ARCHICAD 20 Announced

[Laszlo Nagy]

See the official announcement here:

http://www.graphisoft.com/info/news/press_releases/archicad-20-a-fresh-look-at-bim.html

There are already a few clips that show what is new:

http://archicad.com/en/

[vistasp]

Cyndru323 wrote:
We just downloaded ARCHICAD 20 yesterday and I must say I am beyond disappointed in the new look. I have a meeting today with clients and I am embarrassed by how cheap the program now looks. .

My old(ish) eyes could certainly do with a bit more contrast on the icons, sure, but I'd hardly call the interface unprofessional or childish. On the contrary, most children's software is overly colourful.

[DGSketcher]

Cyndru323 wrote:
I will say it again, I am embarrassed to meet with my clients this evening and them see the very unprofessional looking program I am using.

It will only look unprofessional if that's how you present it!
You could always try using BIMX?

[Ralph Wessel]

Cyndru323 wrote:
I am beyond disappointed in the new look. I have a meeting today with clients and I am embarrassed by how cheap the program now looks. The new "stick figure" looking Icons look like something from a child's program not a high end program.

Funny - I felt almost the opposite. I was a bit embarrassed by the illustrations and colours in earlier versions because it looked like I was using something designed circa Windows 95.

I really love the new look – it seems a far better fit with current design and illustrations from my perspective. Personal taste I guess, but I can't agree that the new UI is anything other than professional.

[Karl Griffith]

Agreed - I met with clients last night and presented a project using ArchiCAD - they were thrilled with what it could do. I don't think they really gave the interface a thought - they were focused on the content.

And I do think a touch of color would help - not a lot, just to help distinguish similar icons.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

While I won't go as far as to say the new interface looks "childish" or unprofessional, I will say that it's been really hard getting used to it.

Every time I start a new project in v20, I shortly find myself reverting to ArchiCAD 19 just because it's easier to read and tell the icons apart and I feel like I'm wasting productivity time and resources trying to adapt to something that feels like it's fighting me.

I just wish they had kept an option allowing users to revert to the old icon and interface color scheme rather than trying to force everyone to adopt their new scheme cold turkey.

And that's aside from ArchiCAD 20's sluggishness issues (on my machines at least).
It just feels like a misfire in many ways IMHO.

[Anonymous]

Depriving the icons of the colors was one HUGE mistake they made. 100 bucks says they're gonna bring it back in version 22 or earlier. Visuals work BEST with people and from visuals colors are the most appealing (then forms from round to edgy to complex).

They should've hired graphic designers who know what they're doing. In this area architects suck big time. And I'm guessing they just hired architects for this job, same as those who work on the software. Big mistake as it seems.

I'm having trouble too. Flat icons aren't helping as well as no colors. My eyes literally hurt.