Drawing That Finally Feels Right

Some of the best fixes are the ones you never notice, until they're gone. Nothing about drawing in Giraffe was broken. It just had small frictions that added up: control points only ever landing at the centre of an edge, no dedicated mode for reshaping what you'd drawn, no quick way to bump levels or base height without opening a panel.

Spotting what needs fixing

We look at three things together:

• Usage patterns. Anonymised data on how people actually move through Giraffe, no personal info, just where people click, pause, or get stuck.
• Support conversations. Every chat with GiraffeBot, plus every direct conversation Holly and Adam have with customers.
• Direct feedback. Calls and check-ins with the people using Giraffe day to day.

We also weigh what we find against established usability principles, like Jakob Nielsen's classic ten heuristics, so we're fixing things that genuinely help, not just reacting to noise.

For this one, there wasn't a single big red flag the way there was with some of the other 6.0 changes. It showed up as a pattern of small, recurring gripes, the kind of thing people mention almost in passing rather than filing as a proper complaint.

What we found in the data

None of these were "Giraffe is broken" problems. They were "this is more annoying than it needs to be" problems.

• The default should protect against mistakes, not cause them. Edit mode used to be the default, so an accidental click could add a point or drag one when someone meant to move the whole shape. More than a dozen conversations show the fallout: unintended changes with no clean way back beyond undo. Nobody names the mechanic directly, but the damage is clear.
• Precision shouldn't require a workaround. Adding a control point only ever landed at the centre of an edge by default, so placing one anywhere else meant dropping it there first and then dragging it into position, rather than placing it exactly right on the first click. Many support conversations touch on exactly this, and the usage data backs it up: active users trigger Edit Section close to 800 times a month on average, with the median edit firing within 5 seconds of creating a section, before they've moved on to anything else. Precision needs to be available in that same instant, not after a workaround.
• Small adjustments shouldn't need a detour. Well over 150 messages across dozens of conversations asked about setting levels and/or floor-to-floor. At least ten people asked where the properties palette had gone. Levels, floor-to-floor, and base height were the most-asked-about properties overall, almost always some version of "where is this" or "I changed it and something broke."

What we built

Scale and move become the default. Flip into edit mode to reshape an edge, and alt-click to drop a point exactly where you want it, not just the centre. New shortcuts drag levels and base height up in one motion, no detour required. Push/pull gets a spot on the draw bar as a bonus, alongside a new integrated command line.

What this means for you

Precision where you want it, without a workaround. A clear mode for reshaping, instead of guessing. Fewer trips out of the drawing flow for small, repeated adjustments. Nothing flashy, just drawing that's snappier, faster, and harder to get wrong.

Flows and Blocks from your project's content library are also coming to the drawing toolbar itself, so grabbing something you've already built is a click away.

Part of a series on the reasoning behind Giraffe 6.0. See also our posts on the new home screen, configurable layouts, project creation, properties palette, content consolidation, and the rebuilt drawing toolbar.