The new user interface is awful | Razer Insider

The new user interface is awful

  • 17 November 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 343 views
nolankotulan
Userlevel 1

The new user interface is awful.

The good thing about Synapse 3 is its clean, modern, simple, easy to use and very consistent interface. It is green and yet it still looks (kind of) serious, more than most other gaming company softwares, which is an excellent thing.

Synapse 4 is nothing like that. It is a huge step back. It looks old and full of useless overcomplicated graphic elements which aren’t consistent at all overall. The layout of the menus and buttons seems random, there are too many different styles and the whole lacks of size contrast. It looks like it has been designed by somebody that has absolutely no clue and experience in graphic and UI/UX design. Even the ergonomics are bad.

Synapse 3, in that regard, is almost perfect. Remember that simpler is better. We don’t need buttons with fading rainbow gradient borders and other flashy and ridiculous gamer like graphic gimmicks.

Please, do not release this thing as it is. It is bad. It is awful. There is nothing good about it. Absolutely nothing. Go back to something more in line with Synapse 3. If there was ONE thing you didn’t need to change, it was the very good user interface.

Per aspera ad astra

7 Replies

nolankotulan
Userlevel 1

I lied, I forgot one good thing that comes with the new Synapse: the display of the device battery percentages in the systray menu. But that’s all, really. And even that looks bad in its current integration. Only the idea is good.

 

I also would like to bring attention to that matter which, to my knowing, has never been addressed: 

 

Per aspera ad astra
VeryCrushed
Userlevel 2

It realistically hasn’t changed much aside from the navigation bars. The pages themselves are pretty much the same as we had on Synapse 3.

I personally don’t mind the new UI, however If you realistically want the team to improve it: don’t just say its bad. Give constructive criticism, describe specific areas that you would feel could be better. This post just becomes a rant instead of actually giving the dev team feedback on what to improve.

I have looked it over, the entire app was rewritten using Electron instead of WPF. This makes a lot of sense if they ever want to target other platforms (ex. Mac, Linux). So all of the UI is new code, cant expect everything to be perfect.

Chroma Control Developer - https://chromacontrol.github.io/
nolankotulan
Userlevel 1

I didn't speak, at any point, about how the software or the user interface is coded, this is totally irrelevant here, and no, this topic isn't just a rant. What I am talking about is pretty obvious, it is about what has changed or what is new, so the navigation bar, yes, the systray menu and other elements I can't recall now as I uninstalled this thing since then. I am obviously not talking about what hasn't changed which, by the way, makes the whole user interface even more inconsistent, obviously again.

You are the one not helping. I don't have the time and the patience to go through each individual element that seems off and "bad" to explain how and why and how it should be done instead. I am speaking in general and already pointed at some fancy rainbow stuff, for example, and a lot of things should be self explanatory for whoever has ever worked in the UI/UX and graphic design fields. I mean, this thing actually looks like a huge amateurish patchwork. I also gave an example of what is done great and what should be kept as a model (precisely, Synapse 3).

When I have the time, and the patience, and when the matter is worth precise and in depth explanations, I do take the time (see my link above). Here I will not. I said what I had to said, I'm not gonna spend my time trying to teach them some pretty basic stuff (that will more than probably be ignored again, anyway) if they lack very basic principles already.

Per aspera ad astra
FiszPL
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +1

Agree, that some things are poorly designed in the new version.

For eg. Sentitivity stages in Performance tab - I liked the old Synapse 3 style - you just select how many sensitivity stages you want from dropdown menu.

In Synapse 4 you have to disable each sensitivity stage (so for eg. if you want to have only 2 sensitivity stages, you must do 3 clicks instead 2 clicks in Synapse 3).

I wouldn’t say it’s awful. Sometimes it’s inconsistent - just it.

L

I actually quite like the new UI. It’s taken the Synapse 3 UI, cleaned it up a little. The tabbing is… weird for an app which isn’t a browser but hey. One thing I don’t like is what @FiszPL mentioned - the inability to remove stages - only disabling them. Was hoping the “ads” would go for Online Services, Razer Gold/Silver, etc. as well but I guess that was too hopeful.

R

The UI is definitely beta quality... wait….

But seriously- The UI could use some more features and fine tuning, though, I do like seeing dev hours going more towards performance instead. When it comes to Synapse 3 VS Synapse 4 beta, I’d still use Synapse 4 beta even if it only had a command line interface… Because on my Blade 14, the performance difference between the two is night and day. I may have just been unlucky, but Synapse 3 always seemed to cause issues for me.

I hope that everyone gets the features that they want in due time.

alexvojacek
Userlevel 1

Their software division needs some serious work.

I simply stopped using Synapse and I’m not interested in Synapse 4 either.

I went with SignalRGB for my leds and in less than 1.5 hours with assistance of one of their devs.  We managed to make my Huntsman V3 Pro work with SignalRGB.

So, for most of my stuff I’m covered.

Neither Corsair nor Razer are providing good software to control their devices.  What they have done is a resource hog that provides them with insights on what you do with their devices with less than stellar interfaces and full of bloatware services.

I’m done with both companies.  I will just purchase their devices and forget about their software.

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