Graphic Design Elements Don't Fit Well and Detract From The Experience

[neilcomara]

I could be totally on my own in saying this and this is all just my personal opinion, but man all of the menus and the UI design elements really just don't feel right, like that department is on a totally different page from the rest of the team in terms of what they're going for with this game.

I get what they're going for with that old timey 60s terminal typeface, they're trying to capture the cute kerbal vibe while also trying to give off the feel of space race era old tech look and feel, and if this were KSP 1 I'd say it kind of works, but in this beautiful game it just feels wrong and out of place.

The graphics have been overhauled to the point where they're recommending an RTX 3080 and it looks so insanely good. Not only that but the models for the different ships look so high tech and shiny. But then you look at the interface and see this pixelated pukey colored crap all over your screen and it just doesn't make sense together. The marketing for the game also has that upgraded high quality look and feel to it in addition to the logo refresh. I'm not saying that the look and feel of KSP2 should completely drop the awesome silliness and charm of KSP, but it should definitely make a statement that: "Hey we're still those goofy green dudes, but this time we've got better tech, better graphics, better plume, sound effects etc. and we're about to take this thing to the next level." 

It's not just the mood and the overall ugliness of it though, it's also really brutal to read. That typeface with those colors are so pixelated and garbly looking that it's a really rough read in the map mode, and in the UI. When you open up a save file and see the typeface above the loading bar it's like night and day and you're just like: man why can't the UI look as clean as the loading screen lol.

The iconography is supposed to go with these other design elements, and there definitely is uniformity between the two. The icons are also pixelated intentionally to look outdated along with the typeface to the point where I can't always tell what the icons are supposed to represent.

I think it's possible to add elements of cartooniness to the UI without making it ugly, and I feel like KSP 1 did a phenomenal job at that. Right now in early access, I feel like the graphic design elements in KSP2 don't have a subtle cartoony charm; it just looks bad on purpose.

 

 

[MickG]

I agree, it feels like an afterthought. O damn, we need an UI. I Know it's not, but that what it looks like.

[IbanLoL]

Yes, I do agree with this also. Personnaly I'm okay with the pixel art style icons. It's been a modern trend in some games so why not. But they are indeed not very well integrated.

In some cases it's worse than others. For instance I find the navball okay overall except for the pixelated shade around the ball which makes it look more like low res unfinished graphics rather that a style on his own. Also in the map view in space, especially when you zoom out or focus on another body than Kerbin, say the mun for instance, you can see the space center and other icons taking all of the space (there's obviously a scaling problem there) and overlapping one another to the point where you can't see [Snip] from some distance.

Edited February 25, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[danfarnsy]

The blocky pixelated text next to smooth, readable text in flight UI elements and map clashes, and there's no need for the blocky elements.

[Baleine]

I totally agree. Sometimes, those pixel fonts and pixel images are annoying me. On the map view, everything is quite smooth, so is the orbit line you are currently on, but your ship icon and everything related to navigation (maneuver nodes, AP / PE signs) are pixelated. For me, that doesn't match.

Worst offender is the sign saying you're gonna crash that use a lot of space for nothing useful.

[Kuszotke]

Ver y much agreed, i've been saying this since the first time we saw the new UI.

[MagicCuboid]

Yup, I agree. Maybe if the UI was smaller overall it would work, but I don't want over 1/3 of my screen to look like MS DOS in my otherwise very pretty, high graphics game.

[blacsky33]

I agree. poor choose of ui design, too much colors ( need to stay green/grey), pixel font is bad ( stay cartoon , kerbals already are).

did some quick test for stages side.

[Pupsik]

I agree. The current Indie-/Retrostyle of the UI does not fit KSP2. It only makes the UI harder to read. I hope this topic gets more attention.

[neilcomara]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:13 AM, blacsky33 said:

I agree. poor choose of ui design, too much colors ( need to stay green/grey), pixel font is bad ( stay cartoon , kerbals already are).

did some quick test for stages side.

Dude that’s a million x more user friendly while still looking sweet! Did you design that?

[blacsky33]

I found this ui concept for the navball, it's really good imo.

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, blacsky33 said:

I found this ui concept for the navball, it's really good imo.

Except for the docking tool, a horizontal speed indicator and a Mach meter, the functionality is mostly there in the current NavBall cluster.

[Picard2]

I agree. The overall UI direction seems really good - love how clear most things are, the way so much useful info is clustered, and the general sleekness of a lot of it... But the pixelated / blocky features (text and some of the buttons) do seem to clash with the sleekness. It feels a bit like two different UIs mashed together.

[Haustvindr]

Also, there's a big reason for the devs to design and setup the orbital orientations gizmo as they did. For us is probably second nature in someone nerd-speak about "orienting your ship at antinormal", but it is far from... well, it doesn't really says anything to a new player. By designing the gizmo as a 3d representation (yes, the little ship inside is also for this), a new player have a visual representation of what the ship is doing, and where it is pointing.

So yes, it needs much more space than a simple 2-column array, but it will be much easier for a lot of people as well.

That doesn't mean that I don't like some ideas from those mockups, I do. I specially like the mode change reusing the navball area for the docking alignment help, it's clever.

IMHO about this mockup:

There are things I don't like, or at least I think they are not fully though out: The mode indicator does not... indicate anything. What does it means if it is selected the 2nd? How do I know that it does something different from the 1st?  To be fair, they look like they are related to the icons right below, but they are not. The same happens with the 3 lines below the height and speed, I don't even know what they represent? Plus their units need to change when the numbers reach 6 digits, and they are far too small to know when they actually do. RCS and SAS are enough closely related (authority) that makes no sense to separate them. And... a few more like that.

Some of the ideas in there are okay, some are also present in the current UI, but the final veredict is that looks like these mockups were designed for the visuals and not for the ergonomics.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Haustvindr

[VlonaldKerman]

Wholeheartedly agree. This is one of the first things I actually noticed in the preview event footage. I think the current UI layout is actually fine, but I think the textures/fonts should be sleeker and more modern.

I also wouldn't be against a customizable UI with different styles and the ability to significantly edit where certain UI elements appear. 

[Lorion]

15 hours ago, Haustvindr said:

Also, there's a big reason for the devs to design and setup the orbital orientations gizmo as they did. For us is probably second nature in someone nerd-speak about "orienting your ship at antinormal", but it is far from... well, it doesn't really says anything to a new player. By designing the gizmo as a 3d representation (yes, the little ship inside is also for this), a new player have a visual representation of what the ship is doing, and where it is pointing.

So yes, it needs much more space than a simple 2-column array, but it will be much easier for a lot of people as well.

That doesn't mean that I don't like some ideas from those mockups, I do. I specially like the mode change reusing the navball area for the docking alignment help, it's clever.

IMHO about this mockup:

There are things I don't like, or at least I think they are not fully though out: The mode indicator does not... indicate anything. What does it means if it is selected the 2nd? How do I know that it does something different from the 1st?  To be fair, they look like they are related to the icons right below, but they are not. The same happens with the 3 lines below the height and speed, I don't even know what they represent? Plus their units need to change when the numbers reach 6 digits, and they are far too small to know when they actually do. RCS and SAS are enough closely related (authority) that makes no sense to separate them. And... a few more like that.

Some of the ideas in there are okay, some are also present in the current UI, but the final veredict is that looks like these mockups were designed for the visuals and not for the ergonomics.

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Since the mentionend navball mockup is from me, I can elaborate on it a bit. For some more explanation see my original post

• I doubt that the 3D ship in the SAS control panel really adds any value for new players. I think it's safe to say that even in its current form the navigation UI is not self-explanatory for a completely new user who has never seen a navball before. So a tutorial which explains the UI is needed either way. And when a user understands the navball (which is essential for the game) he does not get any value from the 3D ship because the ship's orientation is already shown with the navball in a much better way. But then again, it's only a guess and you can't be sure unless you do a real UX test.
• The displays for speed and altitude where simply adopted from the devs' UI iteration at that time. (I did the mockup before EA launch and in the original thread you can see a screenshot of the devs' UI at that time on which I based my mockup) So I didn't change anything there. The bars were indeed mode indicators which were apparently ditched by the devs which is fine I guess. Unit size is (or was meant to be) the same like in the current UI. And while I agree that 6 digits may be a bit tight, that's what we also currently have in the game.
• The top 3 bars are the mode indicator  for the entire nav panel. It is indeed related to the icon right below it which represents the current navigation mode (Navball, 2D horizon, docking). You know that it does something different, because it changes the whole appearance of the navigation panel. (see the 3 pictures for the 3 modes. I also explained it in the original post.) The 2 icons beneath it are simple status icons (e.g. radio strength and heat warning) I admittely didn't put much effort into. It's a mockup after all However meanwhile, I think that the 2nd mode with the 2D horzion and heading tape is not really needed...
• Good point with the distance between RCS and SAS button.
• Actually, I tried to design it more for ergonomics than visuals. (But still, I wanted it to not look like garbage and especially take less space which was and is one of the major concerns.) For example, I thought it makes sense to have the vertical speed scale on the same side of the ball as the speed display (and not on the opposite side like right now). Also I introduced the navball modes to only show the important stuff for the current situation.

If you are interested: In another thread (with the intent to cleanup the current flight UI) I made a new suggestion with less radical changes to the navball appearance.

[Haustvindr]

4 hours ago, Lorion said:

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Since the mentionend navball mockup is from me, I can elaborate on it a bit. For some more explanation see my original post

• I doubt that the 3D ship in the SAS control panel really adds any value for new players. I think it's safe to say that even in its current form the navigation UI is not self-explanatory for a completely new user who has never seen a navball before. So a tutorial which explains the UI is needed either way. And when a user understands the navball (which is essential for the game) he does not get any value from the 3D ship because the ship's orientation is already shown with the navball in a much better way. But then again, it's only a guess and you can't be sure unless you do a real UX test.
• The displays for speed and altitude where simply adopted from the devs' UI iteration at that time. (I did the mockup before EA launch and in the original thread you can see a screenshot of the devs' UI at that time on which I based my mockup) So I didn't change anything there. The bars were indeed mode indicators which were apparently ditched by the devs which is fine I guess. Unit size is (or was meant to be) the same like in the current UI. And while I agree that 6 digits may be a bit tight, that's what we also currently have in the game.
• The top 3 bars are the mode indicator  for the entire nav panel. It is indeed related to the icon right below it which represents the current navigation mode (Navball, 2D horizon, docking). You know that it does something different, because it changes the whole appearance of the navigation panel. (see the 3 pictures for the 3 modes. I also explained it in the original post.) The 2 icons beneath it are simple status icons (e.g. radio strength and heat warning) I admittely didn't put much effort into. It's a mockup after all However meanwhile, I think that the 2nd mode with the 2D horzion and heading tape is not really needed...
• Good point with the distance between RCS and SAS button.
• Actually, I tried to design it more for ergonomics than visuals. (But still, I wanted it to not look like garbage and especially take less space which was and is one of the major concerns.) For example, I thought it makes sense to have the vertical speed scale on the same side of the ball as the speed display (and not on the opposite side like right now). Also I introduced the navball modes to only show the important stuff for the current situation.

If you are interested: In another thread (with the intent to cleanup the current flight UI) I made a new suggestion with less radical changes to the navball appearance.

Oh hey, hello, I knew I've seen that design somewhere else.

I'm not a dude that usually engages, I mean, look at my # of posts and date of my account, but in fact I've been lurking in the forums a loooong time. But I will engage this time because I need to thank you for not taking those points as an attack, as it was not the intention. The amount of vitriol I've seem in the forums these days is astounding, not like the rest of internet is much better though!

As I said, I like many things about the mockup, and I think it's generally okay. What I meant about "designed for the visuals" is that it looks like visuals were prioritized when a conflicting point was found (e.g. the RCS/SAS positions), at least in some points. It is not a "bad" thing either, after all it is all about finding the right balance between ergonomics and visuals, and the hard part is that not everyone have the same standards.

I think... I would had tried to set the RCS and SAS buttons in place of temperature and signal status, and setup the mode change and its icon within a box-button, much alike those in speed and altitude. Writing also the selected mode text (orbit-surface-docking) along the icon and it should eliminate the disconnection between the selector and the icon, providing enough visual reference to the user.

About the 3d attitude gizmo, I can't say for sure since I couldn't play yet, but I suppose that the little ship is showing the current relative orientation against the direction of the orbit (represented by the gizmo). In that case, yes, I think it should be a very good visual cue for new players to learn about the different attitudes, and how it will change when you lock into one of them. If it does not work like that, then no, the gizmo is not that useful.

Now, take my comments with a grain of salt, I'm not really an expert at UIs. I work in the web side of the developer world, and I'm simply way too accostumed to work with existing UIs and build some more, therefore my experience is both tuned for the dumb(er) public and for extreme pixel-peeping (because clients won't forgive a 1px offset). I just was in critic-eye mode making my own post and happened to land in this thread before I could tune out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You do good work in my eyes, both in this design and in the other one, don't worry too much and don't let anyone say otherwise.

[kicka55]

Are we playing the same game? The graphics are nice but they do not justify a 3080 lol. The 3080 is needed to deal with the unoptimized early access release. The specs have to come wwaaay down for the final release and Nate himself said that will be the case. 

It would be nice to add some screenshots to your post so we know what you are talking about. I personally like the UI. I just hope they will add a couple customization options when it comes to size and color. I also want to be able to toggle individual parts on and off. But that's something for when we actually have some performance.