Re: [Rails-devel] Roadmap for improving User Experience

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

Currently, all tokens have the company abbreviation and colours, so there is a good match.
However, the abbreviations are drawn on the token circles with start positions and font sizes that are derived from the number of characters in a very simple way, and the result is not very satisfactory.
So I am all for better ways to draw tokens.  And I would be happy to optimize colours so that the colour-blind can better distinguish these - but I am not, so I would be dependent on advice from such players.

Apart from the colours, I see two ways to improve token visibility by using SVG:

1. Design simple SVG tokens that are similar to the existing ones, having just the company colours and abbreviations, but better designed so that the abbreviations are well-centered and have the best font and size for readability. 

2. Design SVG tokens that resemble the real logos in terms of colours and shape. I believe that this way the name will not be readable in most cases, so (for the colour-blind) shape becomes the only distinguishing factor.  In this case I would try to include such tokens into the grid windows as well, at least at the left-hand side. But the abbreviation has to stay there.

Like Brett, I think that just the name abbreviation is best (option 1).

Erik.

> From: brett lentz [mailto:bre...@gm...]
> I'll complicate this a bit further:  Color blindness.
> 
> Red-Green color blindness is relatively common in men. Other forms of color
> blindness also exist, and make these sorts of decisions sort of dicey.
> 
> There are a few people in my old gaming group that were color blind and
> some games were more difficult for them to play because of this.
> 
> I think all markers should have the initials of the company along with an
> associated color. If we can also make each token it's own shape or use
> distinct combinations of foreground and background colors, so much the
> better. However, 18xx games have a *ton* of information
> (comparatively) and so there's a balance to be struck lest we needlessly
> complicate things.
> 
> At a minimum, players should be able to match up the B&O token on the
> stock market with the B&O tokens on the map and the B&O entry in the
> game status window... very much like in a physical game. The easiest way to
> do this is just to have the characters "B&O" everywhere the company is
> referenced. If there's space in the UI to include the full name *and* the
> abbreviation in some places, that's great. But, at a minimum, we should
> maintain some amount of consistency by always displaying the abbreviation
> and not rely on just coloring to convey this information.
> 
> ---Brett.