What's your favourite user interface?

[smoth]

have fun with 2 uis. It'll be a horrible nightmare.

Having stuff like toggle-able description stuff I can see but alternate uis would be massive amounts of work. Even further confused by "pros" telling the nubs to just turn all that off so they can be more "pro"

[PicassoCT]

okay that idea was bad. Ill admit that.


but text is better. I know that after carefully designing a userinterface for months, to hear this, everyone out there has the right to be buttonhurt, but still, the fact stands, on its own.

Swords look diffrent in every country. Abstract Arrows dont convey any meaning. But even the most non-english speaker in the world, knows what "attack" and "stop" mean.

Pictures, however are good when it comes to unitdescriptions and buildingdescriptions, something where one word doesent nessecary convey more meaning.

[luckywaldo7]

There is no being butthurt, because icons are all newbies expect, and gives better presentation whether it is more or less effective than text.

I still disagree though, except perhaps in the case of old-time spring players, who are used to seeing and expect the same text-UI in every game, and so are thrown off when they see something different.

I does require a bit of learning to know exactly what each does, although for a lot of newbies concepts like repeat and priorities are already abstract enough that a word is still not a good enough explanation in itself.

[smoth]

hey man, I am adding tooltips out the ying-yang next version.. and even with that, I expect people to be asking WTF IS THIS!?!?

so I plan on eventually having a warhammer 40k style codex for the units... even still some people will be all BOO HOO it's english. At which point in time I will don my american flag cape and fly into the sunset!

[PicassoCT]

And a colourfull button, where you can riddle what it does, in combination with a hotkey is a better solution?
Also if you emphasize some buttons, you could assume that the bigger buttons are more important, while the smaller ones are sort of unimportant sidefunctions. One big joke, that the nubs might overlook repeat.

Well, im not gonna continue defend this, after all, i spend five years of my life fighting this opinion, i first heard by a gamedesigner who specialiced on interface design. One day you will look back, and realise that all those stuff you took for granted, those symbols, those colours- dont mean shit in other parts of the world. Text is international. If i get into a game and i get a lot of colourfull buttons, that i m suppossed to find out about by wildly pressing them, all that while beeing insulted by the other players watching me. Ill hit the combination i know best. Alt+F4. Esc.


The RTS posted above, was as convinced of its buttons as you are.

There are only two interfaces. One for the Learner, and nearNone for the Pro.

[smoth]

I am with picasso waldo, I think that designers can go to far.

[luckywaldo7]

It's possibly a very unique and personal preference, but I like the icons better than the wall of text.



But w/e, to each his own.

[smoth]

both text and image can make a lot of sense.

[MidKnight]

It's a personal preference thing.

Icons are usually prettier, text is usually clearer.

Personally, I prefer icons with tooltips.

[Google_Frog]

The ZK button icons are used as the cursors as well. So there is a link between what appears on the main map when you check a command queue and the icons on the UI.

This isn't to say that the UI could not be improved with text. I'm pointing out that icons are useful as well.

[PicassoCT]

both text and image can make a lot of sense.

Curse you for killing this sort of threads with such imagery. Not enough that you find a perfect sollution, no you dont even have the decency to remain quiet, got to rub everyones nose in it. I shall continue posting as if nothing has happened.

Favourite of all times, i quote another Designer here: "Symbols are not distinctive. The Hitchhikers thumb which means in europe - "I want to travell for low." has in some other country the meaning "Im gay and ready for a joyride. In both cases - some cars will stop, but in the last case, your ride will be a lot bumpier."

Yeah its playing with homophobic clichees.



Symbols are non-distinctive

[AF]

text and icons is better than icons which are better than text.

Icons should be clear and as distinct as possible as they get smaller. I suggest block white vector icons for forb because they would match the current UI and look prettier and more professional.

As for the perfect interface, I've mocked things up in the past and shown forb and I've thought about it, but there is no perfect interface. But there are better ones for sure.


I would pay attention to the small widgets smoth is building in his gundam UI, there are some good things in there, and I'm sure he has more planned.