit-picking a little here, but I find it unbelievable for a large company like Adobe, who have a couple of decades of experience in user interaction and software design, would be getting so many things wrong already before their software is even installed. If you've just shelled out a large sum of money for this software, it's a bit of a slap in the face, even if, like me, you know what to expect.

If I were a new user, I'd be pulling my hair out at this point already.

(This has been described elsewhere before, but I'd like to strengthen the point.)