TW3 UI Aesthetics

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

I like how W3 UI look. Just wanted to point that out. I also like Geralt's face, Yennefer hairs and lot of other things people are complaining about . Of course everyone have right to have their own opinion. But this is mine.

This thread is aimed at discussing UI aesthetics, not Geralt's face nor Yennefer's hair. Obviously, everyone is welcome to voice either their fondness or distaste for how the UI looks. It's just that it's not particularly helpful to turn it into an exchange of terse professions of fondness or distaste.

Why was that colour scheme chosen? Why is there a staggering number of misalignments? Why? What is it trying to convey or achieve? Why the contradiction between type and the rest of the UI, what is it trying to communicate? Or has this all been willy-nilly design?

 

[TheAngryAlien]

Digging it (especially the return of glorious grid-based inventory-tetris), but the 'recommended potions...' feature is definitely too much hand holding as far as I'm concerned. Hope that's something exclusive to the easiest difficulty level or something.

Also, weight restriction/limitation is still in.

I completely agree with the recommended potions thing. I'd like for it to not be linked to difficulty level and something that can be turned on or off. Because one of my favorite things in the Witcher games was to fight, and if I die use what I learned in that fight to weigh in on what might be useful for a potion. So please CDPR, make that feature optional, possibly make it so that when turned off you can place in potions where that would normally be as a note of what works best.

 

[FoggyFishburne]

I think Dark Souls 2 really nailed its User Interface. One of the few things about the game that's actually fantastic. I suggest using that one as an example or looking to it for inspiration.

As for TW3s UI, so far, I like it. Yeah I guess some things will needs some work and tweaking but other than that, it's cool.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

I completely agree with the recommended potions thing. I'd like for it to not be linked to difficulty level and something that can be turned on or off. Because one of my favorite things in the Witcher games was to fight, and if I die use what I learned in that fight to weigh in on what might be useful for a potion. So please CDPR, make that feature optional, possibly make it so that when turned off you can place in potions where that would normally be as a note of what works best.

I still think people are mistaking the recommended potions thingy for hand-holding. I think it just means, hey this what you got available and you can choose what you want. I don't see anything wrong with it.

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

This is Pillars of Eternity's bestiary ( via NeoGAF )

I find it much more pleasing than TW3's. For one illustrations in TW3's monster hunting control panel obfuscate text. In contrast, PoE take is much neater and cleaner. The black and white etching is also a wonderful touch. Good job Obsidian.

 

[Aes Sídhe]

Thats very pretty, very traditional, very PC centric. TW3's is much like TW2's, and is there something required by the consoles that makes it so?

 

[Aegis_Kleais]

This is me after a 15 min quick UI job. Things to note:

Sans Serif Font. Easier to read at the smaller resolutions than serifed fonts are.

Color AND Size to denote selected monster from bestiary, not just color.

Use of text size to denote hierarchy of information ('Wood Beetle' is the heading element, thus it is largest. Subheadings like 'attriubutes/defenses' are in all caps and red, while sub attributes are in black and smaller in size.

Use of whitespace and "dividers" to separate monster name, attribute collection and defense collections

Varying opacity of font between attribute name and value, to denote parent/child relationship

Alignment of attribute values using the ':' character as an invisible virtual "wall" against which the attribute values sit.

Relocated "header" information such as level and # defeated up to the top, as they are prominent stats.

UI is like a never-ending "to do" and though there are no hard and fast rules, there are always guidelines out there which usually have a positive effect on the consumption of information, be the user aware of it or not.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

This is Pillars of Eternity bestiary ( via NeoGAF )

I finds it much more pleasing than TW3's. For one illustrations in TW3's monster hunting control panel are obfuscated by text. In contrast, PoE take is much neater and cleaner. The black and white etching is also a wonderful touch. Good job Obsidian.

I like it, it reminds me of the old bw D&D monster manual art when I was a kid

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

This is me after a 15 min quick UI job. Things to note:

Sans Serif Font. Easier to read at the smaller resolutions than serifed fonts are.

Color AND Size to denote selected monster from bestiary, not just color.

Use of text size to denote hierarchy of information ('Wood Beetle' is the heading element, thus it is largest. Subheadings like 'attriubutes/defenses' are in all caps and red, while sub attributes are in black and smaller in size.

Use of whitespace and "dividers" to separate monster name, attribute collection and defense collections

Varying opacity of font between attribute name and value, to denote parent/child relationship

Alignment of attribute values using the ':' character as an invisible virtual "wall" against which the attribute values sit.

Relocated "header" information such as level and # defeated up to the top, as they are prominent stats.

UI is like a never-ending "to do" and though there are no hard and fast rules, there are always guidelines out there which usually have a positive effect on the consumption of information, be the user aware of it or not.

Well, serifs are actually more legible, except at very small sizes where screen resolution/antialiasing renders them muddily. You have a sound understanding of typography and I'd subscribe to your suggestions were it not for the for the fact the revision is less appealing than the original :lol:
Nonetheless great short burst effort.

I'd keep the serif font and use small caps instead. True small caps are one of those little known typographical gems. I'd also use tabular figures for those values. Hyphenation would be helpful well.

I have a challenge for you @Aegis_Kleais ,

Redesign TW3 UI. Show what you can and would do. One or two mock-ups will suffice.
Looking forward to it.

 

[Aegis_Kleais]

Well, serifs are actually more legible, except at very small sizes where screen resolution/antialiasing renders them muddily. You have a sound understanding of typography and I'd subscribe to your suggestions were it not for the for the fact the revision is less appealing than the original :lol:
Nonetheless great short burst effort.

I'd keep the serif font and use small caps instead. True small caps are one of those little known typographical gems. I'd also use tabular figures for those values. Hyphenation would be helpful well.

I have a challenge for you @Aegis_Kleais ,

Redesign TW3 UI. Show what you can and would do. One or two mock-ups will suffice.
Looking forward to it.

Well, didn't a TW3 dev already state on page 3 that the UI referenced in the OP was for console? I'd love to take a look at a mockup of the PC UI but enough aspects of a good information flow have to be seen "in action".

Anti-aliasing modes aside, the above demonstrates a couple points. At certain sizes, body copy in a serif font increases the cognitive load despite personal preferences. In the subsequent examples, additional typographical principles can be taken into effect (leading, kerning, tracking, etc.) in order to increase the readability of the text. If consumption of information is too taxing on the user, they may just opt to not bother with the process (and as such, the tasks of the page to inform the user, in this case, a bestiary about enemy archetypes, would be for not.

Much of UI is about relationship of data. You'll see in my example, and what is sorely lacking from the original (despite your fondness of it) is that there is poor visualization of the hierarchy and relationship of information on the screen. The lack of alignment gives the text a "ragged end" which slows the user's ability to "get back on track" on subsequent lines. Of course, the more of this there is on screen, the more overwhelming it all becomes.

Here, let me do up one more example...

 

[Veleda.980]

It's not as blank and uninviting as TW2, but not as nice as TW1's.

 

[Sharpy47]

Is it possible to remove the hud completely for better immersion?

 

[Garrison72]

Some things about the inventory:

-the best UI so far was Flash's minimized one for FCR ( TW1). Everything was sensible, legible and minimized. I wish that was their template.

-why are they superimposing text over images? :mean: There were already legibility issues in TW2, just place text against a black background.

-the font itself is kind of uninspired. Why not try something a bit more exotic or decorative?

-a task bar on the side or bottom would be nice for hot key selection, just as a visual selection cue. (Again, we had this in TW1)

-the text in the main UI seems redundant and imposes on the playing space, why not have it scroll out when you hit pause or when you mouse over it?

 

[archaven]

It seems another PC game turned Console.

 

[adridu59]

I have no complaint with UI personally, I think it's pretty cool. I'll even say that this is the thing that excited me most in the gameplay video.

 

[Scholdarr]

I think Blizzard and CDPR have very different interpretations about how to offer the best gaming experience on each platform...

I dare to say it but in this very point Blizzard is 100 times better than CDPR. Blizzard gave PC and console their very own UI and experience with Diablo 3 "without favoring one over the other". That wasn't the point. The point was to use the strengths of mouse/keyboard and controllers and to work on them for every platform.

CDPR instead thinks that they could save some money here. "Let's make a UI and experience that works great on controllers since that's how the biggest part of our customers will experience the game. We will get to work it somehow on mouse/keyboard as well because due to its flexible nature M/K will always "somehow" work. That's how you make console games and port them to PC (if you only look at input controls) and that's how CDPR obviously sees "platform equality". Sorry, it's not. Not at all. It's favoring controllers over M/K and you know that but you just don't dare to admit it...

 

[Mr. Barvo]

I think Blizzard and CDPR have very different interpretations about how to offer the best gaming experience on each platform...

I dare to say it but in this very point Blizzard is 100 times better than CDPR. Blizzard gave PC and console their very own UI and experience with Diablo 3 "without favoring one over the other". That wasn't the point. The point was to use the strengths of mouse/keyboard and controllers and to work on them for every platform.

CDPR instead thinks that they could save some money here. "Let's make a UI and experience that works great on controllers since that's how the biggest part of our customers will experience the game. We will get to work it somehow on mouse/keyboard as well because due to its flexible nature M/K will always "somehow" work. That's how you make console games and port them to PC (if you only look at input controls) and that's how CDPR obviously sees "platform equality". Sorry, it's not. Not at all. It's favoring controllers over M/K and you know that but you just don't dare to admit it...

Closely as how Microsoft does with windows 8: favoring touch interface over MK. Although most people use the latter.

 

[adridu59]

I think Blizzard and CDPR have very different interpretations about how to offer the best gaming experience on each platform...

I dare to say it but in this very point Blizzard is 100 times better than CDPR. Blizzard gave PC and console their very own UI and experience with Diablo 3 "without favoring one over the other". That wasn't the point. The point was to use the strengths of mouse/keyboard and controllers and to work on them for every platform.

CDPR instead thinks that they could save some money here. "Let's make a UI and experience that works great on controllers since that's how the biggest part of our customers will experience the game. We will get to work it somehow on mouse/keyboard as well because due to its flexible nature M/K will always "somehow" work. That's how you make console games and port them to PC (if you only look at input controls) and that's how CDPR obviously sees "platform equality". Sorry, it's not. Not at all. It's favoring controllers over M/K and you know that but you just don't dare to admit it...

You're annoyed about your CE so you spam threads... I see no constructive criticism here, at least do explain what you dislike.

 

[Scholdarr]

You're annoyed about your CE so you spam threads... I see no constructive criticism here, at least do explain what you dislike.

Ahem, it's true that I'm annoyed, but the CE is the least of my problems. Actually the UI is one of the reasons why I cancelled my CE (but that's off-topic here).

And it's not true, that I haven't already said a lot about UI in this thread and in others. I even did detailled comparisons of the Diablo III UIs on console and PC and made a list of which points are imo important for UIs on different platforms. I refuse to make double posts of this earlier comments of mine. If you want to read them feel free to use the search engine.

 

[Jupiter_on_Mars]

I think Blizzard and CDPR have very different interpretations about how to offer the best gaming experience on each platform...

I dare to say it but in this very point Blizzard is 100 times better than CDPR. Blizzard gave PC and console their very own UI and experience with Diablo 3 "without favoring one over the other". That wasn't the point. The point was to use the strengths of mouse/keyboard and controllers and to work on them for every platform.

CDPR instead thinks that they could save some money here. "Let's make a UI and experience that works great on controllers since that's how the biggest part of our customers will experience the game. We will get to work it somehow on mouse/keyboard as well because due to its flexible nature M/K will always "somehow" work. That's how you make console games and port them to PC (if you only look at input controls) and that's how CDPR obviously sees "platform equality". Sorry, it's not. Not at all. It's favoring controllers over M/K and you know that but you just don't dare to admit it...

That is blatantly OT.
Go take your rant somewhere else. It is not relevant here in any capacity whatsoever.

Graphene is this material made of pure carbon intertwined in a layer one atom thick. Your rant is the grapheme of rants.