The Thinking Behind UI Design / UX in Odyssey

Jeebs

J
First off, let me give credit where it's due... regarding FDev ignoring the extensive feedback provided about this new UI: they fixed the system map button being missing from the galaxy map. That's something right?

Seriously though. It's hard to find the words to appropriately describe this new UI. They have basically traded efficiency and clarity for... I'm not sure what exactly. I thought this must have been done with consoles in mind, but I'm reading that it's even worse if you're using a controller. Things that I could do in one or two clicks now require dozens of clicks. You can't mouse-over things to display information anymore either, so even more clicks.

Even once you get familiar with these stupid icons and where things are, it still feels like a chore to find the info you want and now it's being displayed on a smaller tab so everything is squished together, which makes certain things less easy to see with just a quick glance (like if I've mapped a planet or it's terraformable, for example.) Honestly, other than a very small minority, no one seems to like the new UI so why not just revert to the old one? What baffles me is that I can't see anything wrong with the original UI. Maybe it could have used a facelift and a little bit of tweaking, but there was nothing wrong with it so why replace it with this mess?
 

Freyar

Freyar
Jeebs said:
They have basically traded efficiency and clarity for... I'm not sure what exactly. I thought this must have been done with consoles in mind, but I'm reading that it's even worse if you're using a controller. Things that I could do in one or two clicks now require dozens of clicks. You can't mouse-over things to display information anymore either, so even more clicks.
Click to expand...
Let's note that with this new design they ended up with even more nested menus.
 

VR Morgan Grimes

VR Morgan Grimes
It's been quite clear for a long time that whomever was responsible for the original UI is no longer with FD, you only have to look at the way stuff has been shoehorned in over the years with little to no regard given to the original design ethics, headlight indicator, what is it doing in an info box and not with the indicators for landing gear/cargo scoop/masslock, FSS needing a completely different sub game screen when it should have been integrated with the ship, there are issues all over the place and it's just getting worse.
 

oscarolim

oscarolim
Canoe said:
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.
Click to expand...
Read the third paragraph of the link you supplied. The answer is there.
 

m0rl0ck

M
Canoe said:
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.
Click to expand...
Someone certainly needs to held accountable for it. That mess should never have gotten past the first management layer.
Whoever designed it needs to stick to mobile touchscreen interfaces.

Actually it looks to me like they were tinkering with the code on the old interface, broke it, and couldnt figure out how to put it back together again.
 

Vetinari

V
Sunyavadin said:
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?"
Click to expand...

Now youre worrying me :) FWIW few friends on XB who have PC too say similar, thats its overcomplicated for Consoles and maybe why the delay. Would be nice if they actually told us, this isnt A Few Good Men, we can handle the truth.

Thing is I know in the past a fair few people at Frontier have used Controllers, its HOTAS that seemed to be new and rarely used.

Sylow said:
being built with the consoles in mind
Click to expand...

LOL just LOL
 

13A

13A
I've just tried to plot a jump to my home station (using galmap)

In Horizons it was 4 clicks which were totally intuitive.

In Odyssey it takes 10 clicks, and that's only after you stumble across the 'manage bookmarks' option :rolleyes:
 

13A

13A
MattG said:
Wait until you compare the effort to delete a bookmark... 😬
Click to expand...
But at least if I wanted to delete a bookmark I'd expect it to be in 'manage bookmarks'.
Although..... thinking about it..... would it be somewhere that logical..... :unsure:
 

Freyar

Freyar
This reminds me of Frontier's first response to the open community letter asking for big fixes, stability and testing. I can't remember his name right now (but I will look when I get the chance) coming in and trying to argue that they let us play for free for a full year and we should stop whining .

This mindset seems to still be present for FDev.
 

Just

Just
Freyar said:
This reminds me of Frontier's first response to the open community letter asking for big fixes, stability and testing. I can't remember his name right now (but I will look when I get the chance) coming in and trying to argue that they let us play for free for a full year and we should stop whining .

This mindset seems to still be present for FDev.
Click to expand...

They probably hope we'll get used to it, like we always do.

Nietzsche approves such attitude ;)

Nietzsche-Quotes-4.jpg
 

Lone_star

Lone_star
drstrangelug said:
Thats the most likely one to get fixed. Any UI linked to ARX purchases will be fixed. Or maybe FDev will just assume because nobody is buying suit customisations that nobody wants them.

Fdev has a habit of assessing usability on the assumption of it being good enough already, like multicrew. "If people use it they'll put more add more features to it" was an actual quote just after multicrew delivery. Facepalm

"Hey Dave - these cheese only pizzas arent selling ! I guess people dont like pizzas."
Click to expand...

I've worked in the software industry for a long time and this is a huge problem that goes beyond gaming. Companies add minimum viable features at v 1.0 level and then decide not to improve them because "no one uses them". Yeah - no kidding no one uses your half-baked minimum viable feature.
 
Last edited:

Lone_star

Lone_star
The thing is - the Horizons UI, while pretty, was already not that efficient in quite a few areas (I'm a newer player - so this is probably more obvious to me). Count how many button presses you have to do to request docking clearance. The fact that there's STILL no hotkey for a basic common function like that is insane.... beyond the lack of hot keys and forced multiple button presses we also have way too many unskiippable animations.

Somehow they've apparently made this way worse with Odyssey. They'd better not break Horizons with this crap
 

Vevvev

Vevvev
One of the things that bugs me the most is the Ship Launched Fighter UI. It is impossible to tell which fighter is which at a glance because all they put is the name of the fighter, but then don't include it's model variant. I can't even see it's weapons without clicking on the little information box on the right side, but I don't have time for that in an actual fight.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom