I had occasion to become familiar with Lightroom recently. A friend loaned me a Canon 5D and I wanted to look at the raw files I was making. Adobe is running a public beta for Lightroom 3 and I downloaded it. What a slick piece of work. The first time you use it, overlays appear above the interface explaining how it’s organized and giving you enough information to get started. Large buttons for basic functions point to Adobe’s confidence that they know what you want to do — and in my case they were right. And the program itself? Fast, stable, powerful — and beautiful. And still in beta. I was able to go through my images, rate them, color correct them and create a nice web site, without so much as cracking a manual.
Adobe is doing some really nice work. I’m using InDesign to create my upcoming book and it is a model for clean, attractive and powerful software design. And they’re really focused on educating the user base. The help system, for example, links you to online videos explaining various features, in a consistent interface, but done by independent designers and trainers.
As more and more powerful software gets into more and more creative hands a focus on training like this becomes essential for users and for companies, alike.
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