eobet

Join Date 11/2008

Feedback from an interface designer

My last thread is in the BETA forum, and can still be found here (I hope):

https://forums.elementalgame.com/385058

But since the game is final now, I thought I'd start from scratch and see which things I trip over if I try to approach this fresh again:

* When you click on a city that is not building anything, there is no indication on how to build anything either. Apparently, a double click brings up a build menu from nowhere, and only after you've selected a structure does the buildings tab become visible. I understand you are trying to hide UI elements which you cannot use in the beginning (training and research?) but I think you're hiding a bit too much now. Also, you're telling me that "no buildings are under construction", ie you telling me I'm doing something wrong instead of preventing user error in the first place. The UI was more consistent in the beta where the cities had, basically an "action" tab (like the sovereigns have now).
EDIT: Ok, I'll leave the above here, because I now found both the build and train units buttons... they're at the same place as the inventory and spell buttons on a unit. But then, why do you still have an actions tab for the units left over from the beta? All consistency seems to have gone out the window when moving from beta to gold. There are now buttons in two different styles, in two different locations, and there are two different unit symbols depending on where they are placed. Bloody fucking mess.

* I hope I missed something here now, because if not, this is utterly bloody poor form: Since you've gone to great lenghts to try to make turns "invisible" how the hell do you see when it is time to move a unit? I still cannot find a button that automatically takes me to the next unit with available moves, and I still cannot find a button that automatically completes the units previous orders. This is bloody TBS 101!
EDIT: See posts below about this issue as well...

* There is a blue dot hanging in the air next to one of the new square boxes on the left side of the screen. There is nothing blue in the interface anywhere else that relates to this. The only thing square I can think of that relates to it is the number of tiles my city takes up. I'll figure out what it is in due time, I guess, but at first glance, not very intuitive.

* If a unit is standing on top of a special tile, there is no way to view that special tile's description without moving away the unit.

* Clicking on the square icons along the top left side of the screen centers the camera to view a unit, but not a city (it only shifts the camera if the city is not currently in view).

* Ok, so this one is me not being a "virgin tester" anymore since I've been exposed to the beta, but I could not figure out how to build a farm, since in the beta, all special structures appeared in the standard build menu. But in the final game, as I said, the build menu has been moved away from the "actions tab" and to a button on the right. However, to build farms, you have to select them and use their action tab in turn! So, all actions are carried out from tabs, unless you are building in a city... that is again less consistent UI design than what was in the beta.

* Worse, the apparent only indication of the amount of turns required to complete these special buildings mentioned above seem to be if you click on them and read a very small line of text.
EDIT: Also, I build a farm and a mine at the same time, which is apparently separate from the normal build queue for a city (again, increased complexity and confusion for the user looking for information and seeking to understand the game for the first time), and the line read that the farm would be completed in 9 turns and the mine in 3... yet they were both completed on the next turn.
EDIT: I was wrong again on how this worked... they do apparently actually take 9 and 3 turns, but after one turn they become a part of the city, which fooled me into thinking that they were completed. And also, when that happens you can no longer click on them to see how long it takes to build them, but they appear in the city's "build tab" instead with proper timers... I think the fact that I have to work like a detective to figure out this UI means that there have been very little figuring on the other end...

* I just have to comment again, that the buttons for inventory next to the hit points bar, and the buttons for spells next to the mana bar makes very little sense and only serves to confuse (the inventory button especially, since there seems to be an extra inventory button inside the center circular symbol). Casting a spell is an action, right? So why is it not in the action tab? (I think I can answer this myself and that is that they didn't think there was room for it in the action tab, but they have text 1/8th the size of an action tab button, and the inventory/spell buttons as they are now are 1/4th the size of an action tab button... the action tab could easily have been re-design to accomodate all necessary actions).

* Again, I do not understand when you can and can't talk to roaming heroes. Is it only when they are within your kingdom borders? If so, I still think it would be logical to allow your sovereign to move up next to a heroe and be able to talk to him, but that didn't work.
EDIT: Again, I'm baffled... I just found a hero at the very edge of my fog of war that I was able to talk to without having a unit close and without him being inside my borders... what am I missing? (And that thing needs to be made more obvious!)

* When you zoom in, heroes disappear inside buildings and special locations and can't be seen until you zoom out again...

As always, will update as I go along.

ADDENDUM:

I think there is a fair amount of people here who are gaming veterans and/or Stardock veterans, who are unaware that they are a part of a group called expert users, and simply can't understand that there is a problem with the UI. My threads attempt to highlight issues beginner and normal users may face. However, a well designed UI is in no way any threat to expert users, it may even make your life better (and I've seen some expert users even complain about the lack of information, and that is something beginners want to).

Here are a few other threads with similar feedback and very good points:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/391385

https://forums.elementalgame.com/391443

https://forums.elementalgame.com/393693

They are excellent reads and I hope the developers see them, and if I see any more, I will add them to this post.

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Sammual
Ondaderthad
Seboss

Regarding the blue dot i think that means that there are stuff that can be expanded under the square. Look at the square for a little plus sign. Click it

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James009D

Join Date 01/2005

+67

I liked your old beta thread about this stuff, I think it really gave some good insight into the problems. Hopefully you can do the same here and Stardock can use them to really improve the interface. Your suggestions are pretty helpful and constructive.

Kinda sucks about the building construction, I liked seeing the beta queue. It kinda is TBS 101 to display what your doing with little or no effort.

Lastly, Stardock really NEEDS to implement a "Skip to next free unit" button. I'm not even kidding.

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* I hope I missed something here now, because if not, this is utterly bloody poor form: Since you've gone to great lenghts to try to make turns "invisible" how the hell do you see when it is time to move a unit? I still cannot find a button that automatically takes me to the next unit with available moves, and I still cannot find a button that automatically completes the units previous orders. This is bloody TBS 101!

While there's no button to take you to the next active unit, units with moves left are highlighted on the empire tree on the left hand side (similar to cities that are not building anything). Units automatically complete their previous orders on end of turn after the first, so if you tell your guy to move somewhere, he'll move right away during the turn you gave the order. After you end that turn, you can either manually move him again the next turn, or you can hit end turn again and he will continue moving on his previous path.

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After recently playing Gal Civ II for the first time I can see that this is the way Stardock makes games. They seem happy with this style of UI and game play and while it's not as accessible as something like Sid Meier's Civ, it's not totally horrible either.

Not that I'm giving them a pass, but anyone thinking it's going to become great after a few patches is probably fooling themselves. I imagine it will improve somewhat but this is how Stardock makes games. They definitely don't seem to do things in standard or accessible ways. Even their non-game products (like Fences Pro and ObjectDock 2) are completely non-intuitive in so many fundamental ways.

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*moved to the OP*

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Quoting Annatar11,

reply 3

I had three heroes at the start of a turn, two with move orders, one without.

They all had yellow borders around their square symbol along the left of the screen.

How, without clicking on each unit could I have spotted which would have automatically continued an order and which would just stand still when I pressed the "end turn" button?

And the little "target" tile is not enough either, imo, because what happens if that target is placed outside of your current view? I've suggested before, and I'll do it again, that it needs a dashed line indicating both the route the unit will take, and the amount of turns it takes to get there.

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eobet, I agree with almost everything you say. I'll hold off on my own thoughts until I've seen the first couple of immediate patches but one thing I would say is that anybody who wants to design a 4x game, particularly from an interface perspective (but also AI, faction balance etc), should take a look at Kerberos' Sword of the Stars. I know it's a different genre, but it is the 4x current gold standard (at least in my humble opinion ).

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Excellent feedback. I think I agree with everything you've said here (I'm a little tired to be sure).

While Elemental is a great game, and is getting better, I think they succumbed to a very common gaming interface plague - they made an interface that "looked cool" then they tried to give it function. UX design should always start the other way around. The interface should be made incredibly functional, with consistent patterns for things like actions, statuses, descriptive info, notices, etc, THEN make it look cool. UX starts with user activity - "what is the user trying to do", then moves to "looking good" later.

If the user has to think, the UX designer has not done their job well - there, I said it. With that said though, very few games employ a dedicated UX designer/architect. It's usually developers who THINK they understand UX design, but obviously don't. Think of it this way, if you have a good UX designer on the team, any gamer should be able to figure everything out in seconds. How many games can you say that about?

ALL actions should always be in the exact same place. ALL status and/or info windows should be in the same place with consistent patterns. Anything more complex should have crystal clear hints, and maybe context-sensitive glowing/highlighted buttons, etc.

The devs are on the right track trying to give hints, etc, but they need a full sweep.

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This is on topic, but meant to be in jest. If you're a GUI designer / user experience bod it will make your eyes bleed.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/238177/worst-ui-youve-ever-used/423786#423786

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I would say is that anybody who wants to design a 4x game, particularly from an interface perspective (but also AI, faction balance etc), should take a look at Kerberos' Sword of the Stars. I know it's a different genre, but it is the 4x current gold standard (at least in my humble opinion ).

As much as I like SotS (and am eagerly waiting for SotS 2 and Northstar), it's hardly a 4x current gold standard. It's mostly seen as an average game at best and it's got its share of UI problems, even in the Ultimate edition. The diplomatic and trade management screens are hard to find and cryptic at best. The technology tree looks cool but it's hardly an example of good UI, there's a lot of dragging and clickety-clicking just to select a tech to research.
Same goes with the tactical battles. There's a lot of guesswork invovled - like why I cannot field as much ships as I'd like in battles or why I cannot order ships from the sensor view, etc...

As a matter of fact, I would say that Sword of the Stars is a great 4x *despite* a rather uninspired UI.

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Ah well, I guess we have to agree to disagree then, I think it's a thing of beauty .

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SotS UI is a UI so terrible turn length and required micro blows up once you leave the early games. The one thing SotS2 has to do is make a UI that is workable and decent; using it as an example of good UI is mindblowing.

That said the Elemental UI has room for improvement.

I'd like to add a prevalence of tiny, tiny buttons in ribbon-strips for no reason - when making a 'unit card', the pose and background selection is tiny and shows you less than a third of the options, while 50% of the screen area is doing nothing. I'll mock up a screenshot when I get home, but you could place all the background and pose options in very small popouts to the side. Hell, you could even make them large enough to see what they are without clicking on them (although the pose silhouettes are still useless because they don't show you the important sword/shield/clipping error positions).

The left UI area (for actions etc) is made a size that doesn't fit the default options (research/design/empire/dynasty/etc). Just make the lower strip a bit wider or change the shape of the buttons an voila; the dynasty button isn't hidden behind a tiny, tiny 'next page' button. Hell, since those windows are necessary all the time, make a global button to pop out their menu you can use when you have a unit selected.

Putting important things in lower-bar tabs doesn't seem optimal. Clicking around to see what a city is building shouldn't be necessary; just display the build queues in the tooltip for the training/building buttons.

Basically right now a lot of information is hidden behind clicks, and this isn't necessary at all. The dynasty button in particular is shameful, because they apparently chose a lower UI shape that excluded one of the fixed, always-present options.

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Ditto the original poster on these key points:

-- not having a button for the next guy who can still move is enough to make one want to quit - it's hugely frustrating.

-- building stuff like farms and mines outside the regular city building screen is just one huge, hairball. Props for people who figured out how to build a farm in the first 20 minutes.

There are various other clumsy parts of the UI, but here's a big request I have:

How about a city screen, where you can look at every city and what it's building and alter it, all from one screen? I thought this was par for the course for good TBS games these days.

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The blue squares represent how many buildings you have in that city. Red squares indicate units.

The UI took a bit of getting used to, but I'm starting to like it now. I agree on the point about unit movement. It's really confusing and hard to figure out where my units are going, and whether they've already moved or not, especially with automatic end turn on.

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