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OG UI as an option

didkodidko

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didkodidko

didkodidko

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On 7/26/2023 at 2:42 AM, Spicat said:

Skeuomorphism (what ksp1 UI style is) is a design that was trendy around 2010 but isn't anymore, just look at Iphone evolution. Imo it's horrendous but I get that some people are a bit nostalgic about it.

Trendy nowadays doesn't mean ergonomic, neat or useful. I work in 3dsmax and to be fair, UI has changed since 1998 in terms of materials, polishing of egonomics and accessible menus, implication of modern tools and together all this has changed the look of the interface, but the logic, general arrangement and feel are the same.

KSP1 interface is prooven and polished, logic and arrangement is sound. Experiments for the sake of trendyness is a mistake.

Im all up for the best of both worlds but for now KSP1 can give a lot more.

Best,

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cocoscacao

cocoscacao

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Posted
25 minutes ago, didkodidko said:

KSP1 interface is prooven and polished, logic and arrangement is sound.

Arrangement is sound? Flight info is scattered all over the place, and I wasn't aware of many options simply because it is utterly unintuitive/non-obvious.

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Spicat

Spicat

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Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, didkodidko said:

Trendy nowadays doesn't mean ergonomic, neat or useful. I work in 3dsmax and to be fair, UI has changed since 1998 in terms of materials, polishing of egonomics and accessible menus, implication of modern tools and together all this has changed the look of the interface, but the logic, general arrangement and feel are the same.

KSP1 interface is prooven and polished, logic and arrangement is sound. Experiments for the sake of trendyness is a mistake.

Im all up for the best of both worlds but for now KSP1 can give a lot more.

Best,

You're mistaking style and user experience. Making ksp2 style skeuomorphic wouldn't change a thing on its ergonomics (Well a bit on contrast), same as changing ksp1 style to a more "modern" design. That's why I said it's something we can like, because it's subjective.

And no, everything in the ksp1 interface is not logical or polished. That was the point of my post, that we should talk about specific points to take the best of both worlds. (We don't even know if we are talking about the flight UI, the vab or the map view).

For the improvement of ksp2 over ksp1 (that I don't want them to undo, even if some of those are really tiny things):

Flight UI:

  • The staging placement on the right: much more logical, same side in the vab and in flight (and on the same side than the MP, EC... infos)
  • Important flight info located in one place: the navball (I don't know why those infos where separated one at the top and one at the bottom)
  • The navball to the side: highly controversial take but I'm sorry, apart from nostalgia it makes no sense to block the view with this. At least we could change it.
  • We can grab the throtle
  • Fuel remaining showed with numbers
  • Vertical acceleration is a much more readable thing (a round indicator is imo very bad)
  • Timewarp always shown
  • SAS controls are a bit more intuitive (and icons change when you are in a landing/launching situation), maybe a bit too big though

VAB:

  • Subcategories: that's saving lives, so much better to have things organized
  • Size on each parts: same when I go back to ksp1 I hate that this feature is not there
  • Craft saves pictures are bigger, it lets me see a bit more what I'm looking at
  • Icons are more logical, coherent and polished (Also a bit bigger sometimes)
  • Translation and rotation tools squished together

Map view:

  • Altimeter doesn't disappear when I'm switching to map view
  • Can move the focus with the mouse (not only on a planet/rocket)
  • The maneuver trajectory is shown and is not instantaneous: This one is less of a UI thing (I think?) but still is much more intuitive that way.
  • Orbit tesselation (Dev diary about that: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/201736-developer-insights-9-–-orbit-tessellation/)
  • No need to double click to focus, but right click and click on the button "focus": I think it's better because you're not missclicking and we can focus on our vessel without shortcut. (I went back to ksp1 and omg I can't focus on a planet easily)
  • SOI displayed
  • The UI intercept icons are better for colorblind: This one is not quite perfect because it's actually confusing to know what 1A and 2A means, but I suggested a better solution here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/215896-intercept-ui-indicator-is-confusing/?do=findComment&comment=4265820 which was improved by Kavaeric (last link of this post)). I wanted to mention this because in a UI we also think about accessibility (and not just make it an option), contrast also falls under that.

 

For the things that ksp1 does better:

Flight UI:

VAB

  • Info per stages (TWR my beloved)
  • When we grab thing for staging, it's more clear what you grab (It follows your mouse)

Map view

 

Note: I probably forgot a lot of things (Making a UI is hard). I didn't necessarily state features that were missing from ksp2 which can still be added easily without changing the UI (like a maneuver editor) so you would maybe want to add some things in the "what ksp1 does better". I also didn't mention bugs because those are not intentional and are meant to be in the bug reports forum and it's not relevant for the suggestions forum. (Like the maneuver clipping through planets or the PE missing on different SOI). Finally some of the things are not strictly UI.

That's how I want to hear about the UI: precise point. Then we can discuss what's specifically wrong. We can't guess what people are talking about when they say "The UI is bad".

Edited by Spicat
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The Aziz

The Aziz

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Posted

And this is why I wanted to separate the looks discussion from functionality discussion. Both have some room for improvement but those are unrelated improvements.

And tbh I already got unused to KSP1 interface. Makes sense since the last time I played it was January 31st.

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Superfluous J

Superfluous J

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I was a major opponent of the Part Action Window. I argued that it should be entirely nonexistant in a perfect game but understood that maybe it had its place for rare functions. I will die on the hill that just tossing every new feature into the PAW is a huge mistake and should never have happened.

I have also not played KSP2 (C'mon science update) so I don't know the exact way the PAM works (or even what it stand for. Part Action... Module?) but to me, it seems like they said "Okay, SupesJ hates the PAW so let's take all this stuff and put it in this new thing that works similarly but worse"

(Yes I know no one listened to me specifically. At least, I HOPE so because I rarely know what I'm talking about)

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Uedel

Uedel

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On 7/25/2023 at 2:51 PM, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

As someone who designs Interfaces, I can see why there is resistance to change, it always happens like this, especially when benefits aren’t present or worth it.


However, I think the real problem is the density (or lack of adjustment of it) of the interface.

The UI we have today is pretty tech demo-ish and I don’t expect it to remain this way. 


If the Gods are willing and the game actually progresses through the entire roadmap, I’m pretty sure the final interface will be changed a lot or will evolve into something very different.
 

I don’t think we’ll ever have a classic interface from the developers, but I do expect the modding community to do it. 

To be Honest, the new UI is terrible, starting with the coloring, the "Retro"-Style, the Fonts and and and and. 

i wish we get something more fluid and less "Retro" some days, didnt wait for CGI to get better since 1985 to get thrown back to it in 2023 :awe:

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didkodidko

didkodidko

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Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, Spicat said:

You're mistaking style and user experience. Making ksp2 style skeuomorphic wouldn't change a thing on its ergonomics (Well a bit on contrast), same as changing ksp1 style to a more "modern" design. That's why I said it's something we can like, because it's subjective.

And no, everything in the ksp1 interface is not logical or polished. That was the point of my post, that we should talk about specific points to take the best of both worlds. (We don't even know if we are talking about the flight UI, the vab or the map view).

For the improvement of ksp2 over ksp1 (that I don't want them to undo, even if some of those are really tiny things):

Flight UI:

  • The staging placement on the right: much more logical, same side in the vab and in flight (and on the same side than the MP, EC... infos)
  • Important flight info located in one place: the navball (I don't know why those infos where separated one at the top and one at the bottom)
  • The navball to the side: highly controversial take but I'm sorry, apart from nostalgia it makes no sense to block the view with this. At least we could change it.
  • We can grab the throtle
  • Fuel remaining showed with numbers
  • Vertical acceleration is a much more readable thing (a round indicator is imo very bad)
  • Timewarp always shown
  • SAS controls are a bit more intuitive (and icons change when you are in a landing/launching situation), maybe a bit too big though

VAB:

  • Subcategories: that's saving lives, so much better to have things organized
  • Size on each parts: same when I go back to ksp1 I hate that this feature is not there
  • Craft saves pictures are bigger, it lets me see a bit more what I'm looking at
  • Icons are more logical, coherent and polished (Also a bit bigger sometimes)
  • Translation and rotation tools squished together

Map view:

  • Altimeter doesn't disappear when I'm switching to map view
  • Can move the focus with the mouse (not only on a planet/rocket)
  • The maneuver trajectory is shown and is not instantaneous: This one is less of a UI thing (I think?) but still is much more intuitive that way.
  • Orbit tesselation (Dev diary about that: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/201736-developer-insights-9-–-orbit-tessellation/)
  • No need to double click to focus, but right click and click on the button "focus": I think it's better because you're not missclicking and we can focus on our vessel without shortcut. (I went back to ksp1 and omg I can't focus on a planet easily)
  • SOI displayed
  • The UI intercept icons are better for colorblind: This one is not quite perfect because it's actually confusing to know what 1A and 2A means, but I suggested a better solution here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/215896-intercept-ui-indicator-is-confusing/?do=findComment&comment=4265820 which was improved by Kavaeric (last link of this post)). I wanted to mention this because in a UI we also think about accessibility (and not just make it an option), contrast also falls under that.

 

For the things that ksp1 does better:

Flight UI:

VAB

  • Info per stages (TWR my beloved)
  • When we grab thing for staging, it's more clear what you grab (It follows your mouse)

Map view

 

Note: I probably forgot a lot of things (Making a UI is hard). I didn't necessarily state features that were missing from ksp2 which can still be added easily without changing the UI (like a maneuver editor) so you would maybe want to add some things in the "what ksp1 does better". I also didn't mention bugs because those are not intentional and are meant to be in the bug reports forum and it's not relevant for the suggestions forum. (Like the maneuver clipping through planets or the PE missing on different SOI). Finally some of the things are not strictly UI.

That's how I want to hear about the UI: precise point. Then we can discuss what's specifically wrong. We can't guess what people are talking about when they say "The UI is bad".

Well,

You have mentioned a lots of things that in my view are terrible like staging on the right, navball on the side and everything else you were so kind to mention.

Never liked to be in the sameballpark with the new fanbois playing ksp2. Unfortunately the core players will go away. Like I'm doing it now.

Keep it to yourselfs, anyway it's born dead.

DONT FORGET TO STAY TRENDY!

 

Cheers,

Edited by didkodidko
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Periple

Periple

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Posted
6 hours ago, Uedel said:

To be Honest, the new UI is terrible, starting with the coloring, the "Retro"-Style, the Fonts and and and and. 

I disagree! I like how it looks overall!

Although I’m not sure about the pixelated look. I don’t hate it but I think it might be nicer without it.

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The Aziz

The Aziz

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Posted
54 minutes ago, didkodidko said:

terrible like staging on the right, navball on the side

why?

55 minutes ago, didkodidko said:

core players

And those are?

3 minutes ago, didkodidko said:

It feels like being in unfinished mock up.

Dunno if you noticed in big bold letters Early Access. The definition of unfinished.

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Spicat

Spicat

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Posted
23 hours ago, didkodidko said:

You have mentioned a lots of things that in my view are terrible like staging on the right, navball on the side and everything else you were so kind to mention.

So it's terrible... because?

It just seems like you're used to the ksp1 UI and afraid of change. I gave you reasons on why those are bad decision and tried to stay objective, give me yours. (and no, it's not because it's new that it's bad)

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Bej Kerman

Bej Kerman

Posted
Posted
On 7/25/2023 at 10:58 PM, RocketRockington said:

So much better to have a UI that looks like its from the 1980s instead, amiright?

Inspired by the 80s. Taking inspiration from real tried and true equipment. There's a difference between an interface that's inspired by real equipment which puts important readouts near each other and an interface a hobbyist made over a decade ago that not one Squad dev suggested updating to be more readable.

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Bej Kerman

Bej Kerman

Posted
Posted
On 8/7/2023 at 11:24 PM, Infinite Aerospace said:

A small example of this is not having to look up for altitude, back down for velocity and heading, back up for altitude, et cetera. It's all much better packaged IMO.

"That's not really how eyes work..."

Squad could've learned a thing or two from Sibelius which suffers similarly egregious UI issues.

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Bej Kerman

Bej Kerman

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 7/28/2023 at 6:41 PM, didkodidko said:

You have mentioned a lots of things that in my view are terrible like staging on the right, navball on the side and everything else you were so kind to mention.

You didn't explain the problem with the staging being consistent between screens and the navball being moved to give a clearer view, nor did you explain why you don't see an advantage in the readouts not being scattered across the screen.

Edited by Bej Kerman
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pandaman

pandaman

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Posted

Optional original UI?  No, not a good idea.

whatever one's feelings about the respective styles are, two completely different arrangements to maintain is just plain silly.

Making the 'new' UI more customisable is much more practical.  Colour options and individually scalable entites (both good for visually impaired) and some facility for repositioning some items etc.

 

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