The Thinking Behind UI Design / UX in Odyssey

[Canoe]

I'm struggling to understand what the focus was for the Odyssey UI. Frontier aren't a fly-by-night. There should have been some consideration of basic user experience and Human Interface Guidelines, - these are common for any interface and form the basis for the rules of modern UX design. Normally any organisation who are presenting a user-facing interface, will hire a designer who has the understanding and knowledge of HIG.

Can we get some explanation from whoever was responsible at Frontier for the current revision, on their reasoning, particularly on why so many elements are so significantly degraded to be a point of frustration and confusion. Unfortunately, this is one area where FD have made the end-users experience worse. A cursory attempt to use the galaxy map for example, beyond clicking from one star to the star next to it and plotting a jump, will reveal that. The wheel menu is a lesson in frustration. From substantially increased click-points, to broken processes and re-tracing of action paths, to not even bothering to set basic defaults for essential key maps, FD have made things empirically worse.

Let's have a video stream with the Design Team, so they can share their vision and let the rest of us into what it is.

 

[Shaele]

you make it sound like these issues werent brought up in the alpha

 

[Sylow]

Let's have a video stream with the Design Team, so they can share their vision and let the rest of us into what it is.

Indeed, i also would be very much interested in that. Also add: i want them to play the game just for a few minutes on the following setup: fly a ship with using properly set up HOTAS from one base to another. Make them just scroll through the list of items in your storage once, to see that the panels are bound properly. After landing the ship, make them either move around and fight with a HOTAS (as if that was possible) or then take away the HOTAS and make them move somewhere, use the terminal and pick up a mission.

I am absolutely posivite that nobody on their whole team, neither designer nor developer nor tester, used a HOTAS even once during the whole development process.

 

[Sunyavadin]

I'm struggling to understand what the focus was for the Odyssey UI.

"Touchscreens are THE FUTURE!"

 

[Sunyavadin]

I am absolutely posivite that nobody on their whole team, neither designer nor developer nor tester, used a HOTAS even once during the whole development process.

I remain convinced that this is also why the console versions were delayed, at no point did anyone pick up a pad while adding all the new stuff, and at the last minute somoene was like "uhhhhhh, guys?"

 

[Sylow]

I remain convinced that this is also why the console versions were delayed, at no point did anyone pick up a pad while adding all the new stuff, and at the last minute somoene was like "uhhhhhh, guys?"

You're saying that the interface is also bad on a controller? I up to now was convinced that being built with the consoles in mind and nothing else is the core reason why the UI is this bad.

 

[Canoe]

you make it sound like these issues werent brought up in the alpha

And that's my frustration, is that the kind of UI/UX feedback that was given, was utterly ignored? Frankly, you test the design out as part of a UAT process way before you even get to Alpha, and herein lies the problem. There is no UAT. So, Adam, care to chime in here? We know you're reading.

 

[Sunyavadin]

You're saying that the interface is also bad on a controller? I up to now was convinced that being built with the consoles in mind and nothing else is the core reason why the UI is this bad.

It's pretty much unplayable. Nowhere left for additional binds to go, and navigating all the additional nested menus without a mouse is just an unbelievable chore. The Horizons UI is perfect for consoles. Minimal button presses, maximum information provided on any one panel.

 

[MattG]

You're saying that the interface is also bad on a controller? I up to now was convinced that being built with the consoles in mind and nothing else is the core reason why the UI is this bad.

It is horrific.

It is enough to convince me that I'll be spending the majority of my time in Horizons rather than Odyssey. If this is the UI they force on Horizons when Odyssey releases on consoles, I will be forced to reconsider if this is the best way to waste my gaming time.

And this is just using the Galaxy Map and System Map. Not even got as far as outfitting a ship yet! Tagging bodies is pointless now - you have to actively go and find them after manually selecting a body. For each body. If any of the UI/UX team are actually reading feedback, please try finding a system of, say, 60 bodies then in Horizons go through all the bodies and check the tags, or maybe the gravity, or whether the body was terraformable or not. Then do the same in Odyssey and come back and explain which bit of this is an improved experience.

 

[Northpin]

I pretty much prefer the Horizons UI, at least for Galmap, Sysmap and Outfitting

 

[Deleted member 182079]

You're saying that the interface is also bad on a controller? I up to now was convinced that being built with the consoles in mind and nothing else is the core reason why the UI is this bad.

It's not unplayable as others say (imo) but it's certainly a step back. The most extreme example (and unfortunately one which we'll all be experiencing rather often) is going from the Galmap into the Sysmap.

Guess how many button presses that requires from the point of looking at a star to viewing the sysmap?

Spoiler

11. Yes, that's ELEVEN button presses.

With a mouse it's not such a big deal but this is a bit of a joke and I can't believe why they didn't just move the sysmap icon further up on the right hand section, if nothing else.

How this went through Alpha and now is in the live version, I haven't got the faintest.

 

[Sunyavadin]

Guess how many button presses that requires from the point of looking at a star to viewing the sysmap?

sticks with Horizons, where it's two on a pad

 

[Northpin]

I pretty much prefer the Horizons UI, at least for Galmap, Sysmap and Outfitting

It's not unplayable as others say (imo) but it's certainly a step back.

Indeed, it is not unplayable.

And indeed it a step backward.
It requires extra clicks and extra mouse moves

 

[Sunyavadin]

How this went through Alpha and now is in the live version, I haven't got the faintest.

My working hypothesis is that Braben's got a toddler who designed it with crayons and he insisted that the team "make it work" in spite of all objections from anyone with a solid background of UI experience?

 

[fennster]

sticks with Horizons, where it's two on a pad

Just log out to horizons every time you need to navigate somewhere right?

 

[drstrangelug]

I'd be very hesistant to pass judgement right now. I have a lot of muscle memory for the Horizons UI and thats might be part of the problem. That said....

It looks much prettier, it plays much worse. My best guess is this is one of thoes UI designers who does everything in Photoshop and sees the UI as an image, not a process. I've worked with two of those before and you get such odd looks when you ask questions like "Where's the cancel button on this form?" or "Where do I put the error message when the user puts in an invalid postcode?"

 

[Deleted member 182079]

I'd be very hesistant to pass judgement right now. I have a lot of muscle memory for the Horizons UI and thats might be part of the problem. That said....

It looks much prettier, it plays much worse. My best guess is this is one of thoes UI designers who does everything in Photoshop and sees the UI as an image, not a process. I've worked with two of those before and you get such odd looks when you ask questions like "Where's the cancel button on this form?" or "Where do I put the error message when the user puts in an invalid postcode?"

Having experienced this in the Alpha that has kind of softened the blow for me - I imagine those who play this for the first time will require a bit of an "adjustment period" to say the least.

So instead of "click click click" things will turn out to be "click click click click click click click click click click click" going forward.

And while we're at UI issues, the bug with not being able to select the Drake FC layout (when you bought another one) still hasn't been fixed, well of course not. Issue tracker ticket raised several months ago, introduced during the last FC sale... GG if not unexpected but surprising all the same given this relates directly to purchasable content.

The sloppiness on display across the entire game is hugely frustrating as it's a death-by-1000-blows kinda thing. I don't even dare to check whether megaship looting is fixed. I doubt it.

 

[Sunyavadin]

My best guess is this is one of thoes UI designers who does everything in Photoshop and sees the UI as an image, not a process. I've worked with two of those before and you get such odd looks when you ask questions like "Where's the cancel button on this form?" or "Where do I put the error message when the user puts in an invalid postcode?"

I had the excellent experience the other day of a site signup page where the undismissable popup telling me I need to click to accept the site's T&C agreement hovered over the tick box to accept. Was some fun wrangling of stretching the window to a portrait aspect ratio to get around it.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

My bet was on "done for controller use" but several controller users have said it is bad to use with controllers as well.

The only other explanation I have is that it's been done for flashy looks reason with disregard to any usability.

 

[Sunyavadin]

The only other explanation I have is that it's been done for flashy looks reason with disregard to any usability.

Yep. Designed purely with aesthetics in mind, no thought to actual practical functionality, as evidenced by the increased clicks for every action, which you aim to minimise when optimising an interface, and the amount of necessary-at-a-glance information that's either obfuscated or simply GONE altogether.