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How do you make a good user interface?

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Gariuys Evil Strangers Inc.	Posted - 2010.01.08 13:26:00 - [31] Quite a few things in this thread are already possible.... so while I admit that EVE isn't the easiest too use UI. People are apperently also failing to find the options there are to improve/customise it as well.
Dansel Gallente Empire Assault Corp Dead Terrorists	Posted - 2010.01.08 13:34:00 - [32] Making the overload button slightly bigger would go along way for me.... Or be able to toggle overload by say ctrl-clicking the mod And by the way, they should really separate sigs from the main post.
Parihelion Minmatar A Few Disposaleers	Posted - 2010.01.08 14:48:00 - [33] I'd like to have my incoming and outgoing combat damage sent to a chat window, rather than floating boxes in the middle of the screen that are gone in seconds. Color code the damage based on primary damage type. How about guns have a range/falloff display when you mouse over them? Or better yet, a hit percentage based on your current target? The ability to break up and move around buttons and UI pieces, or resize (as previously stated). How about a menu option added for "Loot to cargo hold" to easier clean up wrecks. Having that hotkeyed would make me wet my pants. How about being able to set a static follow point for the camera? Like 500m behind and above the rear of the ship facing forward. So you won't need to reposition the camera each time you warp/jump/dock/sneeze. Voice warnings for specific ship events (being locked, scrambled, jammed etc etc), or better yet just add these things to a menu where we can set up an audio file to play when the trigger happens. If we want a specific sound for a specific event we can set it. A keybinding for "Lock nearest aggressive" or "Lock next aggressive". Possibly a couple different ways to do that one.
BoBoZoBo Foundation Vanguard.	Posted - 2010.01.08 15:41:00 - [34] First ting I would change are the icons - the art for some of them (market/fitting) are WAY too complicated. Everything just nees to be simplified. ========================= Minister of Propaganda - Operator 9
Acrid Acid	Posted - 2010.01.08 17:57:00 - [35] Now, they try to make it easier for noobs but hell, they keep this ****y UI... Yesterday I logged on my alt to check the ''flash'' in the ingame browser thingy and noticed the DEFAULT OVERVIEW. God damn its awful. Firts thing they should do to make it easier for nubs is setup a decent OVERVIEW with tabs. Such as, hostiles, friendly, celestials and roids... or something along these lines... No, what they did is take everything and throw it in one single tab. Good job, way to get the new player even more confused with the one thousands things displaying in their overview. Thats complete lazyness imo.
Magnus Orin Minmatar United Systems Navy Zenith Affinity	Posted - 2010.01.08 18:32:00 - [36] Please. No UI mods for Eve. When I use to play WoW, I would have to download hundreds of mods to digest all the information needed. If I did not, I felt I could not be as competitive as other players. Eve's UI is a breath of fresh compared to the headache of constantly updating 100+ unsupported modifications. It's a level playing field and I don't think that should change. Hotkeys would be a god send, but other than that, Eve's UI is fine.
Moonasha	Posted - 2010.01.08 19:26:00 - [37] Edited by: Moonasha on 08/01/2010 19:31:06 I'll donate my .02 ISK, maybe CCP will look at this topic. One thing we need is FEEDBACK. Oh I'm being warp scrambled? Well, that's pretty bloody important, so TELL ME. A little icon on a list of ships with their corp, alliance, name, type, and radians per second is not very noticeable. A nice alarm, and a nice little screen effect like when you start a warp at an acceleration gate would do the trick. All able to be turned off of course. And perhaps let you customize the overhead so they flash teal for instance, when they're scrambling you. Hotkeys have been mentioned, and boy would it be nice if we had them the way every other mmo had them. The targeting thingies should be customizable too. Instead of a line, let us make a grid, or whatever. Let us put friendlies on the left side, and enemies on the right. Give us an option for a 'compact' mode, where the portrait is gotten rid of. Let us change the portrait shape even... circles, hexagons oh my! Get rid of local chat plz. Add some functionality to the log. Right now it shows damage in like 3 different colors which make no sense. Color code them. Em damage? Blue text! Exp? Orange! Therm? Red. Kinetic? Silver. EM and Therm? Purple, or perhaps a blue red gradient. The possibilities for innovation are endless here ccp. Add an option for Drone damage too while you're at it, so I can see what the hell my drones are doing. Also make it so you can click an entry and see detailed information. Example : You see "Group of heavy modal lasers his pirate for 1023". Right click on the message, and you get to see how much damage your 7 lasers did each, whether they missed, and how much EM vs therm they did. Seriously CCP. The possibilities to enhance the game in this department are endless. I saw another suggestion, to put more info on brackets. Superb idea. CCP, I know you know your UI is ****, please fix it!
Gloria Stitz	Posted - 2010.01.08 19:34:00 - [38] Edited by: Gloria Stitz on 08/01/2010 19:33:59 Originally by: something somethingdark I dont know how to make a decent UI but i know how to make a god awful pos UI i just copy paste the eve ui and voglia Is voglia out of alpha yet? Was thinking of signing up for the beta. ------------- 'Don't try to learn Eve all at once, otherwise your brain will explode' - Albert Einstein ------------
M0rkar Amarr Universal Mayhem	Posted - 2010.01.08 20:10:00 - [39] do what OP says CCP im serious, a better UI (even just the optics with no added functionality) will increase the game experience!
Bladexc Caldari As Far As The eYe can see	Posted - 2010.01.08 20:21:00 - [40] I think what would make EVE awesome, is if they made a more interactive piloting system. I was hoping i could use the arrow keys to cruise around in space, but to my suprise, the only way to move is to click in empty space. Does anyone else think that i am right? Would anyone else like being able to fly your ship with your arrow keys!!!! You cannot experiance victory, if you have never experianced defeat...
Magnus Orin Minmatar United Systems Navy Zenith Affinity	Posted - 2010.01.08 20:27:00 - [41] Originally by: Bladexc Would anyone else like being able to fly your ship with your arrow keys!!!! There are plenty of twitch combat based space games out there, and STO is coming out soon. I suggest you try them. Combat in Eve is about strategy, planning and intelligence. The way we move our ships is fine.
Scout Ops	Posted - 2010.01.08 20:50:00 - [42] I wants a "lock this" hotkey for example I click a guy on overview and it gets highlighted. Then press "L" or whatever, and he gets locked.
Gariuys Evil Strangers Inc.	Posted - 2010.01.08 20:56:00 - [43] What's with the hotkey obsession, we've got plenty of hotkeys already, and ctrl + click targets just fine!! Really learn to actually use the UI instead of asking for stuff that's already there! The only stuff I see that aren't already there and isn't just personal preference are better default overview settings which would be nice indeed and better combat feedback although the last has improved dramatically already compaired to the no way of knowing at all we used to have.
Lord Xantoh	Posted - 2010.01.08 21:11:00 - [44] Edited by: Lord Xantoh on 08/01/2010 21:11:13 Originally by: TimMc Edited by: TimMc on 08/01/2010 03:00:06 Eve has sound? Edit: I am in favour of CCP coming around our houses and drilling a hole in our necks so we can enjoy eve like our character is - by neural i/o. Get your facts straight. It's called NIA (Neural Impulse Actuator) http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/ocz_peripherals/nia-neural_impulse_actuator
Sphit Ker	Posted - 2010.01.08 22:38:00 - [45] Originally by: Ealiom Totally agree. A massive UI upgrade would have me more excited than any other upgrade. I think it would do wonders attracting and 'keeping' more players as well. I'm in work at the moment I'd love to photoshop up some mock examples for people to critique and offer changes too. Something CCP should probably be doing now. Please, post it in there: post your UI mockups thread I made one for an orbit and keep at range interface. I'll post it as soon as I can find the files again. The following statement is not my signature. The preceding statement is my signature.
Terianna Eri Amarr Senex Legio Get Off My Lawn	Posted - 2010.01.08 23:29:00 - [46] Originally by: Scout Ops I wants a "lock this" hotkey for example I click a guy on overview and it gets highlighted. Then press "L" or whatever, and he gets locked. Ctrl + Left-click on an object in space or on something in the overview locks it fyi ________________ Originally by: CCP Incognito PS the "time to P*nis" is the shortest time recorded in human history. :)
Liang Nuren The Lollypop Factory	Posted - 2010.01.09 00:17:00 - [47] Originally by: Terianna Eri Originally by: Scout Ops I wants a "lock this" hotkey for example I click a guy on overview and it gets highlighted. Then press "L" or whatever, and he gets locked. Ctrl + Left-click on an object in space or on something in the overview locks it fyi Is there an "unlock this" hotkey? -Liang -- Liang Nuren - Eve Forum ***** Extraordinaire www.kwikdeath.org
Scout Ops	Posted - 2010.01.09 00:22:00 - [48] thanks about the Ctrl + trick but seriously, lets say im canflipping and im waiting for the guy to fall ... LOL should I keep pressing "Ctrl +" for 3 minutes? LMAO
Acrid Acid	Posted - 2010.01.09 02:08:00 - [49] Yeah seriusly, this topic have been made in hope that some of the CCP employes come and read the ideas that people find to improve the gaming experience by improving the UI and controls. Things that could easily be changed WITHOUT changing the UI for a better and easier(logical at least) new AND old player experience; Combat feedback Decent default overview for the new players PRESS ENTER OR W/E KEY YOU DECIDE TO TALK/CHAT/TYPE MESSAGES Left Click on an object in space: it activates a contextual menu. Keeping down your mouse button, you select an option with a number, for example: 1. for approach, 2. for toggle target/untarget, 3. for orbit at default distance, 4. keep at range at default distance Four things that would drasticaly change the controls in a good way and that doesnt need a lot of coding or human effort. Keep the ideas coming guys... it >NEED< to be improved.
Veloni	Posted - 2010.01.09 04:50:00 - [50] Edited by: Veloni on 09/01/2010 04:52:48 As said before, and i will repeat it again. More hotkeys What I would love to do: (keep in mind I have an azerty keyboard, so that's why this may look weird, but youll get the point) Enter: start chatting (as in every other mmo) 1-2-3-4-5-etc: If you have 3 targets locked, you select the most left one with "1", the second with "2", the third with "3" etc. A-Z-E-R-T-Y etc: activate the corresponding modules shift+A, shift+Z, shift+E,etc: Overload the corresponding modules Q: Orbit S: Keep at range D: Approach F: Lock target W: launch drones X: Drones, engage target C: Return to drone bay V: Scoop to drone bay And so on. it does NOT break anything, people that like to click can keep it as it is now, people that love to keybind can keybind things. And for the rest a ton of small changes -more info about the ship (dps/tank/etc) -less fiddly buttons -less long menu's -better warnings for e-war -better fitting window (the new one sucks so hard imo) -let us change font/font size (the times I heard an fc say "align to the F8- gate" while it's actually FB >> -etc And I have played a lot of mmo's, and i'm totally against ui mods, ccp should just fix/improve the ui as promised and no, "we have made the ui flatter and squarer" doesnt count as the only ui improvement for an expansion when you have been promising us a ui overhaul for a long time (still remember fanfest 2008 where you said that you had a team working on ui improvements, tbh I would fire those guys if the only thing for an expansion they could come up with is make it flatter and squarer"
Seth Ruin Minmatar Ominous Corp Cult of War	Posted - 2010.01.09 06:32:00 - [51] Originally by: Agnatar Originally by: Sader Rykane All they have to do is allow the UI to be modded by the playerbase. That's the point. But I guess CCP must first loose several tenthousand players to STO before this will happen. So it's never going to happen, then? STO is a joke. I don't understand the hype.
Elena Laskova	Posted - 2010.01.09 11:44:00 - [52] Edited by: Elena Laskova on 09/01/2010 11:53:11 I think a lot of the EvE intelligence/information and combat GUI could be implemented "wireframe" style, like the scanning and tacView modes. Some of you may remember the stupid "chase the fast drones" rookie tutorial mission. They orbit a point, and the "right" way to kill them is go somewhere else on that orbit and wait for them. But you have no way to easy see that they are prbiting :s In a real high-tech spaceship, I'd have my sensors look at such targets for a few seconds, then project their expected path onto my screen, with the line coded for speed, target size etc, and perhaps a mouseover or something similar for additional information. The human eye is good at colors, good at seeing relative motion, ok (but less good )at large simple shapes, not good at all with tiny detailed shapes like text. You can put a lot more information into the same screen-area if you use encoding that suits the huan eye/brain, and there is a context for interpretation. Example for "context": put up a picture of some friends and/or your family, taken on vacation, with an interesting background (shops, beach, mountains, houses ... And start looking for the amout of information you can get about the people, their clothes, the place, the mood of the people, weather, etc etc. When in combat, or looking for enemies, we should always be in an effective graphical view that can be interpreted at a glance (the way a photograph can) and provides easy (hotkey + mouse), a means to focus things (more info about an unknown ship, target an enemy, target for movement), and do things (shoot, move, warp to a focus location). This means colors, simulated relative motion, simple shapes, , then complex shapes, text only as a special case. Actual implementation is the reverse :s The strange thing about EvE is that many aspects of this are in place but only half implemented. It's almost as though CCP rushes something out, delivers a semi-functonal version, gets some criticism, and (/cry over the whines instead of completing the features in the next release. I can still remember whole landscapes from WoW, nearly 2 years after I last played it. Like anyone who's played faction "Alliance" I still vividly remember my first fight with "Hogger" (pause for rueful chuckle from ex-WoW players :) All I remember from EvE is a grey screen with a "white on ugly green" tabular overview display on one side, and some huge but uninformative target icons along the top. Yes I know it's not the same game, WoW players are the s****of the universe, there is a huge difference between pretending to be a spaceship captain and pretending to be an Elf or an Orc, Blizzard is an agent of evil ... But that's not the point. The interfaces of fantasy games work well because they match the way the human eye/brain work. You can see the relative distance of objects at a glance. You can select objects from the background because of differences in color. It takes advantage of the eye's high sensitivity to relative motion. You don't get this stuff quite as easily in a spaceship game. But it's not all that difficult. It should be available.
Acrid Acid	Posted - 2010.01.09 14:48:00 - [53] Edited by: Acrid Acid on 09/01/2010 14:49:35 I agree, if there is a game's UI that need to be well designed it certainly a internet spaceship game since people are used to play a simple avatar in a virtual mediaval world but they are not used to play a spaceship in space tough. I mean, the later is less intuitive than the first game mentionned... In short, what make EVE hard is not the game itself, its the overal bad design. The game itself could be played a lot easier if everything was >consistant< and >logical< or simply well though. Descriptions are faulty. Informations are not displayed in a clear manner. Controls are clunky and outdated. User interface is intrusive and overly complicated. No consistancy. Now before you tell me, if its that worst,why dont you play another MMO. Because I like the VISION of the EVE developers itself, and I want to experience it as well, even if I have to go trough all these flaws. Of course every games have flaws, but why keep them when we can change them? edit: Now, they want more cash, they want fresh blood, they want more players. They need to attack the core of the problem... the UI, the informations, the consistancy and the controls.
Forge Lag Jita Lag Preservation Fund	Posted - 2010.01.09 15:17:00 - [54] Considering CCP removed engine trails withough replacement and apparently does not know why we want them back, there won't be any major improvement in UI from this company. Also note that after months of pestering them they finaly put a space between buttons on scanner interafec between scan and recover - but not between reconnect and destroy. It is little things like these indicating that the devs up to the management level just don't have slightest clue about UI. I am just waiting for the hillarity of FPS with B&W context menus. "Real men play badminton, deep diving is for pussies." PvP 13373P33K unscrambled
Acrid Acid	Posted - 2010.01.09 23:31:00 - [55] Up to the top.
masternerdguy Gallente Etched Hull Innovative Enterprises Don't Feed the Bears	Posted - 2010.01.09 23:33:00 - [56] i love how the board ship and trash it buttons are rite next to each other.
Xodd Hil Gallente Nefantar Tribe Green Alliance	Posted - 2010.01.09 23:53:00 - [57] Originally by: Parihelion How about guns have a range/falloff display when you mouse over them? Or better yet, a hit percentage based on your current target? You already have the first one. Activate the tactical overlay and mouseover the gun. 60day ETC
SupaKudoRio	Posted - 2010.01.10 01:02:00 - [58] I don't see why people are still going on about this... it's obvious CCP aren't going to do anything about it. They've had several long years to do so. I also don't get why they keep claiming they've got people working on it, it's just so blatantly untrue when expansions/major patches roll out. --------------- 10/10: Where is your God now?
Schmurfy	Posted - 2010.01.10 03:26:00 - [59] I have lost hope to see it actually change... I also play World of Warcraft and the completly open ui is one of the wonderful thing in this game,in its current state it is just perfect for me and they even managed to prevent making bots with the scripts. The ingame browser who was recently rebuilt from ground had far lower priority for me than ui, anyone there use the browser more than the whole ui ? I don't think so. Some things like taking 3 years (i may not be quite accurate on that) to allow moving the main ship interface (the cap, shield, armor and modules round part) just feels ridiculous, I suspended my account for some years and came back recently to find that the old ugly ui I used when the game was released is still there and was not changed at all, nice... Allowing some sort of mods to tweak the ui to our needs is, for me, the only way to go since as someone already said above we hardly play the game the same way. But wait... is there even any CCP members ready these forums ? Don't get me wrong I just love this game but it could be far better than that with a real user interface. Some of the things i really wish to see someday: - to show multiple overview (with one or more smaller ones) - shortcuts for any action in game and maybe improving the configuration ui for them - when I put a window somewhere I want it THERE whatever happens (my windows frequently open at some other place when reopened or move to snap to when another window is opened next to it even if locked...) - locking a window do not fully prevent it from moving and are ugly - am I the only one unhappy with drone interface ? At least they managed to improve things a little with the nice fitting window but it is just s small step.
Tippia Reikoku IT Alliance	Posted - 2010.01.10 03:35:00 - [60] Originally by: Forge Lag Considering CCP removed engine trails withough replacement and apparently does not know why we want them back, there won't be any major improvement in UI from this company. 1. No. A replacement is coming as soon as they can make it not impact performance as much. 2. No. They know that we want them back and why. 3. No. Engine trails is not UI. ùùù ôIf you're not willing to fight for what you have in ≡v≡à you don't deserve it, and you will lose it.ö ù Karath Piki

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