coralsaw
Posts: 418
Joined: 10/29/2000 From: Zürich, CH Status: offline
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Kinda jumping late in this thread, but I'd like to second the 'UI mild complaint' issue, if you care to read on for a bit. I absolutely love the game (although the AI is arguably worse than the Decisive Battles series), and consider it possilly the best in the series so far. I also absolutely love the icons and the gorgeous maps. That's all great. On the other hand, and this is something I've ranted before about regarding BII/BIN, I really dislike the UI, it simply feels dated. Here's why: - A huge part of the screen is lost forever to panels, there's no full-screen, shortcut-driven interface that allows for full immersion once you get the hang of the keyboard shortcuts. If and when you need to present info, either a modal window or a panel should slide up, but this game is all about the map.
- I can't believe there's still no tooltips! Come on guys, this is just old news now. Instead, the right click panel is just too old a concept. Everything has tooltips these days, from Word to the last freeware utility.
- Where's the context sensitive help? Especially since there's no tutorial available for newbies. If you require your prospect/new customer to pay full attention and read the manual before they jump in, you've just alienated 80% of your potential market. These are no-no mistakes.
- I've said it many times again, and I'll say it one more time. UIs are expensive to build, expensive to learn, and prone to many many usability errors. Fortunately, the issue is more or less solved for the average Windoze/GUI person. Why reinvent the wheel and roll your own? Why not use the MS GUI? Everyone knows how to use it, the basic key shortcuts, and where everything should fall under in the menus. and God knows I've seen every type of application under the sun using the same GUI successfully. Why does it have to be a custom UI?
All in all, the interface feels a decade old, and is too. This is such a good wargaming series, why not invest a bit now to create a much better _standard_ interface that will last you for another ten years? Thanks for listening, I'm always open to counter-arguments to the above. /coralsaw
< Message edited by coralsaw -- 2/15/2007 11:23:36 AM >
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A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. - Napoleon Bonaparte, 15 July 1815, to the captain of HMS Bellerophon.
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