Worst UI Design or Worst UI Design

[Nyarlathotep]

The idea... EU in space, seems nice. But, I really can't get past the extremely crappy UI. ITs just about the worst example of typography, background choices, icon spriting and general ui design I have ever seen. It looks like a geocities site, to be honest. In a game that is essentially a user interface, ugh dude.

Its quite honestly insulting at the price listed, I'm sure the gameplay is very very complex and deep and sure I guess graphics aren't everything, but when I get eyestrain from playing through one of these tutorials, something's wrong. Seriously, for the price you charge you could at least hire a UI designer. If the concept of getting people to pay you to improve your already on sale game is appealing, maybe you should kickstarter for better UI design?

[spambot2.1]

i haven't had any issues learning the ui of this game. nor have i noticed anything really bad with it either. it would be nice if the spy intelligence dropdown list would save your previous selections though.

[TimmY]

I wish if you were able to change the font or at least bold it.

[PyroMancer]

Graphical aesthetics and font legibility aside, since those are mostly personal preference, I do find a lot of little things that annoy me about the UI.

1) Like no way to view which planet has what resources in the system you are viewing without clicking on each planet. An icon floating over them, even if it's toggle able in the options would be standard in most game of this type these days.
2) No quick way to mark designs as obsolete from ship design list, have to "EDIT" which makes an annoying PING and popup menu warning ship design still in use so can't "EDIT" the design.
3) Can't scroll left/right in most windows where you can adjust the column tabs and push end columns out of viewable window
4) System names vanish at curtain zoom out level. Makes it hard to scroll all the way out and get a feel for what areas are explored so have to stay zoomed in a lot closer than I would like.
5) No easy way to see how resource are distributed in your empire. You have to individually click on starports then open them up in the ship/base view window to see their cargo is. But that doesn't really tell you what you want and need to know.

For example in my current game my main planet's shipyard is halted due to a lack of Carbon Fiber. When I go to the Expansion planner I see my empire has 5 sources with 39K in stock and 9K in transit. Wow that tells me practically nothing useful. Sure if my empire was small odds are those resources are nearby and will be there shortly so I could be confident I don't need to go out and find a new source and the shipyard will be resuming shortly. But given that my empire spans across 1/2 the galaxy on a 15x15 sector map it could be a LONG time before that cargo is ferried from one side of my empire to the other.

So the ability to select a resource and then see what stations have it in stock and which freighters are currently transporting it would be nice. Along with the ability to perhaps select a ship design and see each of the closest sources for each of the resources it requires, that way you can get a feel if the local area has all the resources already tapped to meet your needs or if you need to setup additional mining bases.

These are just some of the things off the top of my head though. I'm sure if I dug in more I could make a much longer list. But as a whole the UI has that old 90s era of spreadsheet UI feel to it not just in look but in functionality.

Oprindeligt skrevet af !turing¡:

Oprindeligt skrevet af ermdog2411:

I think the UI is fantastic, a lot of great info at your fingertips and a lot of options to see on screen info.

Oprindeligt skrevet af solops1:

I like the UI. Simple and, I think, intuitive.

Its like stockholm syndrome of the eyes.

I hope it gets a look over soon for you guys. But honestly you're being contrarian if you think that's a good UI, or you haven't played a modern grand strategy game... ever.

While I think he's being a bit sarcastic I do think there is some truth to what he's saying. I remember back in college when our Professor covered UI Design, he said that Developers are terrible at judging the quality of their own UI. This is because they work with their application day in and day out to the point where it becomes second nature. Because of this they often can no longer see how someone unfamiliar with the application might find it confusing or unintuitive. And since people tend to not like change they are not exactly motivated to change what is already "working". The same thing can happen to anyone who uses an application for a long time. This is what test groups are for as they bring in people completely unfamiliar with the product and have them give feedback.


Back to the UI though, where besides #5 on my list there is a lot information that isn't really readily available because it requires compiling the information in a presentation sort of way which makes it easy to view and interpret. Instead most of the data is in spreadsheet format and compiled across various windows. Being a Database programmer I'm using to looking at tables and having to organize them in a meaningful manner, so viewing and understanding the tables in game is not a problem. It's the compiling all that data to figure out what exactly is going on that is tricky, especially since the game simulates local supply and demand of resources to build while lacking a good way of actually tracking the distribution network and flow of those resources.

The Presentation vs Raw Data I'd say is probably the biggest change in UI and what makes it feel dated. More modern UI tend to focus on presenting only the relevant and key information at hand. Where as the older style was simply throw all the raw data on the screen so they can sift out what they need.

[Icemania]

turing ... listen for a moment.

Yes the UI in Distant Worlds is not the prettiest. But what is more important in Grand Strategy is functonality. I can assure you that once you are familiar with the Distant Worlds UI it provides the vast majority of functions you will need within a small number of clicks. In fact it's evolved massively since the original to do exactly that. And you can try the UI Mods that are available.

There are plenty of people here who play a lot of strategy games and a lot of this game. You really aren't giving the advice provided sufficient credit.

[Bingeling]

Lots of valid complaints above the UI, none of which bother me too much. I miss a better resource overview, though.

There is a "quick obsolete" in the design screen. The default view does not show obsolete designs, but the "All designs" view does. The last column is Obs and has a red star thing if the design is obsolete. Click the last column (red star) to toggle obsolete status.

[relnu]

Oprindeligt skrevet af PyroMancer:

Graphical aesthetics and font legibility aside, since those are mostly personal preference, I do find a lot of little things that annoy me about the UI.

1) Like no way to view which planet has what resources in the system you are viewing without clicking on each planet. An icon floating over them, even if it's toggle able in the options would be standard in most game of this type these days.
2) No quick way to mark designs as obsolete from ship design list, have to "EDIT" which makes an annoying PING and popup menu warning ship design still in use so can't "EDIT" the design.
3) Can't scroll left/right in most windows where you can adjust the column tabs and push end columns out of viewable window
4) System names vanish at curtain zoom out level. Makes it hard to scroll all the way out and get a feel for what areas are explored so have to stay zoomed in a lot closer than I would like.
5) No easy way to see how resource are distributed in your empire. You have to individually click on starports then open them up in the ship/base view window to see their cargo is. But that doesn't really tell you what you want and need to know.

[...]

ad1: Yeah, that is frustrating, a toggle would be very handy.
ad2: If you select "show all" form the ship design window, you will notice that the obsolete ones have red "stars". The red stars are clickable toggles.
ad the rest: Yeah, I agree, it would be nice to have like litte toggle able dot/pie chart/bar overlays for resources. eg you click on steel and it shows little pies/whatever above the relevant locations, like in an atlas. One color/form/type for production, one for stocks, one for demand (with special icon for shortages) and one for in transit with vector. But thats me thinking as an economist.

[BearDownChicagoBearsHo]

I'm totally digging the game so far. But let's be real for a second. I can't say I've ever had to log off of windows to reboot with larger/text icons to achieve a barely readable font in any game I've ever played since I started with a 386. To just be like, 'it's not a big deal the UI is fine' is a complete and utter lie. It probably literally has more small bits of text than any game I've ever even played, and the fact that it also is not able to display that information at a modern resolution in an even passably readable manner is pretty terrible.

You're doing any perspective customer a dissservice by not at the very least acknowledging that the text is not up to snuff. I think I bought this monitor for like $115 dollars the year after Distant Worlds came out. It's not like im talking about unforseen futuretech here. It was bargin bin tech near the release of the game. The monitor is native 1920 x1080, I do not want to play in 4:3, I do not want to play in a lower resolution that barely even helps because it's blurrier. True type has barely if at all helped and now my eyes have to adjust to ALL of the text on my monitor being different after owning it for 3 years without ever needing to turn the feature on. True Type is not a fix by any means.

This is not an unresonable expectation to be put upon a game. Anyways, like I said enjoying the game so far, about to boot it back up!

P.S. if anyone is able to tell me why music plays like not exaggeratting 10x's louder than it should when ecountering empires and doing diplomacy and how to stop it, I would be super grateful. I have the application volume set at like 2% in the windows volume mixer and it still gets uncomfortably loud. Thanks!

[Bingeling]

UI is fine if you like me have never had a problem reading any text in the game. There may be some awkward colors in the diplomacy screen, though.

Why don't I have a problem? Probably because my eyesight is fine with glasses, and I never sit far away from the screen. Either a laptop in the lap (not that I play on my laptop) or on my desktop where the screen is not far ahead of the keyboard at all, and I sit reasonably close to both.

It is also possible that my systems default to reasonable clear type fonts.

My desktop has an oldish 24" 1920x1200 screen of pretty good quality.

The font issue, internet explorer requirement, windows media player requirement, are all bad sides of the game having been started many years ago. Lets hope development on DW2 with new infrastructure is already starting.

[FriendlyShark]

For the price this game is touted for I would expect graphics that were born in THIS century not in the late 80's early 90's at best.

I did have high hopes when I saw a new 4X game on steam but alas a quick view of the video tells me its not very pretty and the UI is 'gash'.

For £10 I may possibly buy it on huge discount but only if I become color blind and no longer have a reason to live.

[Icemania]

I'm all for constructive improvement ideas but "Worst UI Design or Worst UI Design" is not "getting real".

I wasn't talking about fonts. I empathise with those who have trouble with the fonts on some resolutions. On my native resolution I have no problems at all with readability i.e. experience varies.

I was talking about functionality.

[Icemania]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Mogolov:

For the price this game is touted for I would expect graphics that were born in THIS century not in the late 80's early 90's at best.

I did have high hopes when I saw a new 4X game on steam but alas a quick view of the video tells me its not very pretty and the UI is 'gash'.

For £10 I may possibly buy it on huge discount but only if I become color blind and no longer have a reason to live.

If you are primarily focused on graphics I would agree this game is probably not for you. Personally I get my graphics fix from games like Sins of a Solar Empire (particularly the Star Trek Armada 3 mod) but also come back to Distant Worlds for the gameplay ...

[BearDownChicagoBearsHo]

Please, just please don't try to tell me that I'm sitting too far away from my computer and that my eyesight is bad. I don't wear glasses, I don't need glasses. I am sitting 18" from a 21.5" monitor. I'm not going to have it 3 inches from my face. Talk about screwing up your eyesight... I own like 300 games just on steam and my eyesight and sitting distance have mattered in percisely none of them that I've tried.

[Ketsa]

100% agreed.
Thanks god I was able to test before making the mistake of buying this unreadable "game".

I am cautious when I see the matrix name. Years of bad design.

[BearDownChicagoBearsHo]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Icemania:

I'm all for constructive improvement ideas but "Worst UI Design or Worst UI Design" is not "getting real".

I was talking about functionality.

We'll first of all I didn't name the thread that, or even create the thread. I was just responding to the surprising number of people saying the UI is fine with a counterargument as it's the largest problem I have with the game so far. And it's a pretty large problem.

I'm also talking about functionality. The UI does not functionally present a lot of its text in a readable manner at the defacto standard of modern monitor resolutions. And that is AFTER, I had to switch my icons and text size in windows to a larger size, requiring a windows logon/logoff to put my computer back to normal and vice versa. Again, something that no user should expect to have to do in a game from 2010 that claims to support 1080p.

Being able to comfortably read the information that the UI in a game like this is presenting is basically it's most important job. And it doesn't do it, I don't care how slick it is, and it isn't even a slick or intuitive ui theres like literally 30 different little buttons/icons scattered around the screen. It's not even good by grand strategy standards which aren't high. It's servicable aside from the text, no one is going to be imitating it. Civ V is a slick UI for a 4x. it might not have to deal with presenting the amount of information that this game does, but it is a slick UI none the less. Age of Wonders III, not as slick as Civ V with even less information to present. Alpha Centuari, awful UI by modern standards.

Anyways, my point is it doesnt matter if the thing is giving me free hj's, I'm probably still going to say it has poor functionality when it cannot present it's information in a way where you can easily read the aforementioned information.

[Icemania]

As I said ... I empathise with those who have trouble with the fonts on some resolutions. On my native resolution I have no problems at all with readability i.e. experience varies. If you understood that it wouldn't be surprising that some of us are quite happy with it.