RE: [GD-Design] Configurable GUIs

[Albert R. <al...@de...>]

Keep It Simple.

As programmers, "hard coded" is one of those evil things that we're
supposed to avoid, and I don't think that's the right way to describe
option number 2. I prefer to think of it as doing it right so the user
doesn't have to. As Kent pointed out, most of the time gamers don't want
to see anything but the viewport anyways. When they are dealing with
inventory management or their stats, it makes sense to provide them with
a clean interface with which to work. Dark Age of Camelot, which has a
bunch of windows you can move around infuriated me with all the clutter
and confusion caused by the added ability to shift the UI components
around. It's hard to make an nice, compact UI when everything has to be
forced into a square box.

Diablo II's interface is incredible elegant and barely configurable.
There's basically no learning curve in getting started as everything is
just "right there". I want to be able to configure dev-studio and
outlook because there's just too many options and some I never use.
Games have fewer things that you need to be able to click on but
possibly more information that needs to be readily available. Because of
this, it seems best to "hard code" the UI so all the important
information is just there, and other things are neatly hidden away. The
super-hardcore crowd might like it, but the rest of the world would
rather just not think about it. 

Only catch to this method is that you have to do lots of testing and
refining to make sure that your way of doing it is the way users like
best. Taking in feedback and tweaking the hell out of it until it's just
right is key to making any UI work, but especially if you intend to take
away customization.

-Al

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gam...@li... 
> [mailto:gam...@li...] On 
> Behalf Of Brian Hook
> Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 11:20 PM
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: [GD-Design] Configurable GUIs
> 
> 
> Whilst toying with a simple RPG I've been working on in my 
> spare time, I've 
> run into a bit of a stumper when it comes to GUI design.
> 
> Originally I started out with the grand notion that the GUI 
> would simply be 
> a bunch of overlapping windows on top of a 3D desktop (i.e. 
> the entire 
> background was the local "situation" -- first person, top 
> down, isometric, 
> whatever, point being that it's not constrained to a smaller 
> window).  This 
> seemed to make intuitive sense.
> 
> Until, of course, it was implemented.  The control scheme is 
> unbearable.
> 
> Most games I've seen fall under one of three GUI camps:
> 
> 1.  effectively no GUI, the entire scene is 3D and interface 
> elements tend 
> to be non-interactive.  Most first person shooters are like this.
> 
> 2.  hard coded GUI, where there's a display window and then a 
> bunch of 
> dressing that does things like show character stats, order 
> units around, 
> exit the game, bring up menus, etc.  Most RPGs and some 
> flight sims are 
> like this.
> 
> 3. MDI style multiple-window system with tiling and 
> overlapping windows, 
> where the 3D view is "just another window"
> 
> The problem with #1 is that it's not a very friendly interface and it 
> doesn't allow for a particularly rich interactive experience.
> 
> The problem with #2 is that, well, it's hard coded.  If you 
> want a bigger 
> chat window or a larger radar display, it's difficult to do 
> within the 
> constraints of a hardcoded layout (and make no doubt, the layout is 
> hardcoded, because if it wasn't, it would be a #3 GUI).
> 
> The problem with #3 is that it becomes cluttered.  Quickly.  
> Overlapping 
> windows make sense when you have a lot of documents that you toggle 
> between, but by and large you're only operating on a single 
> window at a 
> time and the other windows can be ignored.  Works great for a word 
> processor, but it's kinda sucky for a game.
> 
> So let's invent #4, the "central window with overlapping 
> ancillary control 
> panels" interface.  Basically imagine an RPG or flight sim 
> where you can 
> undock the chat, radar, health, etc. panels and move them and 
> resize them 
> at will.  For chat this is particularly nice (especially for 
> an on-line 
> game) where you want to make the windows nice and big (and 
> possibly have 
> several of them open) so you can interact with others.
> 
> The problem comes about due to the windows overlapping each 
> other, which 
> causes a point-and-click interface to go to complete hell.  
> Say your game 
> is an RTS.  Your chat window is up because you're 
> coordinating with your 
> friends, but now an enemy unit appears under your chat 
> window.  You try to 
> click on the unit, but it simply "focuses" the chat window.  
> Bzzzt, that 
> sucks.  But if clicking selects the unit under the chat 
> window, how do you 
> move the chat window -- by manipulating the title bar only?  
> That sucks too 
> since it's unintuitive.  So do you force the user to 
> dock/move the chat 
> window out of the way?  That would seem cumbersome as hell (imagine 
> constantly moving the chat window out of the way in order to click on 
> various units on the screen).
> 
> I didn't realize that taking a simple UI and just extending 
> it into "make 
> it configurable" was so damn hard to design.
> 
> I'm leaning towards thinking that overlapping windows -- 
> except for modal 
> dialogs -- is a bad idea.  Alternatively, panels can be undocked and 
> resized, but they are 'naturally' in a docked position so 
> when the shit 
> hits the fan, you can click on a "dock all windows" button 
> and be back in a 
> usable state.
> 
> Anyway, I'm curious what others think about this issue.
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
> 
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