Why Do We UI Like We UI?

[JustL1me]

I would really prefer to not have to mouse-over and tab through nested menus to see relevant information that was easily viewable before the new UI direction thing took place.

[Jiminez_Burial]

In regards to the end of mission screen, why is half the screen basically wasted space?  I don't want to look at the Warframes of people in my squad, I want to know what I earned in that mission and I shouldn't have to mouse-over item icons to see the related info (resource amounts, blueprint names etc).  If you don't make the change for squads, then please change it for when you have no squad members.  Please stop trying (trying because arguably you're failing) to make the UI look nice at the cost of functionality.

[HunterDigi]

What about the vote on mission UI, it's really bad when the checkmark vanishes while cancel button can move to its place all the sudden and get baited into clicking cancel leaving your squad... which happened a few times to me personally, one of them being yesterday in POE, they started a vote for another mission while in POE and I wanted to confirm, yet it was forced, the checkmark vanished and I ended up clicking X, which removed me from squad but without migration, then the game proceeded to tell me it lost connection to MP game and kicked me to orbiter 😐

Edited January 25, 2020 by HunterDigi

[Lxndr77]

7 minutes ago, Jiminez_Burial said:

In regards to the end of mission screen, why is half the screen basically wasted space?  I don't want to look at the Warframes of people in my squad,

This is a good point, i get to see my team at the beginning of a mission and after the first 100 times i skip it. I often get to look at other frames while waiting at the extraction etc, I dont need to look at them while extracting as well. Maybe have that in the background behind the information instead of the Landing craft.

[Fallen_Echo]

Why cant you guys UI like this?

 

We actually see all the items we leveled without having to scroll. If anything hasnt gained levels or focus it gets removed.

Rewards, pickups and mods all separated in a clearly visible matter. Text enabled on all.

 

Just why do we need a generic hero shooter scorescreen where most of the actually important information is lost?

[Feam]

I hope that when you use this "UI is a conversation" metaphor, you also start considering which conversations are actually worth having over and over.

Would you buy a watch that you have to talk to every time you want to see the time? 
Would you want a locked fridge that you have to politely request to list every single item in it to find out what you want to eat?
Or a remote with identical buttons with no text, icons or numbers, which only appear after you press them? 

Many UI elements are used thousands of times, over several years, for seconds of interaction at a time. Each time a hover element / mode-swapping button is added, you double or triple that interaction. Things that were available at a glance suddenly require taking attention away from the rest of the game, fulfilling multiple steps for the same result.

The reason veterans are often upset with recent UI changes isn't just because of a lack of information or streamlined approach, it's because recent UI is designed primarily for the first time a player uses it, instead of the next 49,999 times.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Feam

[DoomFruit]

11 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

Does this mean we will start spreading hold to confirm all over the place? I don’t rightly know to be honest. In big part it will depend on your responses down below

No. NO. GOD NO.

That's the single most annoying thing about No Man's Sky. The first mod ever made for that game had its sole purpose as getting rid of that hold click mechanic.

The single most important thing for a UI is for it never to get in the user's way. Un-necessary steps (cf. old and new ability UI screens) hamper that. It should do exactly what the user needs, everything that the user needs (so no hiding information) and not a single bit more (so no having to go through extra steps to see something for which there was plenty of space to display it already).

A huge point to illustrate that is the railjack in-ship UI. That, to me, is a huge parade of things which have gone wrong. Interaction prompts in weird places (forges, archwing catapult), almost zero indication that some place even has an interaction (spinal cannon, archwing launcher, forges), annoying animations to enter and exit ship control elements (pilot, turrets) and really, REALLY annoying forge access methods (find the tiny little interaction point, press button, wait for the un-necessary roping down the block thing, hold to click when I need that revolite yesterday... oops, some item popup just canceled my progress, finally done it... now need to get rid of this stupid parazon thing so that I can have my gun/omnitool back which actually does useful things).

Also, the UI moving around whenever you move the mouse pointer is irritating. All it does is add a bit of un-necessary extra mental work after I've already told my mouse arm "move pointer to this position" and then have to correct that position later on because the target point has moved.

EDIT: and if you're talking about forma overwrite, wouldn't a better option be to show "changing X polarity to Y polarity, is this OK?" on the confirm dialogue box, while also highlighting the slot to be changed?

Edited January 25, 2020 by DoomFruit

[Jorj-o-jorj]

Hi. I need one thing:  I want to see how much damage I did to the Fomorian after the end of the main time. Because I don’t have time for this during the damage. And I want to see it after/ Thx

[Sdarfoy]

I just can't understand why things can't be like in Path of Exile, where you have Z to toggle between all loot and no loot showing, and you have Alt to show everything while Alt is pressed. It's just so simple but very effective. Being able to hold Alt while in inventory to see all the labels will solve all these problems i believe 🙂

[Asphyxxia]

Please for the love of Vor never pick form over function. I don't care how aesthetically unpleasing the UI is if it gets the job done quickly and efficiently. It's not about looking nice but only telling little. This isn't Tinder. It's about providing as much necessary and useful info as possible while not messing up the clarity, readability and accessibility. Then you can work on making things pretty.

[Kontrollo]

Note: I'm using keyboard and mouse.

I think you're right about wanting to hide "too much information" at first, but as a long-time player who is very familiar with all the systems, hiding all that information behind hovers and popups is just very inconvenient.

I'd rather have you take an approach of "overlays", where I can display additional information with a checkbox/toggle, and have it permanently active on a specific type of screen.

The reason is this: there's a myriad of things to know, and while I'm familiar with how things work -- and some things/mechanics are overly complex -- so I'm not going to remember every single detail about e.g. every Warframe's ability. Being able to open a screen that already contains all the information (because I chose it to be that way by ticking all the boxes) is much more user-friendly to me, specifically, than having to move my mouse all over the place to get at the information.

 

Not sure about the hold-to-confirm, to be honest. Whether it's generally better or worse, I mean, I see your reasoning.

However, what I can definitely say is that it's an annoyance to upgrade a avionic/mod 7 times by pressing and holding.

 

End of mission screen: I don't like it, but people don't like change to familiar things, so I'm biased. Therefore: make sure that it doesn't end up as change for the sake of change.

And enable labels by default if you want to make them optional.There are so many things in this game, no matter how distinct you make your icons, there will always be something people need a refresher on. Especially those who don't play it regularly. Also again: a possibility would be to give us a checkbox/toggle on the screen it affects.

[Next-of-Sin]

Can "Flavour" get rekt?
We want INFORMATIONS. The game is a masterpiece of art when you play it already.

There is already a good 80% of the required informations of the game that you get from the wiki because it's either a) Only there or b) Way easier to look at there (and look the other information paired with it that you will need etc)

For the last two years, you're not revamping the UI for ANY UTILITY. It's Fluff and modern art only, it's getting ridiculous and it needs to stop.

WE WANT INFORMATION. And a just a bit of fluff so it's not unpleasant to look at. (Not unpleasant to look at =/ A goddamn post modern art piece)

You guys need to wake up, this year is gonna be a deciding factor in many things if you don't change a tactic or two. You're no Indie anymore.

Edit : Also, if there's a choice to be made, Information > Art.
Game might be a masterpiece in 4k, if I'm clueless as to what to do (and that encompasses what you said you wanted to do, better new players experience) I ain't gonna play the game.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Next-of-Sin

[actuallyVile]

12 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

Earlier I talked about treating UX as a conversation, expanding on that, it is not always the same conversation. “What are Chromas abilities?” is what someone newer to Chroma would ask, but what a Dragon master was asking when clicking on the abilities screen, really was closer to “What are the effects of my Mod choices on Chroma?”.

Sorry but I disagree extremely with this. I remember when over 6 years ago I started playing this game and started modding. I already knew what abilities I had, I saw those in missions. But I had no idea what effects the mods were actually having. New players need to see the effects of mods so they can actually learn how things work. 

[Construc_]

hmmm i did a read.
consistency is a good point, im glad you're trying on that, its one of the big issues i have, having to re-learn every new feature (old features now, but they werent when i was a new player lol) because its formatted differently, so thanks for that.
i agree with the hold-to-confirm, i too have panic-declined a forma because i feared i did it wrong.
i like that you are adding a bit of discovery about rewards etc to the world state panel, hopefully that can expand to on-hover for the planets and missions! it still sucks for new players not knowing how to get the resources you need for certain builds. how do i get rhino, for instance? he's the first warframe people get, but 1) you gotta know he drops from a boss fight, and 2) you gotta know how to get the resources you need. at the moment you still have to rely on the wiki for that. tooltips for rewards on missions would help a lot.
the new end-of-mission screen looks nice. i like that healing, CC, and mission objectives are part of that.

however, i still think you put too much emphasis on flashy-ness over function. for instance, the one part of the new UI i struggle with a lot is the void relics screens.
-refining a relic has an animation that takes precious time away from the count-down timer, and thats already stressful enough.
-there's a timer for selecting a relic, and a second timer for seeing what relics your squad has selected once you've all done so, but what if everyone has selected a relic and someone decides they want to change? why not just add the two timers together and let people select relics until its done?
-if you still want to display what relics everyone has before the mission starts, at least tell us what they are. currently you just see the icons, which as you say are just samey and you have to hover on them to see what they are and you really dont get enough time to do that before the timer is up.
-the leave/stay screen for endless missions lacks contrast. I find it really hard to see where my mouse is. the faint de-saturation on the two buttons is really hard to see and its only once you've made a choice that you can see what is going on. everything is noise, so the faintness of the highlighting is really difficult to see.
-the extraction timer countdown gets in the way a lot and is really hard to read. its just in the wrong place.

also I think adjusting the tooltips in a small way by making them toggleable/expandable menus instead would help make things smoother to digest for knowledgeable players, to avoid the constant mouse-hovers over everything. just clicking on a thing somewhere on the tooltip to say 'dont go away' or something.

I do want to say though the new arsenal ui is amazing 💖 the tabs for your companion and archwing are great! I love that I dont have to go through the old cumbersome pop-up thing to select archwing stats! its still a little opaque as to what parts are consistent between loadouts and what are  independent for that loadout: like companions are set per-loadout even though they are in a new tab, archwings are not indipendent per loudout even though archguns are, and gear is consistent regardless of loadout even though they have their own tab like companions do. it'd be neat to be able to specify whether a gear item is specific to a loadout or consistent between loadouts, but more importantly for new players is being able to see what will change 😛

a few small inconsistencies too:
-the mod screen only shows how much kuva you have when you have a riven selected, but endo is always displayed.
-looking at the upgrades screen, i can see if it has a lens and how many forma ive put in and what rank it is, but not whether ive installed a catalyst or reactor. i dont want to have to do math on what rank it is vs what my capacity is minus what rank stance ive got 😖 if you want to make it flashy, you can give it the 'broken' look from the starter quest mods! or something. but please.

[xGryphus]

As someone who's into fashionframe, I really like new End of Mission screen as a way to appreciate the look of other frames and showcase my own as there is very little time for it in midst of battle. Nevertheless, there could be an expand option, that would fill whole screen with grid and use diorama as background (should provide enough space for twice as many items).

A small icon to distinguish special rewards, like catche and end of mission drops would be quite handy.

When it comes to Relics, leaving just the type (A5, N1, etc.) for a forced label might be a nifty trick, since era is easily distinguishable by icon.

[SosseBargeld585]

A magnetic proc should not disrupt your whole UI either, please remove that.

[CeePee]

Having slept on this, it's downright insulting to think players get confused by too much information when the wiki has been an integral part of the game since its beginning. People in the past have even suggested an integrated wiki in the codex. The game doesn't tell us enough and we have to resort to the wiki for many simple things.

Whoever is in charge of the new UI/UX has to change course. Hover or tab to get more information is a terrible design. No item labels is a terrible design. Wasting more than half of the screen for visuals instead of information that the player is looking for in that very screen is a terrible design. The new end screen is a perfect example of these mistakes. You're actually removing information we had before, replacing it with useless stats, flashy Warframe pictures and hiding item labels. It would waste even more of the players time trying to check what they got from the mission.

For your point about too much information in the old ability screen, THIS is what I want to see when I search for an ability. The game is already missing so much information from basic ability use and you want to hide even more of it.

Spoiler

 

Don't hide information from us, make the UI faster with more useful information to the player. Whatever new "design guidelines" you think you're following need to be ditched and looked at from a new perspective.

[_Blackeye_]

Please review the loading screens!

I already opened a topic for this months or even years ago.

The loading screens can provide so much important information while you wait (and lets face it, this time is wasted anyway...). Some possible things you can display: types of enemies, drops, map discovered sofar (if you join later), ...

But some of the most important ones: mission type, faction, squad and equipment

I can't be the only one joining a mission and sometimes just forgetting what I actually clicked on? 😛 Also seeing what frames and guns your squad brings can be so useful! "Oh we have a trin, gonna spam some 4th abilities then".

I mean the possibilities are basically endless. There's also not much to live up to since the screen as it is now is just 'blank'. AND most of all, you can get lots of useful information while (as it is now) wasting time.

[-JT-_-R3W1ND]

 

17 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

 2. This is overwhelming

Can you please show us ONE of this type message?

Just one single person who says "let's add TAB button for a screen with no info at all".

One person who think "oh, nice, i can't see mission type then i click on planet, that's so much more better"

Exuse me, but i don't believe you.

 

17 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

Why does the new Railjack UI use hold to confirm?

Let me guess... For consistency?

I'm talking about the end of mission screens now. When you clicked on the relic, you didn't see anything but a picture.

Colorcoding?... What is it? Who need it, if we have small arrows? What a dumb idea to have mod rarity with different colors.

Clean UI? 90% of our items have very recognizable icons? Yes, i'm very recoanize i get a credit(s?) after mission. And the system... You just delete major info why this screen exist. What are we should talking about?

17 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

Why does the new Railjack UI use hold to confirm?
This is another new thing we are trying with Railjack UI, confirmation popups are tried and true, but they do have some disadvantages, for example this one from polarizing Revenant.

It tells me what will happen, but also it hides the context of what I did, I can't see the slot I polarized or the polarity I chose, I have found myself cancelling out of this out of fear that I selected the wrong polarity. Hold to confirm would preserve the context, so as you hold, you would be able see the slot and the polarity you selected.

Another downside of confirmation popups is that since there’s so many of them, most people stop reading them. If you only saw them on rare occasions, you'd be more likely to pay attention to what they say. I’ve gotten a request, twice now, to implement a special dialog for when you polarize a slot into the same polarity it already had. That actually has been in the game for years, but since it’s a popup amongst a sea of popups, people don’t notice it.

That's a pretty good explanation why confirmation windows does not exist in railjack... Exept they are still there. You just adding stuff for consistency without any reasons.

If window does not content info you think it should... Just add this info. Is this a rocket science? Should it be discussed? Do you really prefer to have same button with an opposite interaction? Hold to apply, tap to change.

Why this was implemented to a worst possibe place? Just right in time then it was not needed mostly. You know you can see mods stats right before you lvling 'em? Not a big deal, untill we have 3 schools with different drain and diff stats. And you actually WANT now to check 'em before confirmation. But, now for a "safety" reason you can't. Just like chech how much space-endo will be spend.

Funny, in opposite, then you know what are you doing it now much slower. Instead of tap-tap-tap-done-confirm, you need to wait each time. Do you think this tedios procedure will save from mistakes? Is there a real person in a universe who will call it more precesion action? One time check vs. tedios repetetive (!) action? Hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-hoooold-ohwaitthatwasonemoreholdthanideedhowtorevertit?

[-AT-Darkoxford]

14 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

The choice that drives us

The two most common types of feedback we get are

     1. Need more information
     2. This is overwhelming

In the end of mission screen it wins the "Need more information"
Like the current screen have the mods separate to resources/parts.

[ENGINEEEEER]

12 hours ago, [DE]Pablo said:

 

Maybe it's not a whole second mode but I just want numbers while I'm working on builds without having to go to a separate menu or hover over stuff. Ability impacts shouldn't be as separated from modding. 

[Ulvra]

Generally I've been quite happy with the changes made to the UI in the revamp work. I was not happy when the icon labels went away because the icons wasn't enough for me to process, but with their optional reintroduction everyone should be happy. As for the ability screen, it took some getting used to but it's much better now, though one thing I'm still missing is the ability to pin an ability on the upgrade screen so I don't have to change things then go hover over and remember what was there before.

The new end of mission mockup is a scary one though, that's going to take some getting used to, but I'm sure we will. First thing I noted was that I wasn't exactly happy that mods and items were mixed in together, but a sacrifice for space has to be made. I'm sure you've already thought about it 13 times in that regard, but just in case, I would personally like to preserve the "new unique" functionality that the current end of mission mod screen has, where any new mod is moved to the top and clearly marked as being new so you can easily see what new you achieved, preferrably I'd like to see it extended to other things too, like avionics and prime parts (whether that should be marked as new if you had it once before but got rid of it or only for the first time you get the specific part will be a deeper discussion). If that functionality would be included then I can't imagine I'd have too many issues with the end mission screen as presented here.

Edited January 25, 2020 by Ulvra

[SinistralMessa]

The main thing is - like with the Railjack armament scrap - are you showing key information at first glance, with no unnecessary player action and interaction? All hover actions, and tabbed interfaces, all unnecessary clicks should be approached from this point of view: How to convey wanted information in the quickest way? Not "easiest", not "smoothest", not "the most beautiful", but quickest way.

Why, for instance, with the Railjack scraps, is the one single important stat hidden so that you must needlessly interact with every single object?

The key problem is that you must weigh the actual problem behind "too much" and "too little" information. The former is, if the game is designed properly, a problem with the player, and the latter is a problem with the game. Therefore, you must always think of the person who is interacting with the data thousands of times, not once or twice, like so:

A beginning player will be annoyed and confused by "too much" information 2-3 times until s/he picks up its value and realizes the information is useful. The game can help in aiding the player in understanding the provided value of the information. You can highlight data. You can indicate value (which is done extremely poorly, like with the fissure interfaces). You can rank data. You can nest data. It's up to the developer to convey value!

A veteran player will be annoyed by "too little" information 1000s of times when they have to repeat the action over, and over, and over, just to gain access to the necessary data. In a game about grinding, this is the player you are designing the UI for - a player that repeats the same actions.

The new UI has a metric ton of elements that are not currently designed for quick, swift, and repeated daily usage right now. These cause veteran players immense irritation every time they are interacted with. Just the syndicate menus alone are so irritating that my clanmates have completely stopped caring about them. Nobody picks up the weekly Ayatan statue any more since it takes a trip to Maroo's Bazar. The point of the menu is to make it accessible and easy to interact DAILY with the menus. This is not happening.

The assumption in these new designs is that veterans can take downgrades to their information and that it won't compound into general irritation. I think you'll be surprised, unfortunately.

[FlyingDice]

So basically even more information stripped away and hidden behind additional clicks and mouse-overs.

Jesus wept. I get that you guys want it to be shiny, show every player's warframe, and match the new color themes. It is worth the price? The loss of functionality is killin' me, Smalls! Don't get me wrong, I like having more items visible at once, but if we're doing that why not do what people on reddit have already suggested and have a stacked list with much smaller icons, the names, and drop counts?

[-Bv-Psykiik]

14 hours ago, Gabbynaru said:

Ok, I'm cool with the new UI changes. BUT:

This needs to come back in one way or another. Hovering over abilities just to notice different stat changes is a pain in the butt. The ability stats should always be on display, and the videos, descriptions and all that could be hidden behind a hover or a click on the ability, as that would act as giving a more detailed description. Stats however, we need those on display at all times, because at the end of the day, stats are all that matters in this (and most other) game(s), so obfuscating it is just wasting the players' time.

Also, please hide the end of game stats for other players. They only lead to toxicity. Do display the players own end of game stats (Damage dealt, damage taken, total kills, blah blah), but hide what the other players did. We don't need to know that, and neither does anyone else. All it does is create a stupid sense of competition that shouldn't even exist in a cooperative environment, and that sense of competition brings with it toxic behavior. So just hide it. It's unnecessary and doesn't help in any positive way.

yes please ... an example is oberon or iavara .. when i add a duration mod or range mod to buff one of my abilities i need to know how it affects the other abilities .. on old UI i can see all the stats in 1 screen but now i have to go back and forth between all abilities to see whats the stats after modding