Gazbo, on 02 March 2014 - 04:33 AM, said:
Firstly let me just say, I am a UI designer by trade with over 13 years industry experience.
UI 2.0 looks shiny as a screen grab but fails as an interface.
In fact it pretty much breaks every user-interface rule-of-thumb you can measure.
Not wanting to be mean here, but I question the qualifications of the designer, and the QA process that let this into production. It should never have been released as is. Good news: I believe it can be fixed and retain it's shiny.
PGI,
Please start with a blank sheet of paper and workflow your interface's most common/important tasks and functions.
Then test with various user profiles including:
- New user with no knowledge of Battlemechs
- New user cautious of spending money while they learn the game
- Casual user with around 10 mechs
- Competitive user with 30+ mechs
Then test scenarios like:
- Buying a new mech
- Optimizing a mech
- Fast swapping between different chassis/classes/consumables
- Sharing components / modules across 4 favorite mechs
Rinse and repeat until each task can be done with maximum accuracy, minimal clicks, mouse travel and time elapsed.
Then add your graphs and shiny back in.
- Gazbo
This.
Or start with some basic learning by reading Alan Coopers "The inmates are running the asylum", and even Wikipedia. Both sources would have helped not failing at the absolute basics.
Random examples:
- You click low right for settings, they open up top left.
- Unusable font sizes
- The most important information is not provided right away, instead space is wasted with additional info not needed for a start
- The same icon for each engine 30 times on one screen? Where's the point in that?
- Mechlab, not even going to start
- You need annoying amounts of clicks (exiting the game, joining a game, modifying mechs...)
- bad decisions on bg and font colors make it even harder to read
- 3+ menu bars, why? Top, left and bottom, plus the tiny important info on CBills...
I can only agree with Gazbo here. This UI fails at all basic design principles and at its task of providing an interface for the user to use the software. You should learn the basics and start over - for the time being, revert to 1.0. It might have been uglier, but it was much more usable.
Edited by DasAmok, 02 March 2014 - 07:26 AM.