GA’s Lazy Design is Misleading
My opponent only set 4/7 squads on defence, which is good for me, I guess, but it’s because the design only shows 4 placements (circles) on the hologram.
This is such a basic issue that was present in the first round of GA. It’s a highly misleading user interface and breaks all the rules of UX design.
Please take the time to make appropriate designs for up to 7 squads, matching what the player is required to place. I can’t believe this was ever signed off, it’s really lazy design.
This is such a basic issue that was present in the first round of GA. It’s a highly misleading user interface and breaks all the rules of UX design.
Please take the time to make appropriate designs for up to 7 squads, matching what the player is required to place. I can’t believe this was ever signed off, it’s really lazy design.
9
- 61.6K General Discussion
- -35 Developer Q&A Archive
- 2.6K New Players
- 30.7K Arena and Character Strategy
- 3.2K Individual Events
- 5.5K Guild Events
- 4.7K PVP and Rivalry
- 51K Guild Recruitment
- 751 Art and Media
- 4.2K Off Topic
Howdy, Stranger!
Replies
Should the design be fixed? Absolutely, however I would argue it isn’t a problem for those who are actually paying attention while placing defenses.
Exactly. The best argument here is that people have been told now time and time again over the past month of GA both in game, on the forums, by others, by devs, by mods, its been going on for multiple GA's so why are they still making the same mistake? In TW we put teams untill that number is filled....
I mean like, sure the design could be made better, but since when has animated circles determined how many defence we could put out.
Oh, you haven’t missed this, because I made it up. The UX is clean for fleet battles, and it shows you the slots you can fill visually, just like every part of the game experience OTHER THAN GA.
TW shows the same xx/23 etc as GA, that’s more applicable then a fleet arena match.
Blaming the user for bad UI design is a cop out.
Yes people can pay more attention but making the display match the number of teams you have to place would reduce this issue significantly.
It’s slopy design, especially considering that GA’s format and number of required teams changes constantly.
If the intended user of the software gets confused by the design, it's bad design. Useability is a quality of service parameter.
No, it’s a new game mode which changes format and requirements constantly.
Yes players can pay more attention but the fault is with the UI
I'm glad some people here get it. A large part of my job is designing user interfaces, and this one was not thought through. If the user is being shown 4 slots to fill, but additionally needs to notice a small conflicting 4/7 indicator shoved in the corner of the page, then it's horribly counter-intuitive.
Nobody should be defending CG and blaming the players for this, to do so is to let CG off the hook for sloppy design. We should demand better, otherwise this standard will extend to the rest of the game as well.
I agree - this is terrible UX design. CG have noted and admitted it and I believe one of the devs stated an intention to fix it but the holiday season has likely delayed that.
There are, however, several things which would clue one in. Partly the '4/x' indicator in the corner but also the fact that the giant green 'set defence' button is still active.
Discord: Iona Starbound#5299
I would agree on the 1st GA or even on the 2nd. In fact, I didn't answer then because I understood that. But if you keep having the same problem GA after GA, then at least part of the blame is on you.
Red region= not all places are filled
Blue region= places are filled
How long did we go with the join button greyed out in TW even though you hadn't joined yet?..... The first couple of times I could see some of our guild members missing it because they thought they had already joined, but it gets to a point where it has gone on long enough that you should know ...
Yes, users have other ways of figuring out the real state, but if one single component of the design is confusing a significant fraction of users, then it is bad ux design.
Said the person with no comprehension of what good UX looks like.
So despite the claims of lazy design, it is actually a thoughtful design.
Why is it not the players fault for not seeing the multiple location that show the actual number?
Or that the button is still lit up to allow for placement of teams?
There are more signs when in the window when placing the teams then there are showing "the wrong number" and there is a single sign when entering also. I'm not saying it's not a little confusing, but seriously there is enough going on that we can also say people are not paying attention
While this is true on the surface, TW doesn’t show you four little circles to fill on the map when your guild has 23 squads to deploy. It shows no circles at all.
So the answer then (or at least a better answer) is to not fill the 4th visual slot until all of them are full. When someone sees an empty spot, they will see they need another team. Either that or have some sort of alert when entering the territory the first time that highlights the number of slots.
A huge number of people have done this. I did it myself on the first GA. Yes, it’s easy to say that it’s been discussed on the forums numerous times, but the majority of the players don’t regularly visit the forums. There is no reason to have this constantly pop up all the time, and it’s going to for the lifespan of the game unless it’s fixed.