If AoS Is Going To Go All The Way On Changing The UI

[lOvOl]

Why don't we look at the design objectively with regard to MOBA layouts.

 

First of all, before we discuss anything we have to look at the history of MOBA's which of course starts mainly with the Warcraft III custom map Defense of the Ancients. Back when I played Warcraft III, I will admit I played a lot of custom games, but not too much of DOTA because it simply did not appeal to me at the time. I also did quite a bit of modding with its editor interface which is in effect what the SC2 editor interface inherits from in many ways. Back then there was only so much you could do with the WC3 game engine relative to the SCII game engine so map makers were stuck with certain limitations, not to mention certain player preferences in terms of the UI layout. One of them was the minimap which was located in the bottom left corner which WCIII inherited from Starcraft I. The minimap was an important part of the screen, but not as important as selecting units (up to 12) which was naturally put in the center middle of the screen as both WCIII and Starcraft were RTS games. Earlier and very popular RTS games had their minimaps in the top left (Warcraft II) and in the top right (Command and Conquer) so there is plenty of precedent for having the minimap in pretty much every corner of the map except for the bottom right. Nevertheless, none of the games would align the minimap in the north, south, east, or west positions of the map because other important windows such as unit controls were located there. On top of that, monitors and screen resolutions were significantly worse than what gamers today are used to, the designers of those games chose to design their games based upon the hardware available to their users. On top of that, since screen resolution and mouse resolution were so much less back then, cursor proximity to game control panels was not as important.

 

Nowadays even on laptops screen resolution is significantly better than the days of Starcraft where the screen resolution was a fixed 640x480 pixels, which both adds more screen space for the main game window, but also adds additional challenges to the user in that there is more on the screen at any given time for them to pay attention to, as well as the user having to move their mouse across a greater space to get around the various regions of the map. For this reason, if there is not a need for an excess number of panels as you may have in MMORPG games such as Everquest or WoW that have an amazing amount of complexity, good user interface design warrants that you do whatever you can to localize the mouse movement and eye gaze so that the user does not need to exert extra mental energy both in moving their mouse around unnecessarily as well as changing their eye focus when they don't need to. In a MOBA game where the minimap is arguably far more important than even in an RTS game such as SCII, having the minimap in a corner spot has the prime disadvantage of forcing the user to lose focus of 3/4 of the screen every time their eyes focus on a corner positioned minimap. The same goes as well every time they have to look at other information on a frequent basis that is in a corner position of the screen. Now remember that Starcraft II's user interface is designed for RTS games not a MOBA game like AoS that does not require a unit selection panel, and arguably does not require movement buttons which are a relic UI feature inherited from the original Starcraft. In this sense, less panels are required for AoS to function.

 

So the next question is where is the best place for panels which are both very important and frequently viewed in a general user interface? Well the best place is close to where the the default focus of the user is going to be. For a word processor or a spread sheet, that is going to be the top left area of the screen as western languages read left to right and top to bottom. But for a MOBA game or almost all computer games the focus is going to be directly in the center of the screen. For this reason the mouse cursor will also likely be in the center of the screen as well. Simple geometry then dictates that the farthest distance for the user to move his or her mouse as well as their eye gaze from its most likely location is going to be the edges of the map and since human vision processes objects from the top down, this also means that the user has to do even extra mental work to view scan the screen from the center and up rather than the center and down. This means the best place for the most important panels that also need to be made the most accessible would be in the bottom center of the screen as the eyes at the very worst lose track of 50% of the screen when scanning down as opposed to 75% of the screen when scanning a corner. On top of that you don't have to be a math whiz to know that the pythagorean theorem states that the user will have to move their mouse less distance in a vertical fashion from the center of a rectangular screen with the horizontal sides longer than the vertal sides than if they were to move their mouse diagonally to a corner region. In other words, the minimap should be in the bottom center of the screen as it is arguably the most important screen space in a MOBA game aside from the main game window itself. Having to spend too much effort watching the minimap can get you killed in battle and spending too little time because of the effort required to view the minimap can cause you or your team to make strategically poor decisions such as allowing an enemy hero to backdoor a side lane as in the heat of battle the minimap will be 100% out of the field of vision of a MOBA game player. So in conclusion, the minimap should definitely be in the bottom center of the screen if legacy concerns (i.e. the fact SCII and all other custom games have the minimap in the bottom left) are not important when it comes to user interface best practices.

 

Now as for other panels, if those panels are rarely viewed and require little attention, they should be in the top, side, or bottom corners. However, in MOBA games skill and item cooldown buttons require frequent attention, so they should be as close to the center as well, and for the point and click user, it is extremely important these buttons are also very accessible by the mouse for the same reason the minimap needs to be very accessible by the mouse, just that the minimap is more important both for attention as well as navigation in a MOBA game.

 

So even though I am pretty certain the UI is in 1.70 is gonna stubbornly stick and probably be unplayable or at least unenjoyable by a great many of your users, I thought it was only fair to point out in great detail that if you are going to invoke "logic and reason" in this debate, rather than the democratic views of your users (which BTW should be more important than your individual opinion, or my individual opinion, or anybody's individual opinion if you don't want to continue enraging your user base over and over and over again) then perhaps I might throw some "logic" and "reason" at you with this thread.

 

Now even though I don't plan on playing AoS anymore, I felt I have spent enough time with this game that I ought to at least give you my personal suggestion on what a UI from scratch for AoS should look like, rather than just tell you how terrible I think your current user interface is and why I think it is terrible in objective terms. I figure I owe you guys that much.

 

This probably took me half an hour to an hour doing screen shot cut and pastes in GIMP so I have made no attempt at prettying up any separator art or edge art to use as buffers between each game panel. I would probably keep most of that to a minimum, but really it is pretty irrelevant anyways as the mass majority of screen space is taken by the panels themselves and how much remains has more to do with a user's monitor size than what art you use to decorate the UI.

 

If I spent more time I could obviously do a much better job, but this should be sufficient in communicating the general idea in terms of what questions you guys should be asking yourselves in terms of a quality UI, rather than simply coming up with answers to the wrong questions over and over again.

[Ironsights]

Holy wall of text batman!

 

Dude...I am at work, and don't have an hour for this...I think I might attempt to read it while waiting in loby's once I get off...but I might not..

 

 

I know this is a pointless post to add to your thread...but wowzers....

 

I'm impressed by the time this must have taken.

[Rem]

Finally, a design worse than what ecko and wrath came up with

[Doom]

Damn........... owl, are you a Mythbuster irl? Because you are the person that follows the motto of "If it's worth doing, then it's worth overdoing" more so than anyone since the Mythbusters team and whoever conspired to kill Rasputin..... but regretably, for all your work, your design is..... well let's just say I prefer, and I strongly suspect that almost everyone would prefer what we have right now, and what we used to have over what you offered.

 

 

On topic of U.I. and minimap location, you can do what the UA3 team did with a bunch of buttons that they added, which was include 4 buttons at the edges that would move the other ui a few milllimeters to the specified direction, till you got it in whatever place you wanted. Granted, that was with buttons that they added on, not the preexisting ui that they left where it was, but if they can do what they did, I strongly suspect that it's possible on the minimap too.

[SBNDB]

Hey lets all give AOS a 1 Star rating due to new user interface

 

a fantastic idea... i havent been on SC since i RQ my first game on New user inter face but hey ill waste some more time logging on to give it a 1 star-er :)

[WhaleTits]

btw flip interface is now available ^.^

[lOvOl]

btw flip interface is now available ^.^

 

And that does not change the button accessibility problems, nor not being able to see item cooldowns, not to mention you now need to move your eyes completely back and forth across the bottom of the screen to read important transient information as well as view the minimap which even with the flip interface is a lot of unnecessary eye movement for the user. At least before you really only had to scan the bottom left to center parts of the screen for the most part, now you have to scan the entire map unnecessarily.

 

Seriously, I challenge anyone here to do a screen shot of the current UI, flipped or otherwise and compare it to the UI I have provided and pretend to be interacting with the screen both with the mouse and your gaze and tell me which requires more mental effort by the user as less mental effort generally means a more pleasant user experience for the user as they can use their brain to do more useful things like actually play the game.

 

Also, is there anyone else on this forum who has done software design professionally before? Maybe they can chime in here on what they think is good or bad about the new AoS UI?

[WhaleTits]

urs is horrible. the goal is to have roughly a circle of vision around ur hero. not to block off 1/4th of your visible area. that set up (yours) makes laning top/mid zerg a massive pain in the ass.

 

:/

 

i honestly can't tell if troll or not anymore.

 

sides, who the flob uses the buttons.

[lOvOl]

Damn........... owl, are you a Mythbuster irl? Because you are the person that follows the motto of "If it's worth doing, then it's worth overdoing" more so than anyone since the Mythbusters team and whoever conspired to kill Rasputin..... but regretably, for all your work, your design is..... well let's just say I prefer, and I strongly suspect that almost everyone would prefer what we have right now, and what we used to have over what you offered.

 

 

On topic of U.I. and minimap location, you can do what the UA3 team did with a bunch of buttons that they added, which was include 4 buttons at the edges that would move the other ui a few milllimeters to the specified direction, till you got it in whatever place you wanted. Granted, that was with buttons that they added on, not the preexisting ui that they left where it was, but if they can do what they did, I strongly suspect that it's possible on the minimap too.

 

Yah customization for games is just fine (other products it leads to usability and support nightmares). I don't know how much code bloat having half a dozen UI's to choose from would add to the AoS map, but personally I think at the very least users should have the option of using the old UI (which should be the default for now), until the community can come to a consensus as to what UI is the best one overall.

[Rem]

 

Seriously, I challenge anyone here to do a screen shot of the current UI, flipped or otherwise and compare it to the UI I have provided and pretend to be interacting with the screen both with the mouse and your gaze and tell me which requires more mental effort by the user as less mental effort generally means a more pleasant user experience for the user as they can use their brain to do more useful things like actually play the game.

 

 

 

Owl your design is quite easily the worst ever. Your blocking out a large chunk of the most vital area to be seen. You placed the minimap ontop of your items and skills, so for those noobs who do click to activate the shap that you've been trying to say was detrimental to game play, are now going to click the minimap instead and end up with there hero running around like a retard. Your focusing in on the exact center of the map, providing you with no awareness around the edges, where much of the combat takes place, ie ranged hero vs ranged, or your opportunity to shut down shadow as he rushes in, skillshots ect ect.

 

With this as your example as a good UI design we can pretty much discount everything youve ever said about UI design the new UI, and basic logic as random spoutings of someone utterly retarded...

[lOvOl]

urs is horrible. the goal is to have roughly a circle of vision around ur hero. not to block off 1/4th of your visible area. that set up (yours) makes laning top/mid zerg a massive pain in the ass.

 

:/

 

i honestly can't tell if troll or not anymore.

 

sides, who the flob uses the buttons.

 

There is not just one goal with any user interface even though you seem to think so. If what you were saying was so easy, you should just put all the panels in the top corners, rather than the bottom corners but obviously most people can see intuitively why that is a bad idea because the minimap and item and ability icons are important.

 

Block off a 1/4th of the usable area? It takes up only a third of the bottom area, which is about as much as the SCII user interface does in terms of vertical area taken up by panels, and if you are concerned that the space left over on the sides (more for viewing than actually clicking) you can always add decorator space to fill up that area (or at least most of it) or else put useful panels like moving most of what is at the top now such as the scoreboard and the minerals, gas, etc. down to that area so that you have a clean rectangle for the main panel. In that sense you have about the same screen real estate for the main panel as you do with the SCII user interface, but as a consequence you have a more usable user interface due to better accessibility of information and action buttons.

 

And last but not least, most new users use buttons. I used buttons early on with this game with items and you probably did as well whether you want to admit it or not, and I eventually moved over to mapping item inventory to my function keys, but new players are going to be slower in how they do things and will use the buttons until they have the muscle memory to use the keyboard 100% of the time. This game constantly has people trying it out and quitting all the time, so if you are going to pretend the user base is eternally static from this point on, well then you are sorely mistaken. Maybe the inhause bubble has you lacking perspective these days, but whatever the case may be the fact remains a lot of people use buttons, especially for items.

[lOvOl]

Owl your design is quite easily the worst ever. Your blocking out a large chunk of the most vital area to be seen. You placed the minimap ontop of your items and skills, so for those noobs who do click to activate the shap that you've been trying to say was detrimental to game play, are now going to click the minimap instead and end up with there hero running around like a retard. Your focusing in on the exact center of the map, providing you with no awareness around the edges, where much of the combat takes place, ie ranged hero vs ranged, or your opportunity to shut down shadow as he rushes in, skillshots ect ect.

 

With this as your example as a good UI design we can pretty much discount everything youve ever said about UI design the new UI, and basic logic as random spoutings of someone utterly retarded...

 

The area blocked out is essentially the same amount of space blocked out in the default SCII user interface. Also I am wondering if you even looked at the screen shot because the minimap is not actually on top of the items and skills and if accidentally clicking on the minimap when trying to click on a skill is a problem (which it won't because your mouse gesture will be left to right), you can always add more buffer space with decorator art to address that non-issue.

 

And I am befuddled as to why you think there is no awareness around the edges as the left and right corners are completely visible to see incoming ganks coming from a diagonal direction, and the only area obscured is the relatively small area in the bottom center.

 

If you or anyone else is going to say this is a far worse idea, then you might want to at least get your facts straight before having an honest discussion. At the moment you said a bunch of contradictory things that just sounds like you made some kneejerk post considering you can't even accurately describe where the minimap was relative to the buttons.

[Rem]

You might want to actually look at your own picture before you reply.

[DavidChan]

ur UI is ugly as flob tho..

[lOvOl]

You might want to actually look at your own picture before you reply.

 

Just did, the minimap is in the center and the item and ability icons are to the right of the minimap NOT ON TOP OF THE MINIMAP AS YOU ERRONEOUSLY STATED when you said quote:

 

"You placed the minimap ontop of your items and skills"

[lOvOl]

ur UI is ugly as flob tho..

 

Yah it is not decorated at all as that was not the intent. The intent was to demonstrate usability and cut down the amount of effort by the user to actually use the user interface.

[BestPlayer]

I think I would like the old UI more, as minimaps, in my head, simply belong in the bottom left - that being said, I can't find many faults with what you have stated in this topic, and on the surface I would rather try out your attempt at a UI than the currently implemented one... With which I have many problems, but mainly that things are scattered all over the place in the bottom; a problem that your UI fixed.

[Phyresis]

I thought you left... You shouldnt give a damn if your not here anymore...

[Rem]

Just did, the minimap is in the center and the item and ability icons are to the right of the minimap NOT ON TOP OF THE MINIMAP AS YOU ERRONEOUSLY STATED when you said quote:

 

"You placed the minimap ontop of your items and skills"

 

Owl are you at all familiar with the english language or should we give you and peas some quality time together so he can teach you?

 

"ontop of" does not literally have to mean that something is directly physically above another object, it can and infact does mean in very close proximity, or touching now stfu

[ChadRickVon]

You rarely fail to amaze me Owl....but you really didn't even address the lack of group selection display that is, unfortunately, terribly necessary.

[Ironsights]

im sorry boss man, but on looking at that image...

 

thats just not a usable interface. No visual appeal, map in a TERRIBLE position, lack of utility in that everything in clustered together...it looks like its trying to copy the button/icon hell that ws WoW and why I left that monstrosity of a time waste years ago.

 

Simploy put

 

"No."

[lOvOl]

Owl are you at all familiar with the english language or should we give you and peas some quality time together so he can teach you?

 

"ontop of" does not literally have to mean that something is directly physically above another object, it can and infact does mean in very close proximity, or touching now stfu

 

LOL, nobody actually uses "on top of" in that context and since we are talking about relative positions of panels and buttons, it just sounds like you made up that excuse and never even really bothered to read what I wrote or actually view the image. Nice attempt at a save though. You also didn't really bother to read what I posted in that I already stated you can add a small amount of additional buffer or separator space between the panels as necessary IF accidental clicks were a problem after playtesting. Yah I know I tend to write a lot sometimes, but next time when you flame me you might want to actually read everything so you don't get caught BSing about things that are not true.

[lOvOl]

You rarely fail to amaze me Owl....but you really didn't even address the lack of group selection display that is, unfortunately, terribly necessary.

 

I didn't?

 

"The minimap was an important part of the screen, but not as important as selecting units (up to 12) which was naturally put in the center middle of the screen as both WCIII and Starcraft were RTS games".

 

In AoS, do you need to select more than one unit at a time and have their health and info displayed in a group selection panel? You obviously need that in an RTS, but in AoS you don't really need that even for heroes like Tosh, Tass, and Unix in which a group selection panel doesn't really help you because of how transient spectres, infested marines, or Tass' projection happen to be when you select more than one at a time. Am I misunderstanding your concern because it sounds like you didn't really read what I posted. I know you are not on a witch hunt like Rem, so please help me out here because I am not really sure at the moment what you are getting at.

[lOvOl]

im sorry boss man, but on looking at that image...

 

thats just not a usable interface. No visual appeal, map in a TERRIBLE position, lack of utility in that everything in clustered together...it looks like its trying to copy the button/icon hell that ws WoW and why I left that monstrosity of a time waste years ago.

 

Simploy put

 

"No."

 

But why? The argument that you are used to it being on the left is a fine argument and hey I would be happy if everything went back to the way it was, but if the devs are going to reinvent the wheel here, they might as well use some user interface best practices first and that is all I am contributing. I again challenge anyone to prove to me how any of the other suggested user interfaces so far decrease eye gaze movement or mouse movement by the user more than what I have proposed. Like soed said, one of the main problems with the 1.70+ UI is that everything is scattered along the bottom of the map which is a big no no for frequently used and important panels and buttons. You don't put stuff in the corners of the screen unless you want it to be an easily clicked on individual button (which does not apply in this case as clicking on the minimap requires fine motor control) or else if you are trying to get rarely displayed information out of the way so as not to distract the user unless absolutely necessary such as the notification area on an operating system.

 

I actually have quite a bit of experience with designing UI's so none of these issues are new to me. And as far as visual appeal goes I thought I was quite clear I intentionally left off any decorator art as what you see is just a quick copy/paste job in GIMP, not an actual screen shot of an alternative UI.

[Yaldi]