New Ui Feedback From Ui/ux Designer: Visually Nicer, Slower To Use, More Clicks To Do The Same Task

[Thelonious]

+1 to OP

 

My 2 cents:

I like the ship, it really gives a sense of immersion into the game. It's a personnal mini-hub!

 

But I despise 2 things:

1. the esc menu.

First, why does it have to be binded to one the most unreachable keys of my keyboard, when both my mouse buttons have absolutly no function when walking in the ship.

It blows my mind they didn't think about a simple right-click to pop up the menu.

And it works for console users to, cause they sure don't have an Esc key...

 

And then, the logic/pragmatic organisation of the various sub-menus. Like

 - the log-out option being in the profile menu (it does make sense when you think about it, it's just really not intuiutive, especially since it was in the main window of the old UI),

 - the stats screen being accessible by 2 different ways (fast way, mouseover your name at the top, click "show stats"; long way, Profile-->Stats. What a waste)

 - And mainly that some of the most used functions are being relegated to sub-menus: Arsenal, foundry, codex all those things that were present in the main window before, and that are now 2 clicks away.

I don't understand that btw: You would have expected Mods, Market, Codex, Arsenal and Foundry to be among the main menu entries, as they are now ship modules. 

 

It doesn't have to show all 17 menus in the first page, just the one we use the most commonly. 

But I guess it's kind of a subjective choice at some point.

Maybe some kind of user customization could help. Did someone say Favorites? Or any way to organise the main menu as we please...

 

2. The Navigation chart.

As everyone else in this thread it seems, so I won't add more.

 

 

Overall, the new UI gives immersion at the cost of accessibility.

Not a fair trade, imo.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Thelonious

[Methanoid]

Ships do sever a purpose, and that's the immersion itself. The eve captain's quarters you keep on mentioning failed because they added nothing; they were literally just a room with nothing in them, that you had no incentive to visit as they added nothing to story or gameplay. Our ships are fundamentally different. Ships, unlike the dojo, serve as an entry point for the player into the universe. As I've mentioned before, warframe had no immersion whatsoever before, and now we have essentially an anchor point in place for future updates to add content.

 

Also, I don't know about you but I love just sitting and staring out the window or listening to the dudes talk for a little bit. That kind of stuff really completes the experience for me.

 

I'm sure future updates will streamline the menus inside the ship a lot, I wouldn't write the whole thing off yet.

 

your argument serves you well, but thats your opinion, my opinion is that im not immersed 1 little bit by the ship, im annoyed by it, i want to bypass it for a normal U13'alike menu system, i have no interest in the ship as "immersion" on a menu doesnt interest me at all, it slows me down and i dont plan on spending ages to admire the view outside when i could be playing, which is why i mash ESC for the menus and try my best to ignore the ship, which would be easier if it was optional and not forced on me.

 

and yes the eve quarters are exactly the same, if u want "immersion, you could walk to the rear of your quarters and "admire" whatever ship you have activated, that was your so called "view/immersion", their the same anyway you try to twist it.

 

i have no issue with you wanting immersion, have as much as you want, just not on the forced down your throat menu system, make it like the dojo, you go there if you want to go there just like the observation deck/area in the dojo for some "ooooh/ahhh immersion".

[Methanoid]

The problem I have is that people don't differentiate between the ship and the menus; the ship is fine where it is, the menus are what's broken here

their the same thing stuck at the hip like conjoined twins, badly needing an axe swing right down the middle.

[vaugahn]

their the same thing stuck at the hip like conjoined twins, badly needing an axe swing right down the middle.

 

Ah no. If the menus weren't so messed up, nobody would have a problem with the ship. 

[Kotsender_Quasimir]

OP sums up my gripes with new starmap 101% perfectly. +1

[Icebreccer]

Agreed OP. I want the old starmap and foundry back. The planet section is just horrible not to mention the nodes. The old one had really nice and clear routes and the starmap was just awesome.

 

And what about the cool looking pictures we got earlier when we selected a mission? The one that showed your squad with the mission type like activating life support in survival etc. I know you guys worked hard to make those so why remove them? They weren't that old in the first place and they looked great.

 

The new one has great idea and the ship is nice. But why didn't they just keep the old starmap? The new one is just  a huge downgrade both visually and technically compared to the old one.

 

Please DE, I want the old one back. It was just polished, looked awesome and was so simple to use. It had everything and I'm sure the UI guys worked hard to accomplish that. And like I said it wasn't even that OLD. It was pretty new and was polished day by day. I really miss the old one :3

[Gawker]

This is a difference in direction, you are thinking ease of use is king, where to us immersion is king. You could certainly make the argument that the foundry information could be easier to read as an excel sheet, but it's not what we are going for.

 

A few of the things you mention are bugs, like visibility in mods(fixed today), void key count, joining the dojo (fixed yesterday), how many you have of something in the foundry (made the fix for this today will likely be in the hotfix), and a couple other things.

 

Again, thanks for taking the time to write this up, it's great to see you guys care enough to spend the time thinking about this.

 

During internal discussions people who have no user inteface design experience should have zero input on the direction of the UI. It is evident they had.

[Rhiasu]

The new starmap just doesn't have a sense of direction and it feels really cluttered. In the old starmap, you can clearly see the nodes and what planet/s it leads (some branch off 2 diff. directions). I might get flak for this on the other side of the forums but the way the new UI is setup, it just screams "made for consoles". 

 

Squad menu. Can we just have a downsized version of it like say, how the chatboxes are setup and is movable with all the options it currently has expanded for easy access? Having to press esc everytime to vote or check your squad isn't really a good design IMO.

 

As much as I hate to say it, comparing this to the improvement of HUD 2.0, this is more like UI 0.5. A lot of the old and easy functionality that the old UI had kinda just thrown in space the window.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Rhiasu

[waftycrank]

it disturbs me that in high level DE design discussions it is accepted that immersion comes at the expense of QOL and that there's no point trying to fight your way around that

QOL and immersion are _not_ mutually exclusive; however, skillful blending of the two is the mark of good UI design

 

UI 14 is not good UI design, for a multitude of reasons already expounded upon; it offers immersion at the expense of QOL/UX

pre-UI 14 didn't blend QOL and immersion at all well either but it afforded a higher QOL than UI 14 which in turn gave it greater life, in functional terms

 

the sense of immersion is transitory; QOL isn't

 

if there is someone at DE who still thinks that 'pretty' must come at the expense of 'functional' then I humbly suggest that they realise the damage that they're doing and remove themselves from future UI design discussions

[Lycaris]

The number of void and derelict keys you have are displayed on the tiles.

And you can access the dojo from the Navigation System.

 

Aside from that this post is well-presented fair feedback, +1.

[Atvir]

The number of void and derelict keys you have are displayed on the tiles.

 

I do not know anything about the dojo problem but the void/key issues existed and was fixed with the last update.

[CPTANT]

This is a difference in direction, you are thinking ease of use is king, where to us immersion is king.

 

I feel extremely negative about this design decision and I must unfortunately notify you that with this one statement I just lost all confidence that the development team is able to produce a quality UI.

 

It is precisely as I feared, the fundamentals of the new interface are flawed. It is simply impossible to create a good end result based on flawed fundamentals.

 

The only hope for a good UI is that this decision is revised, but I fear chances of that happening are small, despite the extreme amount of constructive feedback given in the various threads here.

[zelgaris]

Since it's obvious they wont revert back to the old and still far from good user interface, here is one possible solution for the main problem I have with the user interface

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/268421-simple-improvement-to-new-ui/

 

Edited July 21, 2014 by zelgaris

[Varzy]

Since it's obvious they wont revert back to the old and still far from good user interface, here is one possible solution for the main problem I have with the user interface

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/268421-simple-improvement-to-new-ui/

 

Totally agree, give is back that ribbon! Feature it as part of the diagetic UI but have it as standard in every UI menu, from the ESC menu to the Foundry to the Incubator.

 

DEPablo, while I understand that your motivation is to have immersion be king, QOL issues and frustrations in the new UI break immersion. Even in the above screenshot, having our Warframe block a whole row of mods on the left is, frankly, annoying and distracts us. I honestly love a lot of what's been done but these little details are a problem!

[Oxazejam]

The new starmap just doesn't have a sense of direction and it feels really cluttered. In the old starmap, you can clearly see the nodes and what planet/s it leads (some branch off 2 diff. directions). I might get flak for this on the other side of the forums but the way the new UI is setup, it just screams "made for consoles". 

 

Squad menu. Can we just have a downsized version of it like say, how the chatboxes are setup and is movable with all the options it currently has expanded for easy access? Having to press esc everytime to vote or check your squad isn't really a good design IMO.

 

As much as I hate to say it, comparing this to the improvement of HUD 2.0, this is more like UI 0.5. A lot of the old and easy functionality that the old UI had kinda just thrown in space the window.

 

  You are not alone on that,imho it is pretty clear it was designed for console/TV setup.What works for consoles may not work for PC and the other way around,so the sensible thing would have been making changes on how they work depending on the platform.

   What amazes me is how wrong this UI turned out after all this long development time,delays,etc.In a few days after release there have been mock ups made by posters that would have turned out better than what we finally got.

    It is another debate,but I think DE should consider opening a beta server just like other games have (MH2015 to name one out of the top of my head),specially when they are so prone to just radically change things from one update to another(all that damage 2.0 tuning,etc)

[kietvan]

Just simple, let the old UI and the new UI exist together, create 1 button like 'SWITCH UI' to chance between them.

[StrahlTiger]

Pablo has made an official U14 UI feedback thread. We should re-post our concerns and issues there. I think if we keep them constructive like (almost) all of this thread has been he will be more receptive and have something to show the other devs.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/268583-u14-ui-feedback/?p=3112590#entry3112590

 

DE_Pablo:

 

"Please try to keep it constructive and within topic, some (not all) examples of feedback I've seen in other threads that we will definitely discuss:

 

- Put matchmaking mode change in the solar map

- In foundry make the counter show all materials and not just the maximum. 100/100 -> 1,253/100

- Put labels on the planets in solar map

- Avoid Warframe overlapping screens

- Clicking on alert icon on planet view zooms in that planet, turned to the alert"

Edited July 21, 2014 by StrahlTiger

[Wyrd42]

I'm not certain which UI thread to throw this in.  Hopefully it will get to the right people.

 

I have one large problem with the foundry's interface, namely that every time you tell it to build something or collect something built, it returns to the top of the screen.  This makes crafting multiple objects next to each other on the list vastly more complicated, such as derelict keys and team restoration consumables.  I also prefer to make all of the parts for a frame but not collect them until I am ready to build the frame.  This lets me see exact costs and how far I am in the process without needing the blueprint for the full frame, which I tend to buy only when I'm ready to craft it.

 

Yes, this is just an annoyance, but it is a constant annoyance that should be very easy to correct.  Alternatively, give us an option of which way to have it, should there be those who actually prefer the new sorting.

 

My only other real issue with the UI is that the text is much smaller than it used to be, making it hard to read.  Yes, I am quite aware that it is only an issue because of my poor eyesight, but I am far from the only gamer to have that condition--for one thing, computer monitors used to put out a lot more UV light, which did damage to the eyes of people spending much time on a computer that people, in general, just didn't know about.  

 

Also, I support the above suggestions of allowing us to see how much we actually have of a resource instead of only telling us if we can craft, and labels on planets in the navigation window.

 

A suggestion for the navigation interface= Give us a way to change planets without zooming out.  This is a feature I made use of many times with the old map, scanning for something interesting to do.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Wyrd42

[Awazx]

Pablo has made an official U14 UI feedback thread. We should re-post our concerns and issues there. I think if we keep them constructive like (almost) all of this thread has been he will be more receptive and have something to show the other devs.

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/268583-u14-ui-feedback/?p=3112590#entry3112590

 

DE_Pablo:

 

"Please try to keep it constructive and within topic, some (not all) examples of feedback I've seen in other threads that we will definitely discuss:

 

- Put matchmaking mode change in the solar map

- In foundry make the counter show all materials and not just the maximum. 100/100 -> 1,253/100

- Put labels on the planets in solar map

- Avoid Warframe overlapping screens

- Clicking on alert icon on planet view zooms in that planet, turned to the alert"

 

The thread [DE_pablo] is already unnecessary. All he had to say regarding the UI has already been said in this thread. What more do you want to hear? 

 

For my part I've stopped playing for days to Warframe.

[Methanoid]

Ah no. If the menus weren't so messed up, nobody would have a problem with the ship. 

 

*raises hand* i dont want the ship, didnt need it before U14, dont need it now.

 

I think you mean if the ship wasnt the same mechanism as the menus no1 would complain?, if the ship was an option like visiting the clan dojo and i wasnt forced into it, then id have no issue with the ship, just the ui.

[Methanoid]

During internal discussions people who have no user inteface design experience should have zero input on the direction of the UI. It is evident they had.

[DeadScream]

take my +1 OP

[Avlaen]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Im going to be rude, it amazes me how delusional you guys are, WARFRAME is just a LOBBY third person shooter, its nothing more than that and will never be , its not a open world MMO or rpg  where "immersion"  makes some sense and even then some games like that dont pull the "immersion" card on you with god damn awful UI´s

 

You guys in DE need to come back to earth and do a reality check if you want the game to be more than  a mediocre  but pretty TPS.  peace out im out!

 

 

Games are meant to be fun above all else user interfaces are meant to be user friendly, this new UI is preventing me from easily accessing the main part of this game, the game play...

 

its a chore to navigate/find the mission i want.

 

its a chore to check everyones frame/loadout/what voidkey they have.

 

its a chore to change my loadout before a mission.

 

Its a chore that causes horrible eyestrain and nausea to some people including me.

 

This is just a Horrificly done UI if the consoles in the ship let me use the old ui that would be a way to keep the "immersion" and still have a FUNCTIONAL ui thats easy to use and dosent make people sick.

[vaugahn]

*raises hand* i dont want the ship, didnt need it before U14, dont need it now.

 

I think you mean if the ship wasnt the same mechanism as the menus no1 would complain?, if the ship was an option like visiting the clan dojo and i wasnt forced into it, then id have no issue with the ship, just the ui.

 

The ship being a separate option would completely defeat the point of having it as a home base. You're in a minority of people not wanting the ship, a great many people were very excited for it only to be disappointed when they saw the clunky UI layered on top of it. Once the UI itself is fixed I'd be willing to bet almost nobody will be complaining about the ship.

[noneuklid]

The ship being a separate option would completely defeat the point of having it as a home base. You're in a minority of people not wanting the ship, a great many people were very excited for it only to be disappointed when they saw the clunky UI layered on top of it. 

 

The issue I've had is that the ship is the UI right now.  We can't fly it or customize it; literally its sole purpose is to create a sense of "place" for menu elements.  I am very disappointed, and given the choice I'd give up the ship entirely in exchange for the old UI.

I'd prefer to have a space with meaning; plenty of games do things like spread out crafting or equipment-changing stations, but they put them in shared spaces.  The only games that behave similarly to this are single-player games like Mass Effect or KOTOR, where you need the immersive space to locate NPCs and want the player to move around in it to do so.

 

This space has no meaning.  It's serving a purpose that the users mostly either don't want served or can serve better elsewhere (the dojo).  If it were in fact a cooperative lobby of some sort, it would have something of a useful and social quality -- right now it's just an isolation chamber.  Identical to thousands of others, and (as you've said) the representation and nexus of an extremely unappealing change.

So let me spin your statement on you for a moment: I think nearly everyone would prefer the ship to have a purpose that is not the harbinger and shrine to a clunky UI.  So wouldn't it be better to retire it temporarily while that is worked on?