Feedback: Game UI
StarControl Forums
I believe the UI to currently be the weakest link in SC:O's presentation.
Let me start from the end: I am strongly hoping for a complete redesign of the UI into something a lot less flat looking. I'll use several examples to demonstrate what I like and don't like about it.
First, the screen I feel most comfortable with:
This is the best-looking scene, in terms of UI. The purpley color "extends" from the line selection footer under the subtitles and blends into the actual scene. It makes sense for the selection area to be a large rectangle occupying this much space on screen. The font looks nice in this size, and generally looks neat.
However, those buttons... they look like something the belongs in a custom WinForms library. I especially dislike the outer orange border. The buttons probably would be a lot more acceptable to me without it, but they'd still be bad-looking, IMO. I think that the orange doesn't play very well with the purple. It's fine for the separator between the selection area and the scene, but otherwise looks out of place.
Next up, exploration:
Buttons, same problem. The orange border is fine I guess around the Launch button, but is fugly around the Cargo Bay and Captain's Log buttons. Also looks like for some reason those two buttons have the small hexagons in their background, but the large one doesn't.
The biology/cargo etc. bars all look bad. Really don't like the changing hue. It cheapens the look. These need to either have real "presence" in the form of being in 3D or 3D mock-up, but that gradient thing just looks like a PowerPoint experiment gone wrong. I'm also not sure how I feel about the round edges, for the bar containers as well as the buttons themselves.
The planet name and line under it I guess are fine. Not too shabby.
I have lots to say about non-UI elements here (like the pick-ups and the large blue circle around the ship), but that's another topic so I'll leave it out.
Ship Designer:
The tab buttons ("All", "Downloaded", "My Designs") - ugh. Font here is too tiny. There is barely any space between My and Designs. It looks cramped. There's enough width here to use, why make them so small? The tabs should occupy the entire width of this "window". Don't like the button-y nature of everything here either, including my dissing of the outer orange border.
The "Ship design list" header - what's that for? Do we not know what screen we are on? It feels out of place (and looks bad).
Finally, the ship info panel on the right... soooo small. Why? Needs to be much larger and nicer looking. I also think the ship thumbnail should be larger.
Super Melee:
So we've seen the new crew dots, which are nice. But I really don't like the presentation here. Again, tiny font with flat buttons that seem out of place.
I feel like the purple panel on top of which each ship's own panel is placed shouldn't be there at all. Why not enlarge each ship's panel so they take that space themselves? This is just wasted space with a bland background that limits my view of the super melee scene without any reason.
There's also too much distance between the health and battery bars, which makes them sort of hard to read (in addition to being too small). I've noticed (and others have, too) that my eyes have to move a lot during SM to keep track of what's happening. These need to be really easy to read without straining the player. I don't recall if you're opposed to simply having them under each ship in 3D space as bars, but now I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea.
The R/L controller input looks bad. Not much else to say other than I don't believe it even needs to be there.
I suggest to turn the ships to face north, instead of south-west. This would make them take less horizontal space and would allow for the bars to be closer to each other. Also generally it would free up more screen space for the super melee scene itself.
Finally, I don't like the species image, but I know that's going to be replaced by bitstrips. I am really hoping these would be larger than the current image, and would actually respond to player actions such as turning the ship, firing, etc., just like they did in SCII (Androsynth pulling different levers, etc.).
Generally I want each ship's panel to be bolder. For its data to be easily readable, and for the future bitstrip to occupy as much space of it as possible - this will give that section of the screen a lot more character and would make it really cool.
I'd love to hear everyone's opinions. Maybe I am the only one bothered by this, but I really do believe the UI needs serious improvement across the board. Sorry UI person for being so harsh ._.
TL;DR: The flat buttons with the outer orange border look very bad, attempts to make the flat UI appear less flat by using gradient coloring and panel placement provide negative results, and generally the current UI scheme doesn't benefit the player in almost all scenes, with the exception of the conversation screen. I believe the UI needs a major redesign that would make it look more professional, easily readable, and less bland. Think about Starcraft's footer UI for each of the races, I'm thinking maybe something like that.
) so I could offer mock ups or more concise suggestions. I do have an eye for noticing flawed design but I find it hard to articulate what exactly is wrong. So thanks a lot for doing much of that for me.
).
