Ease of use
Nothing to learn
before you paint.
A painter picks up a brush without reading a manual. I wanted an app that asks just as little: open it and the canvas is there, touch it and paint comes off, and everything else can be found when you want it, by trying it, not by being taught.
Every removal made it easier. I made the app better by taking things out as often as by adding them.
Haptics, a squeegee, a light that swayed on its own, a value check, a way to aim the paint with two fingers, a pull toward the corners, a second set of brush icons, a gauge showing how much paint was left: each worked, and I took each one out because the app was clearer without it.
What makes a tool easy
- It is ready when you areNo setup, no blank dialog, no waiting between wanting to paint and painting.
- The commonest thing is the simplestWhat you do a hundred times a session should take one tap, not a menu.
- It explains itselfEvery control can say what it is, at the moment you are looking at it.
- It forgivesA slip should cost nothing: no lost painting, no stray dab, a way back.
- It speaks your languageA painter's words, not an engineer's.
What I decided
Open it, and the canvas is there
The app used to paint a sample study at every launch, about eleven seconds before you could touch anything. I cut that: now it opens on a blank canvas in about two, with the engine warming up behind the launch screen, which hands over the moment the canvas has drawn. The painting you were working on comes back as you left it.
The commonest action takes no gesture at all
A painter reloads the brush more than anything else, and does it without thinking. So here, touching down is the dip: every stroke starts with fresh paint. A long stroke still runs dry along its length, where the canvas's texture shows, and paint the brush went through still tints the next stroke or two, so the brush behaves like a brush without asking to be looked after.
It came from painting with the first version. My note at the time: "I think we need to rethink the idea of needing to refill the brush; it does not feel intuitive." Every painting app I looked at (Fresco, Photoshop, ArtRage, Painter, Rebelle, Procreate) reloads at each stroke; none asks you to. I ranked eight ways to get paint on a brush for ease and intuitiveness, from clean fresh paint every stroke (first) and fresh paint that joins what's left (second, and the one I chose, because it keeps the brush's memory of wet paint) to tapping for more (last).
Ruled out: a tap on the colour well for more paint. It was the simplest gesture given to the commonest action, but it was still a chore with nothing to decide, easy to forget, and a stroke that faded read as a fault.
Refilling the brush: the options, how other apps do it, and the ranking.
Everything names itself, when you look at it
Slide a finger across the brushes or the colours and each names itself, and a brush says what it is for: "Filbert: soft-edged strokes, blending". A mix names its recipe: "Mix 3: 2 Ultramarine + 1 Cadmium yellow". The size arc shows the brush's true width as you drag it. Where something isn't obvious, the app says so once, the first time: where the paint lands on your first stroke, what the colour rings are for the first time they open. Hints never block the painting.
A painter's vocabulary
Mixes, not slots. Studio, not settings. Ready mixes and the Zorn palette, not shades. Clean the brush, let it dry, a reference photo to trace. The engine's switches are there for my testing, folded away where they can't confuse.
Nothing to save, nothing to name
Paintings keep themselves, a moment after you stop and whenever the app goes to the background. Your paintings holds every one, newest first, with a new canvas at the front. A new canvas never throws the old one away, and an untouched canvas is never saved, so the gallery does not fill with blanks.
A slip costs nothing
Undo has a button of its own, one tap away under the view, and a two-finger tap undoes too. A touch just beside a corner button is caught by the button rather than left on the painting. The paint lands where you can see it, and the spot shows before any paint goes down, so a stroke is not a surprise. And iOS's own magnifier and text selection, which a long press used to summon, cannot appear.
Right before it is changed
White gesso, a flat brush, the paint landing just above your fingertip, the light following the phone. Studio holds the few things worth changing, the ground, the medium, the light, where the paint lands, and nothing else.
The controls leave while you paint
Once a stroke is under way the corners, the size arc, hints and the trace controls fade, and return a moment after the finger lifts, so they stay away through a run of strokes. A single dab leaves them where they are.
Looking for what still gets in the way
I keep it easy by hunting for friction, not by assuming it's gone. After refilling, I went through the app again for every place it asks you to work or to guess, and I keep each point on a list: fixed, or not yet, and why.
- Fixed: a wrong tap in a mixEach tap adds a part, and there was no way to take one back. Now Undo takes back changes to a mix as well as strokes.
- Fixed: a canvas that went blankWhen iOS takes back the GPU's memory, the canvas now rebuilds itself from the paint the app still holds, and one error can no longer freeze it.
- Not yet: picking a colour and adding to a mix are one tapWith a mix selected, a colour joins it. That's mixing by parts, and changing it is a design decision I haven't made yet.
- Not yet: mud, and Dry out of reachWet paint drags into wet, as oil does; newcomers get mud before they find Dry.
- Not yet: size set three waysThe arc, the rings' centre and how flat you press all change a stroke's width.
Friction: the whole list, what changed, and what each open point would take.
Watching someone who has never seen it
The real test of ease is a first-time painter with no one to ask. I still have to run that test, on the phone, with people who haven't used the app.
Six reviews, including a first-time user and a UX architect The interface investigation