GoKawiilFirst of all, correction for part 1 – the “focus mode” wasn’t removed. It was renamed to “quiet mode” and relocated to a different part of the UI, and I failed to spot it there. It’s still slightly perplexing, shiftily capitalized, and I doubt fully effective, but the effort is there:
I also want to warn you there will be no more positive things I say in this post.
When Cabel Sasser posted this on Bluesky in February…
…I experienced a little existential dread.
Now that I’ve experienced the dialog myself in Photoshop 2026, and a few other dialogs that have been upgraded toward what Adobe calls “modern user interface,” how did it fare?
These are 2025 windows and their 2026 equivalents:
On the surface, it feels like a lateral move. I do not personally find the new design language (Spectrum) attractive, or even particularly “modern.” The gestalt remains off and things are still generally misaligned – they’re just misaligned in net new ways.
But it was digging into the window below that showed all the problems in the still-wet foundations…
…and a lot of them have to do with focus.
1.
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