16 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Earlier in my career I did research into the readability of typography, and even consulted to some companies on this subject to improve the effectiveness of their customer communications.

I'm sorry to let you know that you could not have picked a more difficult combination of typography for your UI. Here's why:

1. Everything is in all caps.
2, The font is sans serif.
3. You've kerned the font (ie closed the gaps between individual letters) far too tightly, so that the letters run together visually.

These three factors in combination make a 'perfect storm' of illegibility.

People read principally by recognising the shape of whole words. However, when words are in all-caps, as they are in your UI, then every word is shaped as a simple rectangle. That requires the reader's brain to revert to piecing together each word by reading one letter at a time. This is slow and it creates mental fatigue.

Worse still, in your UI, even reading the individual letters is made unnecessarily hard. San-serif fonts lack the tiny visual enhancements which cue the brain to quickly identify individual letters.

Poor typography in your UI will cost you money, PGI.

People will get more quickly fatigued by the unnecessary incremental mental effort required to read your UI. When that happens they will get headaches, feel tired, and log out of your game sooner.

Note that all of the above legibility problems are compounded for people who have less than perfect vision. We all know that BattleTech is a venerable franchise, and there are a lot of older players of MWO. There are plenty of thread already from older gamers who are explaining that we are finding it hard to read the typeface in your UI.

So:

You would be well-advised to take into account your customers visual needs and redoing the typeface in your UI. Increasing the font size, use upper and lower case, loosen off the kerning, and using a serifed font.

[Tedarin]

Interesting post.

I'm just having problem seeing the damn tiny text in the mechlab.

...or maybe I'm just getting old.

[Waffles 2pt0]

Tedarin, on 04 June 2015 - 07:18 AM, said:

Interesting post.

I'm just having problem seeing the damn tiny text in the mechlab.

...or maybe I'm just getting old.

You are not getting old my friend. There are too many font sizes.

Edited by S Morgenstern, 08 June 2015 - 09:54 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Yes please space out the letters more and increase font size. This is just common sense and should not require someone educated in this field to point it out.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 04 June 2015 - 08:39 AM.

[Modo44]

Appogee, on 03 June 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

1. Everything is in all caps.
2, The font is sans serif.
3. You've kerned the font (ie closed the gaps between individual letters) far too tightly, so that the letters run together visually.

These three factors in combination make a 'perfect storm' of illegibility.

Four factors. The font becomes very small @1080p, and terribly tiny at any higher resolution. Given the relatively old player base, font size should be a vital factor.

To illustrate, open this image in full screen (F11 in Firefox), and try reading the text. This is from a 2560x1600 screen. 2560x1440, or 1440p, has become a popular gaming monitor resolution this year. This issue is especially sad when you realize that the HUD has perfect scaling, including font size, since closed beta.

Edited by Modo44, 04 June 2015 - 09:21 AM.

[Tarogato]

I've determined that Piranha is allergic to lower case.

+9,001, OP.

[SgtMaster]

Appogee, on 03 June 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

it creates mental fatigue.

[Lulz Kev]

Great post. Please listen PGI.

I cannot stand new text and color. It's killing my eyes.

I find myself not wanting to play to avoid the new mechlab.

[Appogee]

I'm bumping this because I used to make thousands of dollars providing the advice in OP, so I'm really hoping PGI accepts this free gift and acts on it for the sake of all of its customers

Edited by Appogee, 06 June 2015 - 12:08 AM.

[Drei69]

I hate the new look, went into the game and left straight after my 1st match, my problem is that to select a mech I gotta click 7 times, this is if I know what mech I want, if I have to click on each mech to see them I gotta click 10 times (more if you have plenty of mechs). Before you used to click 4 times... so for people that suffer from RSI this is a killer, from 4 to 10 clicks, who the hell decided adding so many unecessary clicks was a clever idea? Don't even let me start on the mech loadoud joke... jee.

These are the necessary clicks now: Mechlab - Select Mech - Class - Click 4 times to open all my mechs - Mech - Select - PLAY (10 CLICKS)

These were the necessary clicks before: Mechlab - Class - Mech - PLAY (4 CLICKS)

The way I see this the developers pretty much did not take in consideration for people that have RSI, which is most of us older gamers and young ones in a few years:)) Some clever muppet decided that as long as it looked pretty and complicated it would be great. NO IT ISN'T, bring back the old UI!!!!

So that's an older player with too much money and little time that won't be purchasing anymore stuff or playing this great game:( which is a shame...

Edited by Drei69, 06 June 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[Bors Mistral]

Appogee, on 03 June 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

...I'm sorry to let you know that you could not have picked a more difficult combination of typography for your UI...

You have not see what' I've seen...

Seriously though, I agree with your post. PGI should contract a UI specialist.

[Darth Futuza]

Appogee, on 03 June 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

font stuff...

Don't take this the wrong way, but why (if you've been here since 2011) are you just bringing this issue up now? They've had bad font for a long time...

[Appogee]

Darth Futuza, on 07 June 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Don't take this the wrong way, but why (if you've been here since 2011) are you just bringing this issue up now? They've had bad font for a long time...

I raised it when UI2.0 was released, also.

[Heuvadoches]

Quote

The UI Typeface Mech Select Breaks All The Rules Of Legibility Sanity

Fixed the title for you

[MoonUnitBeta]

Appogee, on 03 June 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

Earlier in my career I did research into the readability of typography, and even consulted to some companies on this subject to improve the effectiveness of their customer communications.

I'm sorry to let you know that you could not have picked a more difficult combination of typography for your UI. Here's why:

1. Everything is in all caps.
2, The font is sans serif.
3. You've kerned the font (ie closed the gaps between individual letters) far too tightly, so that the letters run together visually.

These three factors in combination make a 'perfect storm' of illegibility.

People read principally by recognising the shape of whole words. However, when words are in all-caps, as they are in your UI, then every word is shaped as a simple rectangle. That requires the reader's brain to revert to piecing together each word by reading one letter at a time. This is slow and it creates mental fatigue.

Worse still, in your UI, even reading the individual letters is made unnecessarily hard. San-serif fonts lack the tiny visual enhancements which cue the brain to quickly identify individual letters.

Poor typography in your UI will cost you money, PGI.

People will get more quickly fatigued by the unnecessary incremental mental effort required to read your UI. When that happens they will get headaches, feel tired, and log out of your game sooner.

Note that all of the above legibility problems are compounded for people who have less than perfect vision. We all know that BattleTech is a venerable franchise, and there are a lot of older players of MWO. There are plenty of thread already from older gamers who are explaining that we are finding it hard to read the typeface in your UI.

So:

You would be well-advised to take into account your customers visual needs and redoing the typeface in your UI. Increasing the font size, use upper and lower case, loosen off the kerning, and using a serifed font.

Good post. Thank you.
I've been saying for a good long time that the font they use in the mechlab is atrocious.

[aniviron]

Darth Futuza, on 07 June 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Don't take this the wrong way, but why (if you've been here since 2011) are you just bringing this issue up now? They've had bad font for a long time...

For that matter, they changed the font they use when UI2 came out; they changed the in-game font as well, to something much less appealing. Just part of the overall visual degradation of the game. This isn't even one of the changes that had an impact on performance.

FWIW OP isn't the only one, I also made a post about this when it was new, and others have as well. It's just, well, nothing changes around here unless you can rally the forums to create a new thread about it every single day for six months.

Typography is important, but I'm not going to pretend it's the kind of thing that inflames peoples' passions to the point what that's ever going to happen.

[Idealsuspect]

No animals were harmed during the developpement but some human's eyes were ...

( i play in 1080p also it's fine for me ).