Muestereate
Minions LLC
296
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Posted - 2014.04.16 07:28:00 -
[1] - Quote
Crosspost: In reference to this interface picture Possible SISI config
This post mainly addresses the choice of icons:
I like a lot of it, I doubt if a dev reads this gd complaint but I do agree with the icons OP. I've doen a lot of industry and the icons are not intuitive as icons should be, they NEED to have rollovers at the least. Same goes for materials. Everything else in game is text or numeric data, moving over to graphics is an extra mental task. I could learn the icons, I could speed up the conversion with time, but they are not intuitive. Like many Microsoft Icons are:)
Icon design requires designers willing to go to a deeper layer of psyche, these icons are cognitive and not instinctual. To get through the cognizant layer certain mental defenses on the designers side must be slipped thru, discarded, broken or replaced. The evidence that the designer has broken through the consciousness is that less detail rather than more conveys more meaning. They are symbols that have been buried in our heads for longer periods of time and our relative to our culture.
For instance the crystal Icon on the top left does indeed resonate as a symbol for minerals. From a geek culture, I grew crystals at the age of 8 to 10 and almost instinctively I know that crystals usually precipitate from minerals rather than elements. My brain needs no more processing time to make the new association than simple a assignment. I already have the refined minerals in my mind as a sort of set, list or dictionary. minerals =["trit", "pyer", "iso", ...]; crystal_outline = mineral. Fast and direct mental access.
Now I like that transistor, It too I studied in elementary school while growing crystals. It kind of says I'm a crystal too but from elements instead. Its got a direct association too but this time the association is the beginning of a hierarchical collection I would assign the name of crystallized metals or electronic semiconductors and what this actually does is reveal another weakness. The composites pictured are neither electronic or crystallized metallic elements.
The Icons great!!! I think it should be used for what we call moon materials, with the exceptions of the gasses they sound elemental, metallic and potentially capable of semiconductor or superconductor traits.
As the icon currently sits my brain has to go through a series of variable assignments which is cognitive in nature rather than instinctual as icons in a perfect world should be. My brain has to say, transistor image = moon metal: moon metal = intermediate: intermediate = composite. While its carrying this chain I'm also pulling along node indexes for a hierarchical tree of simple and complex reactions. At this point my brain blows a gasket, the transistor has added at least 3 or 4 mental associations to the already more complex t2 thought chain And I don't even need to know this chain without a moon.
Which brings me, since I don't want to not offer a solution when exposing a problem. I would suggest a:
Crescent Moon with 4 beams. The crescent moon is immediately recognizable at a primal level as being a moon. 4 beams signifies its a composite that took Four moon materials to produce. The beams also are a quick association to the glow around the composites icons.
And what is that icon for planetary commodities? It looks like a hedge clipper. Am I supposed to associate hedge clipper with hedges and hedges with vegetation and vegetation with planets and planets with planetary interaction and planetary interaction with planetary commodities before I come to the (Inescapable??? :)) conclusion that hedge clippers = PI stuff?
We have to go back, more primal, more instinctive. Eve's roots are mythology, Greek, Norse, Celtic and probably more along occult lines. A suggestion for planets is a dot representing the sun surrounded by several circles symbolizing orbits with dots along those orbits as planets. By exaggerating the size of the planet orb in comparison to the sun orb its possible that this might say planet rather than solar system. Another symbol, closer to the hedge-clipper but symbolic of Earth more-so than "planets" Is a usually Green circle as a wreathe of leaves or vines and inside that circle a tree branching out to top and bottom and into the "leaves/vine"
I too hope someone takes us back to our mythological roots and symbols instead of Modern Microsoft icon dysfunctions. Eve's history should carry into its future. I'm a PC guy but Apple had Icons right. |