165 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

Why are people (like the OP) still asking to delay Community Warfare?

And why do you want a User Interface that requires rewriting the base code every time they want to change a small feature? Do you want more instability? Do you want longer wait-times between patch content?

Instead of asking for an old car, why don't you just focus on asking for features to make the new car work better? It's a much better option, considering that it's probably a bad idea to keep running the car that requires a professional mechanic to change the tires, whereas the new car can get a tire change lickity-split.

[Roland]

AdamBaines, on 19 May 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Could you point me to this analysis of UI 2.0 vs. industry standards of UI interface design? I am interested in reading it. Thanks.

In this thread (or maybe the OTHER UI thread), I listed a few standard measurements by which UI 2.0 doesn't do very well.

Very core principles of UI design would suggest the following high level concepts you want to build into any interface, which are not well represented in MWO's current interface:
1) Optimize/Minimize the number of user interactions (i.e. mouse clicks, movements, etc.) required to perform tasks. The more common a task, the more important this is.
2) Reduce the amount of distance required to move a pointer while performing tasks.
3) An interface should be obvious to a new user. It should indicate where information is.
4) Interfaces should not make sounds casually (i.e. beeping all the time is a significant no-no).

In MWO's interface, a lot of these principles are simply ignored, as though they were not considered at all.

Next time you use the interface, make note of not only how many times you are forced to click on things, but note how much you're moving your mouse around. Like dealing with your social controls. You're clicking a small box at the bottom of the screen, but then if you want to close the social pane and do other things, you need to move the mouse all the way up to the middle of the right side of the screen. If you want to actually deal with group stuff, then you're moving the mouse all the way up to the top left of the screen.

In many interactions, you'll find yourself moving the mouse not only across large distances, but you'll find yourself moving it across large distances REPEATEDLY. That is, in many sequences of actions taken commonly, you'll move the mouse from one location, a large distance across the interface, click again, and then move it back to the original location, click, etc. What's worse, you're often moving significant distances and then clicking on fairly small targets, which makes the actual interactions more time consuming than others (according to Fitts' law).

Note things such as how obvious the interface is... Now, once you know how to use it, it's difficult to really observe such things unless you've been trained to do it, as it's hard to really look at the interface objectively through the eyes of a novice. But questions of such things like, "How do I know that's where the information is" can be asked to get some insight. If the only answer is, "Because I've already used that." then the interface isn't really obvious.

The thing is, there definitely are things which are half implemented, which would make the interface better... as an example, they have the capacity for lists of things, rather than the icon view. You can see the switch for it at the top of the windows. However, they don't work. That functionality never got finished. It would definitely make the interface better in many cases, as it'd make it easier to display things like the engines.

Prosperity Park, on 19 May 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

Why are people (like the OP) still asking to delay Community Warfare?

And why do you want a User Interface that requires rewriting the base code every time they want to change a small feature? Do you want more instability? Do you want longer wait-times between patch content?

Instead of asking for an old car, why don't you just focus on asking for features to make the new car work better? It's a much better option, considering that it's probably a bad idea to keep running the car that requires a professional mechanic to change the tires, whereas the new car can get a tire change lickity-split.

I think when folks say they want UI 1.0, they don't LITERALLY want that interface back. No one wants the bugginess of the interface.

But they want the relative simplicity of the interface for things like building mechs. It was easier to use in most ways, than the current interface.

The real solution is to take the current UI architecture, which is supposedly much more modular and re-usable, and make a better interface using it.

[Harmatia]

Wolfways, on 18 May 2014 - 04:56 PM, said:

I never experienced any lag.

Nor myself.

[Tesunie]

Prosperity Park, on 19 May 2014 - 01:57 PM, said:

Why are people (like the OP) still asking to delay Community Warfare?

And why do you want a User Interface that requires rewriting the base code every time they want to change a small feature? Do you want more instability? Do you want longer wait-times between patch content?

Instead of asking for an old car, why don't you just focus on asking for features to make the new car work better? It's a much better option, considering that it's probably a bad idea to keep running the car that requires a professional mechanic to change the tires, whereas the new car can get a tire change lickity-split.

I've been trying to say that for a while now... but alas, to no avail...
Instead, they fixate on tiny and rather meaningless parts of my posts and "go on the attack". Thus, I took my own advice and created two threads were we can discuss UI "features" to try and help improve what we already have. I plan to continue to make another thread probably on Mechlab, but that one will be a dozy to create, and will have to be rather in depth...
(Hey. Weren't you a mod at one time? )

[Tesunie]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 19 May 2014 - 10:52 AM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...ssion-feedback/

First post after Bryan's.

No offense to you, but they don't care.

No offense to you, but if you feel they don't care, then why are you complaining about it on the forums? I'm just wondering... Edit: And I honestly don't mean any offense with this comment.

(I only read a couple of posts there, but to be honest, I saw people more or less saying what is wrong, and not providing very many suggestions, or very vague suggestions... But I didn't read very far. If the thread wasn't closed, I would have quoted and posted my own suggestion...)

Edited by Tesunie, 19 May 2014 - 04:44 PM.

[AdamBaines]

Roland, on 19 May 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

In this thread (or maybe the OTHER UI thread), I listed a few standard measurements by which UI 2.0 doesn't do very well.

Very core principles of UI design would suggest the following high level concepts you want to build into any interface, which are not well represented in MWO's current interface:
1) Optimize/Minimize the number of user interactions (i.e. mouse clicks, movements, etc.) required to perform tasks. The more common a task, the more important this is.
2) Reduce the amount of distance required to move a pointer while performing tasks.
3) An interface should be obvious to a new user. It should indicate where information is.
4) Interfaces should not make sounds casually (i.e. beeping all the time is a significant no-no).

In MWO's interface, a lot of these principles are simply ignored, as though they were not considered at all.

Next time you use the interface, make note of not only how many times you are forced to click on things, but note how much you're moving your mouse around. Like dealing with your social controls. You're clicking a small box at the bottom of the screen, but then if you want to close the social pane and do other things, you need to move the mouse all the way up to the middle of the right side of the screen. If you want to actually deal with group stuff, then you're moving the mouse all the way up to the top left of the screen.

In many interactions, you'll find yourself moving the mouse not only across large distances, but you'll find yourself moving it across large distances REPEATEDLY. That is, in many sequences of actions taken commonly, you'll move the mouse from one location, a large distance across the interface, click again, and then move it back to the original location, click, etc. What's worse, you're often moving significant distances and then clicking on fairly small targets, which makes the actual interactions more time consuming than others (according to Fitts' law).

Note things such as how obvious the interface is... Now, once you know how to use it, it's difficult to really observe such things unless you've been trained to do it, as it's hard to really look at the interface objectively through the eyes of a novice. But questions of such things like, "How do I know that's where the information is" can be asked to get some insight. If the only answer is, "Because I've already used that." then the interface isn't really obvious.

The thing is, there definitely are things which are half implemented, which would make the interface better... as an example, they have the capacity for lists of things, rather than the icon view. You can see the switch for it at the top of the windows. However, they don't work. That functionality never got finished. It would definitely make the interface better in many cases, as it'd make it easier to display things like the engines.


I think when folks say they want UI 1.0, they don't LITERALLY want that interface back. No one wants the bugginess of the interface.

But they want the relative simplicity of the interface for things like building mechs. It was easier to use in most ways, than the current interface.

The real solution is to take the current UI architecture, which is supposedly much more modular and re-usable, and make a better interface using it.

Thanks for the info. Ill read it thoroughly when I have a moment. But do you know of something else, some online resources that talk about UI Design? I know general practices as I work in software, but some of the thing you mention I'd like to readup on further when i have some free time. Thanks for the info again.