Does Frontier think Horizons' UI is bad?

i Don’t mind changes, but they should be quality of life changes to make them easier to use and organize your stuff.

UI’s are important in any software to be functional and intuitive to use, a bad UI can chase users away.
 
Yeh...I'm one of those that don't like change, I'll admit. Give me the OG UI. :D
Anybody who think replacing a text based UI by an icon based one, is not someone who believe change is a good thing.

And you know the funny thing ? You'll have to get prepared for that one. Apparently, they did they changed it because the previous UI was "confusing" for new player. Because apparently, a weird 3 yin symbol thing turning in circle, the weird looking atom, you know the 3 koi carps swimming in circle ? Anyway, that's easier for a new player than a "realistic" button. Also, as you can see, easier to explain.

Yeah icons are pretty but terrible to use. Especially when you have that much. Text is text, you can read, it works.
 
Anybody who think replacing a text based UI by an icon based one, is not someone who believe change is a good thing.

And you know the funny thing ? You'll have to get prepared for that one. Apparently, they did they changed it because the previous UI was "confusing" for new player. Because apparently, a weird 3 yin symbol thing turning in circle, the weird looking atom, you know the 3 koi carps swimming in circle ? Anyway, that's easier for a new player than a "realistic" button. Also, as you can see, easier to explain.

Yeah icons are pretty but terrible to use. Especially when you have that much. Text is text, you can read, it works.
Funnily enough, the original 1.0 UI was the most intuitive part and easy to get used to as a new player. Allowed me to spend more time getting my speed docking game on...after crashing into just about every surface of the station :D
 
Funnily enough, the original 1.0 UI was the most intuitive part and easy to get used to as a new player. Allowed me to spend more time getting my speed docking game on...after crashing into just about every surface of the station :D
I started with Horizon, and didn't have issue. Sure, I didn't know what half the map UI meant, but I just ignored it until I knew. At least, I knew what it was, instead of having weird icons.
I struggle more with the map now with experience, than I did then when I started.
 
I think Frontier already recognized that the outfitting UI has "issues" as I have read in some dev-response somewhere across the board.

Admitted, I liked the fresh feel of the new UI first, but the longer I look at it, the more it feels all a bit to much. To many icons, to big buttons, to long latency...
The old UI really blended in well with the game and therefore felt immersive. The new UI in some places feels more like a game-interface patched over a space-ship interface - it's a bit to much overlay and not so much integrated functionality. Also I don't know who thought those "slide-in text-boxes" with useless confirmation messages would be a necessary thing to have (I think they call them toast-messages internally)? They remind me very much of annoying ad-popups and smartfone slide-shows. Not really what I expect my space-ship UI to do.

The one thing I really like is the new mission-browser. For my playstyle it's a qualitiy of life improvement that the UI now has the ability to show all missions, regardless of faction-affilation, so I can see all offers at one glance. Also it's a QOL feature in my book that transport missions are grouped for destination. Also it has a quite extensive filter-mechanic. Data-Filters are a good thing.
 
I think Frontier already recognized that the outfitting UI has "issues" as I have read in some dev-response somewhere across the board.

Admitted, I liked the fresh feel of the new UI first, but the longer I look at it, the more it feels all a bit to much. To many icons, to big buttons, to long latency...
The old UI really blended in well with the game and therefore felt immersive. The new UI in some places feels more like a game-interface patched over a space-ship interface - it's a bit to much overlay and not so much integrated functionality. Also I don't know who thought those "slide-in text-boxes" with useless confirmation messages would be a necessary thing to have (I think they call them toast-messages internally)? They remind me very much of annoying ad-popups and smartfone slide-shows. Not really what I expect my space-ship UI to do.

The one thing I really like is the new mission-browser. For my playstyle it's a qualitiy of life improvement that the UI now has the ability to show all missions, regardless of faction-affilation, so I can see all offers at one glance. Also it's a QOL feature in my book that transport missions are grouped for destination. Also it has a quite extensive filter-mechanic. Data-Filters are a good thing.
You make a really good point. The old UI felt like something that would have been developed in the Universe of Elite.

This new thing, which I'm honestly okay with, feels like a current day console game UI. No offense to console players.
 
To go into more detail with system and galaxy map as examples:

I think how they did the system-map is done really well. Buttons are well structured, information is accessible - even the orrery seems to have gotten littel improvements with some planets color-coded and the system better fitted into the screen. Also the "hold key to plot" function is nice and works well.

In the Glaxy-Map it's similar and I basically like it - but it's just a bit to much, with the buttons left and right, the search bar on top and the navigation bar below - it's all a bit overcrowded with overlays. The search-bar could be behind another icon maybe and the navigation bar a littel bit more unobstrusive it could look better.

With the exception of the really messy outifitting screen (totally missing descriptions of military compartments, unintuitive nesting) there are more pressing issues to resolve imho, like most of Horizons Vista POI's baked to flat terrain with the new planet generation.
 
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This new thing, which I'm honestly okay with, feels like a current day console game UI. No offense to console players.

My first experience with ED Horizons was on the PS4, and my first impression was, "Finally, a company has written a GOOD user interface for the console!" I've had my share of crappy UIs in console games (as in, most of them), so Frontier really won my respect with their user interface, especially in how they fully utilized the DS4 in creative ways.

When UIs are crappy on the console, it's not the fault of the console, but rather the fault of the developer who tries to force PC paradigms onto a console (like forcing the player to move a pseudo-mouse with the controller stick). Horizons, on the other hand, was usually a joy to use with a controller / HOTAS. Now it feels like Odyssey is making the same mistake, except they are forcing a mobile interface paradigm into a PC / console game. That's a real shame, not just because I don't like the look and feel of the new UI, but because I really appreciated the old UI. Just because something is "old" doesn't mean it's bad.
 
When/if EDH gets EDO'd, I'm out. Flying spaceships isn't important enough for me to slog through that.

People underestimate how "slogging through a UI" can really detract from the overall gaming experience. I've been loving X4 Foundations, but the more I play, the more the UI gets in my way. I'm not ready to quit the game because of it, but it really does knock my enjoyment level down a notch. Ironically it's X4's crappy UI that has me fondly reminiscing over Horizon's UI.
 
Yeh...I'm one of those that don't like change, I'll admit. Give me the OG UI. :D
I'm cool with change, but only if that change is an actual improvement. Not everything old is bad. Take the wheel, for example. It can be improved upon, like these new airless tires, but it's still the same tried and true form that's been used for thousands of years:

iu


The Horizons UI could have used some tweaks, sure, but Frontier should have stayed with the same tried and true form (IMO). These days people are so "progressive" that they feel the need to reinvent everything, because "old is bad". Unfortunately this leads to wheels that look and function like this:

iu


That's Frontier's new UI, right there. ------^
 
Wait until you have to shuffle around a few modules around between your ships... This is the number one nuisance to me with the new UI. Other than that I'm usually fine with a change and adapting, but this comes close to masochism.
The sad thing is that module management already had a (somewhat) working solution during alpha - buried under two bugs and also missing crucial info on eng stats, but when it worked it was a clear improvement[1] over Horizons requiring less effort overall. Between alpha and release this got canned though and we are currently left with borderline masochism indeed.

[1] The basic premise was that going into the ship loadout section > equip module would present a combined view of all modules currently available, for purchase and in storage, both local and remote. Using the existing categories for the shop it also effectively had filtering baked in as well.
 
My first experience with ED Horizons was on the PS4, and my first impression was, "Finally, a company has written a GOOD user interface for the console!" I've had my share of crappy UIs in console games (as in, most of them), so Frontier really won my respect with their user interface, especially in how they fully utilized the DS4 in creative ways.

When UIs are crappy on the console, it's not the fault of the console, but rather the fault of the developer who tries to force PC paradigms onto a console (like forcing the player to move a pseudo-mouse with the controller stick). Horizons, on the other hand, was usually a joy to use with a controller / HOTAS. Now it feels like Odyssey is making the same mistake, except they are forcing a mobile interface paradigm into a PC / console game. That's a real shame, not just because I don't like the look and feel of the new UI, but because I really appreciated the old UI. Just because something is "old" doesn't mean it's bad.

A grid style layout like the fleet carrier and new shipyard interface can be reasonably good with a controller because you're naturally using a 4 directional selector to move around the grid.

But you've gotta include the user experience at the start of the process and figure out which items are going to be used the most and make them the easiest to select (and the default selected)

Like in the current station layout why is Shipyard the big option in the middle? Surely either Mission Board or Commodity Market are the most clicked options in that menu? Surely FDev can capture user metrics to tell them that? And you're putting 5 things in that half of the screen, why not use a + layout? Default select the middle one, use your user metrics to tell you which five station options are selected the most often, bam, none of the most common things the user wants to do are more than one press away for a pad. (and anything that applies to a pad also applies to a HOTAS using a hatswitch to navigate).

This has been the real problem in all the Odyssey changes, especially the UI changes. No UX design. The user of the system was an afterthought.
 
Like in the current station layout why is Shipyard the big option in the middle? Surely either Mission Board or Commodity Market are the most clicked options in that menu? Surely FDev can capture user metrics to tell them that? And you're putting 5 things in that half of the screen, why not use a + layout? Default select the middle one, use your user metrics to tell you which five station options are selected the most often, bam, none of the most common things the user wants to do are more than one press away for a pad. (and anything that applies to a pad also applies to a HOTAS using a hatswitch to navigate).
Because the middle is usually the least desirable area. Initial selection/focus doesn't matter much as it can be pretty much any element. Once you move around though it becomes easier to reach the tiles located at the borders of the layout - that's why Missions and Market are at the far left. No matter which tile is focused, press and hold left and the selector will automatically come to a stop on either one of them. In the other direction it's not as good though, moving to the right the UI focuses on the ARX tile instead of the more commonly used loadout section below it. The reason for that is probably similar as to why the ARX originally had that glaring blue attention seeker color.

The bigger UX problem (from my perspective) is that the new UI doesn't allow controller input to wrap around the borders (e.g. move all the way to the left and come to a stop on Missions/Market, then press left again to move the selection over to the far right). Less of a nuisance in the Station layout but really bad for the inventory management screens (e.g. moving cargo between Ship/FC as well as Suit/Ship). Because the "Transfer All" buttons are still located at the top one has to always move through the whole inventory list to reach one of the most used functions. A wrap around from the bottom to the top could solve this if for some reason the layout was set in stone. Moving "Transfer All" to the bottom and right of the UI would work work just as well though.
 
If Fdev would have listen to the community and just given us more storage and ways to sort in the Galaxy map and Outfitting they would have gotten much praise and appreciation.
 
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