Topic

New UI vs Old UI

So we've all been living with the new UI for a while now. Mentally I can convince myself it's an improvement, but I'm not certain how much of an improvement. So I pulled up a screen shot from a year ago and looked at the two interfaces side-by-side. Here are my thoughts...

The Old UI had a small smiley face indicating Mood, a round circle indicating Energy, a bar indicating XP and showed your level. The middle held Magic Rock. On the right  of the screen you had the Player Menu (under the avatar icon) and Chat interface. The bottom left corner held your current count. They were all easy to read and neatly out of the field of play.

The Old UI displayed buffs at the top right of the play screen with their name, an icon and a bar counting down. Comings, goings and street wide actions displayed in a semi-transparent black box often obliterating the left side of the play screen.

1) The New UI moved the player menu (and avatar image) from above the chat window on the right to the top left corner.
Pros: An effort was made to package up the various essential counters. Mostly static counters (XP and Level) were hidden beneath the player menu reducing visual clutter.
Cons: The move took away from the playable window space, and added moving graphics increasing processing requirements. The links being above the chat window might have made more sense. Typically I work on the right with the mouse for a chat window, but now have to move to the left to try and access links.

2) The Player Menu avatar icon was 'upgraded'.
Pros: You get to see changing facial expressions.
Cons: You never get to show these facial expressions to people in the world.
Also, the changing facial expressions make it harder to live with certain avatar attributes. The button eyes don't change, the dotted mouth changes very little until your mood is very low. Combine the two and you can be into the 70's before there's a solid visual indication of a mood change. (Personally I'd love for the fancy secondary avatar to disappear entirely in favor of a mood bar paralleling the energy bar next to a button that says Links. Seems like it would cut down on the amount of design required for facial features too.)

3) The semi-transparent coming and goings were removed from the field of play and sent to the Local Activity window.
Pros: It's not in the way anymore.
Cons: None coming to mind.

4) The buff indicators were turned into very small circles, sometimes with very very small icons and moved to the top left of the field of play.
Pros: It takes up far less space when you have multiple buffs working, or a persistent buff like Gift of Gab.
Cons: The new indicators are hard to see, read and live with. If I've got Gift of Gab, Yellow Essence, Meditation Cool-Down, a drink buff to boost my mood, plus a grinding drink working... the information available at a glance is minimal.
Formerly, black text over a light colored bar made the information easy to see. The print is now tiny and the increased transparency makes seeing the buffs difficult if the overall background is dark. Changing your zoom (game or resident browser) doesn't help.

5) The currant indicator was moved from the bottom of the screen. It was made bigger, semi-transparent and placed into the field of play.
Pros: It's a little bigger and allows for ever so slightly more space to see your inventory row.
Cons: The present location interferes with play and can be extremely difficult to see against certain backgrounds. It also looks awkward and out of place just kinda floating there in space.

6) The numbers for Currants, Enegry, Mood and iMG now scroll through a count.
Pros: None come to mind.
Cons: The move adds visual clutter, the scrolling/counting takes time and contributes to visual lag. The change appears to be purely decorative while managing to be cumbersome to the player.

I haven't mentioned Magic Rock, because I'm not certain how I feel about it. Magic Rock serves an entirely different purpose now. Nor have I mentioned the iMG button, because it was not an element of the Old UI. Certainly there must have been other changes, but they've neither added nor removed enough functionality for me to notice.

So there it is, a simple comparison open for general discussion. Overall I'd call it a partial success... two steps forward, one step back.

Posted 5 months ago by Wandering Confusion Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I liked the old UI better, except for the rock, don't miss him at all.

    Really, really miss the XP progress bar, I loved to watch it rise and could pace myself to level at a good time. Now I forget to check and now it catches me by surprise, the latest one today just at new day, so waste that extra energy.

    I have died a lot more since the change, the counter seems erratic, especially if your connection is slow, it suddenly catches up with itself and your energy falls faster than you expect. Get out of hell free cards have been very useful. Like you, I don't ever see much change in mood until it is very low, which is another small niggle, I have to keep mousing over to check the level.

    So, the old UI gets my vote, I found it clearer and easier to follow whilst playing.
    Posted 5 months ago by Miss Parsley Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with much of this analysis. Coolness got substituted for legibility a few times too often. The buffs are the most egregious example, with the "larger than life" avatar face that doesn't really let you know at a glance if you're about to slip down a notch in mood vying for second place.
    Posted 5 months ago by Pascale Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I liked the old mood indicator, because it reminded me of a friend of mine. Bald guy, squints uncontrollably when he smiles. Not green, though.
    Posted 5 months ago by Georgia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, if anyone had asked ME what a mood indicator should look like, I would have suggested something like a thermometer, with clearly marked lines at the transition points between 90% and 89%, 80% and 79%, etc.   

    One simple way to fix the mood indicator we have now would be to give us the option to lock the number display in place.  The avatar looks nice, sorta, but after a lot of gameplay it is not really useful.  
    Posted 5 months ago by WalruZ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I definitely miss the old mood indicator (much easier at a glance), and I hate the scrolling energy gain/loss. I'm ADD..... that doesn't work at all. I'm just learning to force myself to look at the bar and ignore the scrolly-shiny-moving things. :-/

    I like the new placement, map, iMG, and player menu (I actually use it now!) 

    If I could do one thing? Have the option for the traditional smiley face. Or something. The alien eyes look dumb when you're 90%+, IMO.

    All in all? nice job, TS! Just.... tweaking would be nice. :)
    Posted 5 months ago by Lady Cailia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I should think that if someone has an issue with how the button eyes/dotted mouth work on the new mood bar they should think of not using that eyes/mouth.....

    but that's beside the point. the mood bar ALSO changes color to show mood drop.... they've got their bases covered.
    Posted 5 months ago by Amari Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Maybe I just don't understand... the answer to a non-functional feature is to not use it? I think some of the things on offer are extremely cute, but totally off limits to me.
    I have difficulty seeing the subtle color change in the mood window. I think it goes from blue-green to green-blue. My eyes are not what they used to be. If it weren't for the change in facial expressions, I wouldn't know what's going on. Even with the changes in expression, I too must hover over the icon frequently.
    Posted 5 months ago by Sweet Pea Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Amari:

    Using color changes to indicate something is awful, in the sense that a person may not be able to differentiate between the two shades of green used to indicate 100%-90% and 89%-80%.

    The previous device used for showing mood was colorblind-friendly, as it was a combination of a black and white facial shape and the color indicating mood status, and was then independent of customization that one may have done to their avatar.

    Being forced to not use some of the available customization because of what could best be described as a UI faux pas isn't that fun.

    I say this as a person who has to constantly mouse over the indicator to get it to reveal numbers. I can sort of see the color differences, but it's an effort to do so. (:
    Posted 5 months ago by Xial Subscriber! | Permalink