UI Redesign

[vossiewulf]

A couple months ago I was criticizing an aspect of the latest UI changes, and Andrey said it would be more helpful if I made suggestions. Honestly I haven't found suggestions to be heard either, but he was correct in that simple criticism isn't ever terribly useful.

So I said fine, I'll just redesign the whole thing to demonstrate, designing UIs is something I've done a few times shall we say. But I've gotten away from that in my current job, so I haven't had a chance to do UI work in a while and I have been looking for something to give me an excuse to do some UI design.

To that end, this effort is already 100% successful, I've enjoyed doing it and am pleased with the results. It would work as I thought it would. However, in the unlikely chance that Graviteam would like to do something with this, I could fully finalize it including a British UI, and a German early war gray and late war ambush color scheme UIs, all the heavy lifting has all been done. Well except for the order wheel and the artillery and events UI - I took this easily far enough to demonstrate feasibility, I didn't redesign every last piece of it. Say maybe three or four weeks.

I used Adobe Spark to put the demo together, it has one sad limitation in that I see no way to render the screenshots at 100%. So although they're running some sharpening filter that helps keeps the images from being too blurry, they're still slightly blurry compared the originals and some of the smaller text might be hard to read. I'm attaching some basic screenshots at 100% below so people can see the main images as they were intended.

Graviteam UI Redesign Demo on Spark[spark.adobe.com]

Screenshots at full size:

DAK
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412039352

US Tunisia
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412039930

USSR 1943
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412040848

[andrey12345 v2.0]

In your version, there are just two global problems:
1) How it will all be scaled to different resolutions (this is evident in the FIRE EFFECTS panel even w/o scale - marks are pixelize and blurry)
2) How to add a new element, if necessary? Artist who would draw the necessary icons in several resolutions is required to maintain the style - this is unacceptable

And purely functional:
1) When the user selects NATO icons for example, checkboxes with flags and asterisks on the platoon buttons are closed
2) In large operations where there are many platoons, it will be long and tedious to scroll through the list, especially on modern ultra-wide monitors, since you have placed a long list on the short side of the monitor
3) Everything is very colorful, so it's extremely difficult to understand where something is. In general, the parameters are not readable - very large packing density of parameters (especially in squad buttons)
4) Not appeared most of the important dynamic parameters of platoons, for example, the level of command (and there is no place to add them)
5) There is no way to look at the parameters for the selected group, and not just one squad
6) Texts in such a compressed font are not readable, long names will not have placeholders, especially for localized texts
7) Many icons are illegible.
8) There are no textual signatures that would explain what each of the parameters means
9) The interface closes the middle part of the field of view, which is extremely inconvenient
10) For large platoons, such as an artillery battery, the platoon buttons will not be displayed at all, since the units buttons will occupy all available space.

If to sum up:
This option is inconvenient, takes up a lot of space (and it can not be reduced in any way), is less functional than the version that is now (in fact, it has all the disadvantages of the previous versions which we refused).

If you want to draw something UI:
1) Do not throw out the existing functionality.
In the game there are still a lot of important things that you have discarded completely, and all they all fit on the screen, and most of screen remains empty, which allows you to play normally. And in your version, if you add them, the whole screen will be filled with UI, and it will be impossible to play.
Remember, UI is a forced, strictly auxiliary element of the game, and not its main part, it at least should not interfere with the game process. We do not have to play the interface (like scrolling the platoon icons all the time), we have to play the game.

2) Think for the worst case that can be, and not for the most convenient. For example, we have 30 platoons, some of which have 14 units/squad - as soon as you draw this variant in your style UI, you will understand how inconvenient it is.

And you did not redesign the interface, as it became bigger, lost functionality, support for making changes becomes more difficult. In this case, no positive points were added.

[Defiant Squirrel]

Props for the hard work, and although the general aesthetic is something that would definitely appeal to some players, some of your panels are just too 'busy' and tightly crammed with information that would be very hard to access 'at a glance', at least for me.

There is some interesting ideas though, for example giving each faction its own theme, also I really like the idea of keeping everything in one area of the screen (either side or bottom) rather than both, the hover to show is another thing that could be very helpful in reducing clicks and avoiding need to constantly close after viewing. It might be slightly improved if you could make it so added layers of detail cascade vertically and downwards, to avoid information creeping across the centre of screen.

For me what this shows is just how much information there is available to the player in these games, and even though the current system is not perfect, it does its job well enough, and if anything the clean and relatively unstylized nature of it now makes more sense to me, however it is really interesting to see something like this that tries to do things in a different way, I hope one day you make something like a mod we could try.

[Frenchy56]

That kind of looks like the Close Combat UI.

[vossiewulf]

1) When the user selects NATO icons for example, checkboxes with flags and asterisks on the platoon buttons are closed
2) In large operations where there are many platoons, it will be long and tedious to scroll through the list, especially on modern ultra-wide monitors, since you have placed a long list on the short side of the monitor

As I expected Andrey, you didn't read the tex t in the presentation at all and just jumped to conclusions based on the three screenshots shown that are intended to show all functionality at once. If you had actually read it, you'd know basically everything you just said is not wrong, but completely wrong.

Tthere are several methods to either expand or contract the information displayed per unit and they are sticky so they'll stay thifat way until you change them otherwise. And if you double click a unit square, all sub-units are selected without expanding the unit to show any extra information. You only get that full list of unit information if you want to see it, and can set toggles to display just the upper minimal half (as the DAK screenshot above shows), or with double-clicks, you show no extra information.

You didn't even read the design concepts. One of the primary ones was organizing that information so the chances of needing to display the upper is minimized by the information on the unit squares, and the information on the upper half of the unit card minimizes the chances of needing to see all the details of the lower section. Your such details 1) ALWAYS SHOW and 2) are organized like you rolled dice, no conception of what is more important or less important.

With this UI the player would most often be able to play just looking at unit squares and NEVER having the bottom buttons on screen unless they are actually needed. That's an EXPANSION of screen space.

3) Everything is very colorful, so it's extremely difficult to understand where something is. In general, the parameters are not readable - very large packing density of parameters (especially in squad buttons)

More evidence that you didn't bother to read. THERE IS AN ENTIRE SLIDE that tells you color saturation is how I like it, but it's easily scaled to whatever drab and gray look you would want.

4) Not appeared most of the important dynamic parameters of platoons, for example, the level of command (and there is no place to add them)

More evidence you didn't read.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412267057
Or look at the sprite sheets in the PoC
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412268555

And it is not just NOT MISSING, I've improved it by adding a feature that tells the player not just what the current command level value is, but something at least as important if not more so, its rate and direction of change. The officer in indicator colors with a 1-100 value shows how closely in contact the unit is with its CO. See green, doesn't matter what command level is now, it will be increasing. See red, vice versa. This design is an IMPROVEMENT over your current design.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1412272149

5) There is no way to look at the parameters for the selected group, and not just one squad

Example?

6) Texts in such a compressed font are not readable, long names will not have placeholders, especially for localized texts

I have 54 year old eyes and wear progressive lenses, and I can read everything easily 3 feet away from a 17" laptop monitor. If you can't, go see an eye doctor. All texts have been tested for length and localized fonts. My fields ALL allow longer names than yours do.

8) There are no textual signatures that would explain what each of the parameters means

Where does it say that? Of course I'd create hovers for every field with a intention of providing an expand arrow to provide a longer explanation if needed.

9) The interface closes the middle part of the field of view, which is extremely inconvenient

ONLY when the "Fire Capabilities" button is clicked and expands out. Is that something you do often in an unpaused game? If you had read the POC documentation you'd know this UI is specifically designed to increase game screen real estate. Do you want me to run a pixel count test to prove it?

10) For large platoons, such as an artillery battery, the platoon buttons will not be displayed at , since the units buttons will occupy all available space.

No, the list of course truncates automatically just as your current unit list does. It's shown in each countrally UI truncating lists at various points, if you notice the active "MORE" buttons at the bottom of the list.

To sum up: a customer took quite some time to offer a contribution and you couldn't take the ten minutes required to actually read the explanation of the design, the options, the controls on what info is displayed or how. None of what you said above is accurate and you'd have known that had you read it. The screenshots in the initial post were put there mostly just to see if you'd really just not bother to read what I'd done at all and jump to conclusions based on just that little and distorted information.

1) Go read the POC documentation and show me what part of functionality is missing. You won't be able to cite one item. OTOH, you'll see several easy to implement new features I've added that will either give players better information or easier unit control.

2) I've been in game design off and on since 1994 Andrey, and I work in an environment where I'm responsible for code that if it's wrong, we can be talking millions of dollars lost per minute So, you know, of course I test worst case scenarios. Only the Soviet name font on the unit cards is to big, I kept forgetting to reduce it down. All others have been tested and can handle between 9 and 11 character last names in latin script and at least 8 in cyrillic. I looked in Wikipedia and can provide a few thousand common last names in every language with 8 characters or less.

Your one single valid point is that I chose the short axis to have everything. The intent was to have the right side have the events and artillery displays in a similar style. I did that because I prefer side UIs and it makes the UI more balanced if there are buttons on top and each side.

But nothing I've designed requires layout vertically, I kept that in mind. The whole thing can be laid out similarly and work just as well along the X axis.

[vossiewulf]

Originally posted by Red Squirrel:

Props for the hard work, and although the general aesthetic is something that would definitely appeal to some players, some of your panels are just too 'busy' and tightly crammed with information that would be very hard to access 'at a glance', at least for me.

There is some interesting ideas though, for example giving each faction its own theme, also I really like the idea of keeping everything in one area of the screen (either side or bottom) rather than both, the hover to show is another thing that could be very helpful in reducing clicks and avoiding need to constantly close after viewing. It might be slightly improved if you could make it so added layers of detail cascade vertically and downwards, to avoid information creeping across the centre of screen.

For me what this shows is just how much information there is available to the player in these games, and even though the current system is not perfect, it does its job well enough, and if anything the clean and relatively unstylized nature of it now makes more sense to me, however it is really interesting to see something like this that tries to do things in a different way, I hope one day you make something like a mod we could try.

All valid your mileage may vary kind of points where preferences are preferences and one size never fits all. The best solution is what you said at the end, if Graviteam would make the presentation layer accessible to modders with all the data we'd need to display whatever the heck we want, then there'd be at least four or five available and people could get much closer to their personal preferences, that was how it was back with CM1.

A display like this can look confusing at first until you train your brain to just look for colors. Your brain recognizes colors much faster than numbers. Every parameter has a color indicator so you glance and if you see all green, don't even need to look long enough to see what the numbers were. If one item is red or yellow it stands out like a sore thumb and you zero in on problem information much more quickly. That's pretty standard information display science, and it's used strongly in all network, system, and equipment monitoring applications.

But if I could implement it the way I would want to, I'd provide a saturation control so people could dial in whatever colorfulness they prefer.

The one feature I added that I'd like most of all are the incoming/outgoing fire indicators at both the platoon and unit levels. That really seems an obviously useful situational awareness thing, and if one thing is true it's that soldiers getting shot at start yelling about it to their COs.

[tommy.w]

vossiewulf I really admire the work you have put into this.
Hopefully you will continue to be a catalyst for positive change.
“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill

[vossiewulf]

Originally posted by tommy.w:

vossiewulf I really admire the work you have put into this.
Hopefully you will continue to be a catalyst for positive change.
“Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill

Originally posted by Breakthrough7:

@vossiewolf, your work looks amazing. Any plans to release this as a mod?

Thanks folks. I'd be happy to release it as a mod but as far as I know the pressentation layer is not available to modders. As I said to Red Squirrel, the best option would be for Graviteam to open the UI to full modding and in that case we'd see several mods plus the Graviteam UI all available, and everyone could find one that suits them best.

[Headshotkill]

It is unlikely the whole UI concept will be used, however some elements of it seem very handy.
My favorite being the coloured unit info-boxes instead of nebulous lists, the dark greens and light browns are rather pleasing for the eye, with the sharp reds and blacks standing out to alert the player.

I'm still trying to workout in my head how it would function with very large amounts of units though, that's the main worry that any UI in this game has to keep in mind. I'm going to take some time later to completly read your UI-concept through to better understand it and maybe make some suggestions.


Quick questions as I don't have a lot of time to read:

-How are orders issued, you still use the order wheel?
-How are ammo-types viewed in detail, do you mouse of the shell-types in the unit info-box?

[vossiewulf]

Originally posted by Headshotkill:

It is unlikely the whole UI concept will be used, however some elements of it seem very handy.
My favorite being the coloured unit info-boxes instead of nebulous lists, the dark greens and light browns are rather pleasing for the eye, with the sharp reds and blacks standing out to alert the player.

I'm still trying to workout in my head how it would function with very large amounts of units though, that's the main worry that any UI in this game has to keep in mind. I'm going to take some time later to completly read your UI-concept through to better understand it and maybe make some suggestions.


Quick questions as I don't have a lot of time to read:

-How are orders issued, you still use the order wheel?
-How are ammo-types viewed in detail, do you mouse of the shell-types in the unit info-box?

What is most unlikely is any given UI design being exactly what anyone in particular wants - no matter how hard the designer tries to provide something that meets all needs, everyone has different preferences so I'd be most surprised if anyone seriously looking at it doesn't come up with at least a few items they wish worked a bit differently.

- I didn't touch the order wheel. As you see this was a large amount of work and I had total faith that Andrey would say exactly what he said no matter what it looked like. So I didn't go all the way and replace the order wheel, the events list, or the artillery UI.

- The ammo types and their number are explicitly listed in the lower unit info box that can be turned on or off at will.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1413634102

[vossiewulf]

Also for Andrey, who can't take time to even read to understand, this is what the UI will look like most often while playing. As mentioned, double click on any unit square and you select all its units without expanding out any extra info. As much information about the unit's condition was included on the unit square itself, enough that you should know from just the unit square whether you need to expand out the unit information to see what is happening.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1413654068

[Goblin949]

The funniest thread of the month.

[tommy.w]

To be fair someone in the community has made a real effort to improve the game and has been met by utter contempt by the devs. This is actually quite appalling and really shocking.

If something is so funny/salty Goblin949A please could you highlight it?

I’m a fan of Graviteam and the games you produce but can’t understand this attack on a member of the community? – Please explain..

[Defiant Squirrel]

Originally posted by tommy.w:

This is actually quite appalling and really shocking.

You must be new here

[Goblin949]

Originally posted by tommy.w:

To be fair someone in the community has made a real effort to improve the game and has been met by utter contempt by the devs. This is actually quite appalling and really shocking.

If something is so funny/salty Goblin949A please could you highlight it?

I’m a fan of Graviteam and the games you produce but can’t understand this attack on a member of the community? – Please explain..

What attack? Andrey told exactly why this UI redesign will not work. Is this considered an attack these days?

How have you not noticed "Andrey can't read" and all related bits? Oh, those devs... Very funny.

[vossiewulf]

Originally posted by tommy.w:

To be fair someone in the community has made a real effort to improve the game and has been met by utter contempt by the devs. This is actually quite appalling and really shocking.

If something is so funny/salty Goblin949A please could you highlight it?

I’m a fan of Graviteam and the games you produce but can’t understand this attack on a member of the community? – Please explain..

Best to walk away Tommy, as you see they'll never get it. And I think one thing we can be certain of ia that they could kill any party flat dead in seconds.