Ask any Empires newb how long it took them to figure out how to customize vehicles or how to get class-specific skills. Not to bash the graphic artist(s), but some of Empires' screen elements aren't exactly intuitive. Drop-downs look like plain text boxes, tabs do not look like you're supposed to click them. Adding more of these elements will only confuse players. I'm no specialist, but in my (however limited) experience in GUI design, I can tell you that tabs and drop-downs are the devil from the usability standpoint. They are fine for power-users, but a wizard-like system with multiple screens instead of tabs and multiple selections instead of drop-downs are much easier to understand for average users, and are quicker to use. Of course the ultimate goal is to not have any of those elements and just fit everything on a single page, but then you risk overloading your screens by making them too convoluted. There is a fine balance between usability and amount of information you want to present on a given screen. A while ago I went through a similar exercise trying to streamline the Vehicle Building and Skill Selection screens with varying results. You can see the results here and here. I forget which thread this was posted in. I tried to convey the same idea Mayama is going for, only using the existing graphical assets.
tabs are as obvious as any other button. its something you click. drop down boxes on the other hand arn't obvious at all, they could just be the name of the class/vehicle to build
one screen = fastest tabs = middle drop down = slowest to use The tabs at the vec menu screen look like random names of stuff. It took me 2 versions 1.5 to 1.7 to get it Tabs are good if you have stuff that dont interact among each other. The vec menu is the best example for that. I put another engine on my tank and i cant adust my armor to this on one screen. This means i have to remember more (if you are a new player) Everything at one screen shows clearly what happens after you push a button. So if we have Squadmenu and Skill menu on one sceen its obvious that i get a new skill at the moment i hit the "join the squad" button. You can even make the unlocked skill button blink so it catches your attention.
Thing is, I don't want to see my damn squad menu when I just want to change classes. I just want to see the class selection menu. Your idea is good whenever the game starts / people join, but it just clutters the screen during actual play tbh
It's not really cluttered when you're not using the screen for anything else. But nevertheless, why not keep the current menus (graphically updated would be nice) and so for instance, the normal squad, class, and spawn point menus can still be brought up with c b and enter, but on map load or bound to , this larger version appears. Both are possible though I think the easiest and what will be used by most new people will be the all in one screen.
the problem is, if you have different places where you can find your stuff, it can easily confuse new players. So i think either a menu with everything in it or one menu for every part of the game not a combination of both
As KT said, if that's the one screen from which you can do everything it doesn't get cluttered. The thing is so streamlined that no matter what you want to change about yourself, you pull up 1 screen and have all the buttons layed out categorically in front of you.
Still don't like it I'm afraid, it might seem easier but it just looks as though everything has been thrown together just for the heck of it. I guess you could put it in but it better be done well
Mayama. It's drawing bord time. This is going to be tough but sit down and draw about 10 layout thumbnails, then pick the best three and fully develope each one then post them.
Atm im working on the squad/gui stuff... so it would take some time for new stuff in this thread Gui first because its leads to a lay out / style for every menu in game. And I hoped that this threads lead to a flame war in which one group kills the other one and i have to do only one layout patience plz..
You should first write down what you want it (the vgui) to do, what is it's purpose and how you want to interact with it.. Do that first and then draw some vgui... That's how they design the good stuff
The problem with tabs confusion is not that we should not use tabs, but we need to correct the tabs design. Code: Current: ___________ ___________ ___________ | button1 | | button2 | | button3 | ``````````` ``````````` ``````````` /```````````````````````````````````````\ | | | MENU | New: ___________ ___________ ___________ | button1 | | button2 | | button3 | | ```````````````````````````| | | | MENU | ___________ ___________ ___________ | button1 | | button2 | | button3 | |`````````````` ``````````````| | | | MENU | ___________ ___________ ___________ | button1 | | button2 | | button3 | |```````````````````````````` | | | | MENU | What we have in Empires now, are not tabs. Those are some weird buttons that act almost like tabs, but they don't look like it. Why would a new player expect those buttons to work like tabs? Make buttons look like buttons and tabs look like tabs. I love the idea of all infantry skills on one screen.
