This is basically a duplicate of what I posted on one of the outfitting threads.
Ship blueprint courtesy of ed-anatomy
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Ship blueprint courtesy of ed-anatomy
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# General UX Philosphy thoughts
- Icons are clean and consistent
- Colours are much more balanced than before more comfortable to view
- Layout is comfortable and doesn't blend together
- Reduce clicks
Outfitting is a demanding task and clicks stack up fast and waste time
- Non-blocking Animations
Always nice to look at, but VERY annoying when they slow you down.
And I mean, 300 miliseconds can be too much even with animations.
To be clear, the animation is not the problem, it just should not force input
events to wait, for example, you briefly invisible buttons should be clickable.
- Leveraging context to streamline the UI
For example Core modules can only fit 1 module, no need to pick a category, the
category is implied.
- Two Column Rule
Elite's UX design has long had a unwritten rule where every UI
must strive to only have 2 navigable columns on any 1 screen, at most.
This has worked very well, deposit it's limitations.
This rule has been broken recently and only sometimes for the better.
In the case of the module shop it is easy to navigate with straight routes
between menu entries.
However, menus like the Cargo Hold can quickly break down.
For the cargo hold, the 3rd column Transfer Button is difficult to navigate to,
from correct Inventory category, it is no less than 3 buttons to reach it.
Interface Right > Up to filters > Right to Transfer > Select
This is slow
- Leverage keybinds to streamline the experience
I fully appreciate the simplicity in only using 5 bindings for all actions
However, just 2, or even 1 dedicated optional binding would greatly
help streamline the process.
For example, pressing T to Transfer a module from storage would be a great QoL
addition
Equally, Pressing T to Target in the galaxy map without plotting a route would be quite nice.
- Prefer filters to categories
Categories is nice for narrowing menu entries, however, it can be annoying when
you want to see all entries, especially if you don't know what category your
looking for, and can actually hamper the experience.
This could take 2 forms,
either 1, an "all" category,
or 2, narrowing results on the fly with the list side by side with filters
- Avoid pop ups at all costs
Pop-ups are a fairly recent thing in Elite.
They all feel out of place or add extra menus to click "back" to return to
previous menus. (immersion breaking and such)
They also have very limited information due to their narrow size and add extra clicks.
- Get rid of physical dividers
Others have noted holding a UI navigation button will be halted by "Physical
Dividers", I see no purpose for this, they make it harder to scroll long
menus. This is most visible in the Galaxy Map
Equally, being able to press once at the end or side of a menu, to "wrap"/jump to the
far other side of the list, would be a great QoL feature.
- Colour is good
The mission board has shown how effective icons and color can be
And the extra addition of yellows is greatly appreciated
Could make engineer modules have blue box or purple instead of orange,
matches Odyssey UIs
Red, yellow, purple for thermal kinetic plasma damage respectively
Change colour as well as cross-hatching / strikethrough to denote
unavailable modules
- Increase the font size slightly for accessibility reasons
There's a lot of unused space and padding, on top of more information, I would
increase font sizes across the board to make it easier to read,
also adding more useful information
- Colour blindness options
This doesn't affect me but I think it's important, especially if we
are going to introduce the new-found powers of colour in the UI
Even so, the current UI is very monotone in places and (seems) like has worked
well for most people, but can blend together at times.
- Bulk actions
Doing many similar action is pretty common, it'd be nice to have more options
for this.
For example, instead of returning to Equipped Modules on buying a new module,
you could go back to the Module List you just had option, and buy another
similar item (only for hardpoints and optionals).
- Prefer filling space with information
I love how tidy and clean the UI looks.
But, it looks less tidy when you have 4 separate ship statistics tabs,
realistically, you could nearly have all 4 tabs on one screen.
- Try to keep icons aligned
Repeated information can be harder to digest when you have to scan a line or
area to find it.
Keeping it in a consistent location or orientation makes it easier.
For, icons shouldn't be tacked onto the end of text, if possible
- Make sure a symbolic is globally/universally understood, otherwise explain it
Icons are good to show a lot of information in a small area,
but can be meaningless if not understood.
If its not understood, explain it somehow, even if thats doing a non-destructive
action.
For example "ENG" distributor pips is eventually clear, since you can see if you
can boost, and if the distributor is filling.
# Missing Information
- No module information about stored ship in shipyard
- Stored modules doesn't show stored location
- Engineer stats doesn't show properly on hover
- No map or blueprint of hardpoint placement
This has been missing for a long time and is currently inferred from the looking
at images of the ship, or even with sub-system targeting.
In line with some of the other points, adding a dedicated bit of information for
this would allow you optionally reclaim the space used showing the ship in the background.
- No insurance
Outfitting so you have enough rebuys is really important.
- Module stats comparison appears for transfering stored modules but not module shop
- Base stats of the module is no longer easy to see
This was helpful to see how much your engineer mods actually help or hinder you.
As well and being useful for telling things to others
- Show what all icons mean with an explanatory hover description/name
# Allow outfitting from inter-astra
This make be problematic to impliment.
I think it would be a nice QoL, usually you want to tweak a new / retrieved ship :)
# Why when transferring a module does it ask you to sell the same module twice?
Like honestly, you go to Stored Modules,
pick a module, it asks if you want to sell it or transfer it, then you put a
slot to transfer it to, then it asks you AGAIN if you want to transfer it, and
it makes it look if you're asking to "sell and equip" but no!
It's just sell!
To clarify, there is effectively 2 sell buttons, 1 to sell the old module and
equip, one to sell the module being transferred, this is both confusing and
error prone. And I mean, it actually breaks the game logic, showing an equipped
module that no longer exists, and showing you with a null/undefiend module.
This is such stupid design I can't understand it, I actually sold my G5
engineered sensors because of this.
Oh, and what's more, if you sell from this menu you can't buy back modules, so
once its gone, its GONE.
# Eventually streamline ship/outfitting by integrating them
- For example outfitting another ship
- Going to the shipyard from outfitting
- Add an option to select skip and outfit, to skip the long ship swap animation
# Add a confirmation popup for storing hot modules
It's kind of weird and annoying that storing them costs nothing without
confirmation, and equipping the module to the (already hot ship) could cost 10
million or more to clean, even to put back in a hot ship.
# Add the livery buptton back to the outfitting, just QoL
# You can sell stored modules in 1 click but not equipped modules
This is bad because you can buy back equipped modules but not remote modules.
# Remove module ship category on the left when not in module shop
and replace it with equipped modules
# Make the UI toggle for sell/store bigger and have more "in your face warnings"
Currently its a bit too easy to sell modules accidentily, and whilst I
appreciate the streamlined replacing process the game doesn't tell
people they can buy back modules, and it panics people.
Also the game isn't clear about *when# you can buy back modules, it
could be extended to something like 24-48 hours.
And the colours don't change or anything, its very intuitive.
# Add livery button to outfitting
# Wasting less screen real estate
It's nice to see stuff in the background with a toggle, but it is
a waste of space when actually outfitting, outside of hardpoint placement.
(This could be replaced with a module layout blueprint in the future)
Also squeeze as much ship specs onto one page, cycling can become
bothersome after a while.
And there's ltos of empty space that can be used
# Reduce loading animations to 0
Whilst it looks nice at first to see the button click animations and the
hardpoint deploying/retracting, it takes up a huge amount of time whilst doing
bulk outfitting jobs.
The galaxy map gets this perfect and all the animations do not *block# user
input.
The same is true of EDSY.org and coriolis.io
# Show all modules at a station not just ones for you ship
The module shop seemed like it implied let you buy and store modules for any
ship, unfortunately that's not the reality
This would be good to let you buy modules and store them directly.
# Excessive Clicks
Currently the flow to buy 1 pulse laser is. Starport Services > Outfitting > Ship Modules > Hardpoints > C1 Hardpoitns > Buy Module > Pulse Lasers > 1E Fixed Pulse Laser > Buy Module.....
- Skip sub-menu for core modules
- Skip sub-menu if there is only 1 sold module type
- Quick Actions
One alternate method of managing modules could be streamlined and made
more intuitive in a few ways
Instead of having a pop-up, the module shop could be brought up
immediately on selection , and placed to the right hand side, where
the module stats are normally.
Then, the user can select another module to swap it, and select the
module shop category to find something to buy.
On this same screen, the user could be presented with store, sell, and
transfer options. No popups
Storing could be achieved by re-selecting the module
Selling could be a big red button off to the side
- Jump straight into ship outfitting
Bypass module shop and stored module there doesnt need to be both.
Access them after being in the load out not before.
- Don't close the popup menu when cleaning a module
You usually want to follow it up with equipping, selling or storing a module, so
its a waste of time to close it.
Alternatively, just bundle the cleaning cost with optional that mandate
cleaning, like equipping a module
- Add a button to transfer modules from equipped
To be honest, this could be bundled into the module shop, its the same basic
interface, just seperated... For some reason?
- Could shrink module stats horizontally and reduce padding to fit more information
This is specifically good for fitting more information in, particularly removing
the redundant "modifacations" tab for engineered modules, and having them on the
same page
# Ship Stats
There is enough space for all ship stats if padding and unused space (like the hanger in the breakground), were reduced.
Switching through 4 tabs feels clunky
# Line for stats, like the old circular ones
This is a much more intuitive, visual way of reading stats, where possible
# Bring back the class numbers, they're much easier to read alongside the dots