E-signatures becoming slower, more complex, and service intermittent
I use Acrobat primarily as a professional PDF and e-signature tool, and the recent direction of the e-signature workflow has become increasingly frustrating.
The fundamental task should be straightforward. Instead, the process seems to be becoming progressively more complicated and time-consuming as additional functionality is introduced.
Preparing documents for signature now takes noticeably longer than it used to.
The interface and workflow have become more complicated, with functionality that was previously straightforward becoming harder to find or use.
Automatic field detection/autofill is intermittent and cannot be relied upon.
The e-signature service regularly fails with a generic message, sometimes requiring the process to be restarted. This appears without any obvious reason, making it difficult to know whether the problem is the document, the user's session, or Adobe's service.
Reliability is particularly problematic because e-signatures are not an optional feature in this workflow they are the reason for using the service in the first place.
My broader concern is that Adobe appears to be trying to make the e-signature experience increasingly sophisticated, but the result is actually making the basic workflow worse. Additional functionality is of limited value if it makes the fundamental process slower, less predictable and more difficult to operate.
I don't need Acrobat to do more. I need it to do the basic job reliably and efficiently.
Please consider prioritising stability, speed, predictable field detection and a simple workflow over continually adding complexity to the experience.