116 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Yesterday I and several other people raised our concerns about the size and readability of the font used in UI2.0 with PGI President, Russ Bullock, via Twitter. We find that on high res monitors, the font is so small (and hard to read) that it makes it difficult for us to use UI 2.0.

Russ tweeted to say he'd spoken with lead designer Paul, and they'd look into it. Then today, Russ tweeted the following finding...



Then this...



Net: in Russ's view, there is no problem, and we are imagining our challenges in reading it.

FYI, here is what the UI looks like to me in Full Screen on my monitor's native resolution of 2560x1440.

Edited by Appogee, 21 February 2014 - 01:34 AM.

[Modo44]

In short, **** you for not using a big screen with natively small resolution.

Edit: Same thing @2560x1600 on my monitor:


Notice the tiny buttons and heaps of empty space. It took me almost a minute to even find the grey Social button for the first time.

By the way, you can not run this well at reduced resolution. It was OK to put the matches in 1920x1200 on 2560x1600 courtesy of the very smooth AMD full screen scaling (highly recommended to turn it on if you have AMD hardware, BTW). However, the mechlab naturally requires lots of reading, and blurry text is even more of an issue than tiny text.

Edited by Modo44, 21 February 2014 - 02:04 AM.

[JHackworth]

It is hard to read, and the button targets are too small.

[PineappleKush]

The image in the original post here pretty much sums up my issues with the new UI. Look at all that grossly wasted screen estate showing the same icon for the 70 different engines (visible, there are more).

The lead UI designer should look at this picture and ask him or herself, "Is this a good way to display this? Is this design wasting tons of screen estate with superfluous information and images? Is this design an encumberance or is it well organized and intuitive to new or veteran players?"

I would hope the designer would say, "No, this is an over-cluttered design, introduces too much information overload, and makes the general process of building up a mech and the associated decision making process significantly over-encumbered with superfluous images, clicking, and other design inconsiderations and we are taking pride in acknowledging and addressing those issues quickly."

Some of the best designs I've seen so far have come from people in the MWO community that are unpaid and mocking up more, apparently, well thought-out designs than the professionals being paid to do the same. I hope PGI is better than this; I want to believe that, prove me right.

Also, Russ, the issue of readability is subjective. You might be able to stand in front of a demo that was setup to show you how this is a non-issue, but your customers are telling you that they have a very difficult time reading it. Instead of "proving" them wrong with another subjective, in-house test among cognitively baised individuals, perhaps address the customer concerns instead of marginalizing their validity. How is your ability to read the text without issues benefiting the customers that are unable to?

In the interest of full disclosure, I run the game in 1920x1080 on a 21 inch LCD monitor and have no problems reading the text. I just don't like seeing valid, (and possibly) minority, opinions being marginalized, systematically like this.

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 02:01 AM.

[Molossian Dog]

I... I ... ack!

Grgl! Grmpf! Hrrrrrrn!

[Evil Ed]

Sorry guys, if Russ says itäs not a problem it's not a problem. Maybe you can run your monitors at half resolution? After all, Russ has ran some tests that proves that a large group of his costumers are wrong. See, I have already adapted and started to use smallest font available in the MWO-forums.

Edited by Evil Ed, 21 February 2014 - 01:32 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Evil Ed, on 21 February 2014 - 01:30 AM, said:

Sorry guys, if Russ says itäs not a problem it's not a problem. Maybe you can run your monitors at half resolution? After all, Russ has ran some tests that proves that a large group of his costumers are wrong. See, I have already adapted and started to use smallest font available in the MWO-forums.

I was able to read this without squinting. Perhaps they should implement this size of text across the whole website and in-game UI? Everyone has 20/10 vision or can afford Lasik surgery, right? Plus it would deal with all these guys complaining about wasted screen estate...

I generally find most of Russ' comments and presumptions condescening and offensive. He should start running all personal responses through someone else first, so they can be tempered with some level of grounding in the same reality his customers and market exist in. This disconnect between executives and the community wasn't nearly as apparent when this game was launched.

How did we end up in this position? The money started rolling in and the executives lose a grounded perspective. It seems to happen in the majority of poorly operated companies and the bottom line will eventually start showing it and decision makers will have to start eating their words. Thanks, again, capitalism.

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 01:55 AM.

[ShinVector]

Pffft!... First world problems.

[PhoenixFire55]

Appogee, on 21 February 2014 - 12:34 AM, said:

FYI, here is what the UI looks like to me in Full Screen on my monitor's native resolution of 2560x1440.

Fonts always been rather ******. I've raised a question of being able to customize font color for general / team / server message in-game messages back in CB days, even sent them a couple support tickets to no avail. They just don't really care. I mean ... look at that wall of engines at same screenshot. Everyone with even half a brain understands this looks like crap, but I guess pro UI designers know better. Most of the MWO text is easy to read on my old 1024x768 15-inch, but some text is just impossible to decipher.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 21 February 2014 - 01:43 AM.

[Appogee]

PineappleKush, on 21 February 2014 - 01:05 AM, said:

perhaps address the customer concerns instead of marginalizing their validity. How is your ability to read the text without issues benefiting the customers that are unable to?

This is what I find most surprising about Russ's response.

I am a real customer. I've spent around $450 on the game so far. This weekend I was considering spending another $240 on the Masakari Clan Pack. I'm not a F2P freeloader, I'm actively contributing to PGI's income.

I explained - politely - that I'm having a problem reading the font in UI2.0. The President's response is first to tell me he'll look into it - great, thank you. But then he tells us ''there is no problem''.

Huh...?

What is Russ's thought process here...? Does he think I and others are lying when we tell him we're experiencing a problem? Or does he think that telling us there's no problem will convince us not to believe the evidence or our own eyes? Does he not care about whether "whales" like me spend any more money on his game? Or is it just some kind of arrogance in which he fervently believes he knows best and his force of will alone will cause his company to be successful regardless of his customers' concerns...?

I am the marketing leader of a major business. The last thing I would ever tell my customers is ''your concerns are invalid''. If one of my customers thinks they have a problem, then I do have a problem and I need to solve their perceived problem for them. That's how I retain customers. Because, if I don't solve their perceived problems, I won't have them as customers for long.

Honestly, I just do not understand how the leader of a company can ignore - insult, even - his customers in this way.

Edited by Appogee, 21 February 2014 - 01:58 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Appogee, on 21 February 2014 - 01:45 AM, said:

I am the marketing leader of a major business. The last thing I would ever tell my customers is ''your concerns are invalid''. If one of my customers thinks they have a problem, then I do have a problem and I need to solve their perceived problem for them. That's how I retain customers. Because, if I don't solve their perceived problems, I won't have them as customers for long.

Honestly, I just do not understand how the leader of a company can ignore - insult, even - his customers in this way.

I think I proposed a reasonable explaination of this thought process (or lack thereof) here, specifically the last paragraph. In addition, and more specifically to your first quoted point above, that's the problem for the marketing head to worry about. You can probably recall many times that top-down decision making resulted in making your job more difficult because of this disconnect in perception and understanding between executives and the average customer (or perhaps you're in the minority of companies that can balance this in a good way).

Imagine how his community managers and other customer-facing employees feel when having to deal with rationalizing seemingly mindless (or purely economical) decisions as not being so. The jokes in the #2 dev video blog about nervous breakdowns are probably not far from the truth for some employees there, and I feel for them, because I was in a similar position in the past and it really can cause profound work stress that ends up causing actual mental-health issues (but no one likes to talk about that while they're gainfully employeed still in this global economy).

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 02:24 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Appogee, on 21 February 2014 - 01:45 AM, said:

What is Russ's thought process here...?

Ever watched Pinky and the Brain? Specifically Pinky POV episode when his seemingly random comments when Brain asks him if he is 'pondering what I am pondering' actually do make a lot of sense. Episode 58. Kinda off topic but thats what came into my mind when I thought about it.

[Durant Carlyle]

I run at 2560x1440 native res on my 27" monitor. I did an informal comparison of the in-game text to the default text size of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, IMDb, Microsoft, BBC, MW:O, The Weather Channel, and other sites.

The lower-right text area in the Mech Lab is about the same size as the default internet text size at 2560x1440 res.

The middle-right Equipped area in the Mech Lab is slightly smaller than the default internet text size at 2560x1440 res.

The difference between the two is very small, like going from 10 pt font to 9 pt font sizes in Word.

Maybe it's the text color or background color that's making it harder to read than it should be?

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 21 February 2014 - 02:32 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Durant Carlyle, on 21 February 2014 - 02:31 AM, said:

I run at 2560x1440 native res on my 27" monitor. I did an informal comparison of the in-game text to the default text size of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, IMDb, Microsoft, BBC, MW:O, The Weather Channel, and other sites.

[redacted]

The difference between the two is very small, like going from 10 pt font to 9 pt font sizes in Word.

Maybe it's the text color or background color that's making it harder to read than it should be?

Maybe, or it may have something to do with specific hardware and software configurations. For example, different GPUs rendering text differently with different cable mediums, connectors, and graphics settings, different Windows-specific graphic settings, different monitors and their specific configurations, disparity between various Microsoft .NET Framework v4 point-revisions and how they handle text rendering or font caching. Or perhaps it's something totally unrelated to any of what I just said.

My main contention here is it doesn't seem like Russ, et al., took much time to collect enough of this type of information to make an informed test or decision before making the non-issue proclamation. He also didn't go into any specifics of their test environment used to come to this assertion, which makes it difficult for anyone outside of PGI to confirm or refute their test's validity. This would be why my feathers and jimmies have been rustled.

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 02:52 AM.

[Molossian Dog]

Appogee, on 21 February 2014 - 01:45 AM, said:

...
Honestly, I just do not understand how the leader of a company can ignore - insult, even - his customers in this way.

I´m going to spell it out for you.

--------

Because he can.

You can´t do it, because your customer base probably isn´t consisting of lemmings. If you commit usury they don´t whiteknight in your defense and ask for more. If you deliver shoddy work, marginalize their concerns and spit in their faces your customers will stop buying your products. (or stop using your services)

We don´t.

We loan them 500$ for skins and promises. And thank the guys having us over a barrel.

This is our fault.

----------------------

A mitigating circumstance (in our defense) might be that PGI has a kind of monopoly. Not in FPSs of course. But real time BattleTech franchise. And they are leeching on the 20+ years of work of other people like Microsoft, FASA, WzKids and Catalyst Game Labs for all it´s worth.

Edited by Molossian Dog, 21 February 2014 - 02:58 AM.

[Appogee]

PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it. PERFORMING FONT SIZE TEST - PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I WILL REPORT FINDINGS SEPARATELY This too is part of the font size test. Please ignore it.

Edited by Appogee, 21 February 2014 - 02:56 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Molossian Dog, on 21 February 2014 - 02:45 AM, said:

Because he can.

You can´t do it, because your customer base probably isn´t consisting of lemmings. If you commit usury they don´t whiteknight in your defense and ask for more. If you deliver shoddy work, marginalize their concerns and spit in their faces your customers will stop buying your products. (or stop using your services)

We don´t.

We pay 500$ for skins. And thank the guys having us over a barrel.

This is our fault.

Well said. Here's to hoping that certain other "mech" related, robot, sci-fi FPS games are successful and can add competition in this genre. In the meantime, my signature shows that I've already opted-out of PGI's marketing strategy until they earn it back through delivery. I suggest anyone that wants this game to be better to do the same.

PGI spends time adding more things to sell us, rather than delivering the functionality we were promised, simply because enough people continue to buy those things. Kill the money stream and give them a financial incentive to stop doing what they're doing; it's the only thing business entities can understand, as it will show up on a generated report, which seems to be the only metric being used to judge performance of this game (you can't just rely on SAP/BusinessObjects/Crystal Reports to tell you the whole story Russ).

A few, good, college programmers and an art designer are capable of producing far greater works in less time, with little to no funding. This has been shown countless times in the past 15 years of gaming and community modding. The standards we set on PGI should be higher and the resulting output quality should be as well. If they can't do that based on the income/funding they've already received, then it's simply grossly poor management of resources.

Thankfully, the intelluctual property (IP) behind this game was licensed and not sold outright. This gives me some hope for the future of BattleTech, knowing that the IP does not rest solely in Russ', PGI, or IGP's hands. A failure of this particular title won't be a nail-in-the-coffin for the BattleTech franchise as a whole or kill the possibility of a future game by another developer that hopefully has its ear to the ground rather than its head in the clouds.

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 03:45 AM.

[Svidro]

Yep. Font bad. Change would be good. Doubt it will happen soon.

[Appogee]

Here is a comparison of the size+font of the MWO Forums to the size+font of UI2.0. (I screencapped some sample text from the forums at, and pasted a screen cap from UI2.0 directly on top of it.)

Observations:

• UI2.0 font seems to be about 80% the size of the standard MWO web font, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's kerning - that is, the space between the letters - is much less than the forum, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's leading - that is, the vertical space between lines of text - is much less than the forum, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's ALL CAPS makes the shape of each word a rectangle. Because our brains first try to decode the shape of words, this too reduces legibility.
  
• UI2.0's semi-transparent background behind text means that background colors sometimes bleed through, blurring the edge of some letters, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's white text on bright color backgrounds (notably, the white on green of STREAK SRM) reduces legibility.

Tell me if you are seeing this differently. Because, to me, all of the above combine to make UI2.0 hard to read. Yet, Russ says ''there is no problem''.

Edited by Appogee, 21 February 2014 - 03:19 AM.

[PineappleKush]

Appogee, on 21 February 2014 - 03:16 AM, said:

Observations:

• UI2.0 font seems to be about 80% the size of the standard MWO web font, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's kerning - that is, the space between the letters - is much less than the forum, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's leading - that is, the vertical space between lines of text - is much less than the forum, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's ALL CAPS makes the shape of each word a rectangle. Because our brains first try to decode the shape of words, this too reduces legibility.
  
• UI2.0's semi-transparent background behind text means that background colors sometimes bleed through, blurring the edge of some letters, reducing legibility.
  
• UI2.0's white text on bright color backgrounds (notably, the white on green of STREAK SRM) reduces legibility.

Tell me if you are seeing this differently. Because, to me, all of the above combine to make UI2.0 hard to read. Yet, Russ says ''there is no problem''.

The observations on font kerning, leading, and color contrasts (including the semi-transparency comment) all lead me to confidently believe that some people really do have issues reading the font in a variety of resolutions that I do not personally use and that it is possible to resolve all of the proposed issues regarding the readability by acknowledging and addressing those issues.

In short, and in contrast to Russ, "I can see why some people have problems reading the text, I think it's worth taking the time to address the issues being raised, and I think resolving the issues would be fairly trivial (with regards to implementation) given the observations."

Edited by PineappleKush, 21 February 2014 - 04:01 AM.