Non-destructive Effects
Designing the Infrastructure and integration of non-destructive effects, a new feature in CorelDRAW 2019
THE PROBLEM
Users of CorelDRAW are unable to modify or delete an effect once applied to an image. Users often resort to clunky workarounds to solve this issue, but are restricted in their ability to freely explore and create.
Bitmap effects have long been a long standing feature in CorelDRAW. Previously they could only be applied to bitmaps destructively -- once applied, the effect is "burnt in" to the image. If a user changed their mind about the look of an effect, the only real solution was to use undo and lose other work in the process or to maintain a duplicate of the photo with every step of their creative process.
This case study is an overview of the process that started from the above problem and evolved into a complete marketable feature with offers high user value.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
MAKE OF THE TEAM
KEY GOAL
The bulk of this project occurred over the span of 8 weeks not all of which were consecutive.
I was the sole UX and product owner for a scrum of 8 developers and QA representatives.
Create effects infrastructure that enables new pathways for creativity.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DISCOVERY PHASE
User feedback and observations
Users were complaining that effects dialogs do not remember last used settings. This was the initial motivation for this project
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Some users that create photo-realistic vector illustrations use the gaussian blur effect to create soft highlights. Depending on the illustration users would have to access the convert to bitmap dialog upwards of 50 times in order to apply the effect. The ability to apply effects to vectors was born from this observation.
Leveraging learnings from previous project
In a refactoring effort for a previous project, development rewrote the bitmap effect engine in a way that allowed for additional functionality that was kept hidden at the time.
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Part of that functionality was the ability to reorder effects applied on an image. Reordering effects had a significant affect on the overall look of the image and was exposed as in this project.
Industry research
There is an overall movement towards non destructive editing in the creative software industry. In some way or another apps are moving in a direction that allows users to make and change decisions without fear of loosing time or data.
An emerging visual trend is digital illustrations that are made to look imperfect or handmade with overlayed textures. Artists spend hours curating libraries of textures that match their vision. Bitmap effects on vector illustrations would allow for similar speed but much more control.
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Effects experience chart
There was a lot of moving parts to this project so I started with a chart to assess the current situation. The app has a lot of tools loosely referred to as effects with several different access points. The chart clearly showed the fragmented nature of the experience but I resisted "filling up" the columns for a theoretical ideal but decided to take a more measured approach that takes existing user knowledge into account.
What is an effect?
The charting exercise exposed a taxonomy problem that developed over the years. I organized an internal workshop to determine what we mean when we say "effect."
"A visual enhancement or adjustment that can easily be applied and later removed, on any object, without changing the object’s inherent geometry."
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EXPLORATION PHASE
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
What does it allow the user to do? Three initial Horizons
MVP
Effects on Bitmaps only
Dialogs must remember last used settings and allow additive or subtractive changes without harming the underlying image (non-destructively)
Nice to Have
Effects on Bitmaps and Vectors
Dialogs must remember last used settings and apply non-destructively
New central Interface to reorder effects and launch effects dialogs to make changes
Rockstar
Bitmaps and Vectors
Dialogs must remember last used settings and apply non-destructively
100% integrated Interface to reorder effects and
One knob intensity setting per effect (mixer style)
Modernize effect and/or create new effects
Where does it live?
Several early concepts to establish where in the application the effects interface would live. Options included an entirely new dialog or docker environment, the object management docker, or the properties docker.
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The objects docker would have been a highly discoverable home for the new controls but early mockups made it evident that effects would unnecessarily clog up the document structure.
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A separate dialog would be hard to discover and feel disconnected.
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Implementing effects as properties however, although slighly more expensive on dev effort would provide a lot of additional benefit tto the user including the ability to create styles from effects.
What does it look like?
Early in-progress mockups of the interface. The appearance of the new controls borrowed heavily from a feature that was being developed for the same release. This was done to avoid users having to learn entirely new behaviours, maintain visual consistency and also to minimize dev effort by using the same control.
How does the user interact with it?
Interactions used for the effects controls also borrowed from existing and in-progess features. In-line buttons that appeared on hover were a new interaction developed for the object manager docker. Dragging items from from lists or palettes to objects in the drawing window is a long established pattern users of CorelDRAW are familiar with. This was leveraged to allow quick copying of effects.
Early beta user feedback helped fill any holes in the implementation. The ability to select multiple effects to copy or delete was an initial oversight that was quickly resolved with beta user feedback. Also details like allowing effects to be deleted with the delete key as opposed to only the on-screen button. ​
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TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
FINAL DESIGN
This project was run using agile methodology, with the scrum working closely together, with daily stand-ups, sprint planning and grooming meetings. The design was shared with the team via mockups and iterative stories that evolved with every sprint based on new information from users, development or QA personnel.
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The feature has been well received by users of CorelDRAW. It's both a solution to some long standing complaints and also another layer of creative possibility for artists and designers to explore.