I am currently working on a new 3D system, and have been thinking a lot about GUI design.
My impression is that as applications have grown in complexity, there has not been a corresponding change in our approach to GUI design. I'm talking of desktop apps for doing 3D content creation (Maya, Houdini, Blender, etc).
The menubar and hierarchical menus worked elegantly in the simpler days of the Xerox Star and Apple Macintosh, but the continued reliance on them makes me chuckle at times.
The other day I decided to count the number of GUI elements visible in one such app. There were over 200. I can't prove this, but my feeling is that this visual/usage clutter can create confusion and anxiety in users. Or maybe users just learn to ignore the 90% of widgets they never need to use.
I find it increasingly awkward to have to move the mouse to click inside a 16x16 pixel widget on a 4K screen. Most GUI actions are not inherently graphical (click on a button, menu, icon).
One app has such a large contextual menu (with many submenus) that the menu includes its own search field, and users click to make the menu appear, then type in a few characters to locate the menu item they want, then click on the item. I can't help but shake my head and chuckle.
My own attempts at coming up with something different have resulted in a series of (short) popup menus that can be invoked via keyboard. My hope is that users will develop muscle memory to go to the selection they want quickly. For example, hitting "C,C,C" (the "c" key three times) invokes, in order, the Create, Curves, Circle menus (each menu replaces the previous one) and creates a circle in the 3D scene.
>my feeling is that this visual/usage clutter can create confusion and anxiety in users
Designers have been stomping all over presenting useful information under this assumption for the past 20 years. Speaking for myself, I am sick of the hypersimplification of what should be useful tools. Complex workspaces have complex needs, and that's OK. Doesn't mean we can't find ways to improve, but just hiding things isn't the answer.
I think the onus should be on the UI designers to present features when they are needed. This means making an effort to model the users' workflow, which is not trivial.
A good first step can be seen in Lightroom, where the TAB key will hide the tool palettes, leaving the entire (uncluttered) screen available for examining and selecting/ranking photos. Hit TAB gain to get the palettes back when you are ready to use one of the tools.
Just putting 20 icons along the edge of a window and washing their hands of it seems like a cop out to me.
That’s why I always advocate for formal training and certification when it comes to using complex software. Sitting down for eight hours or 40 hours in a classroom setting allows users to familiarize themselves or master the other 90% of functions they aren’t normally aware of or haven’t used. There is software that needs to be complex because some job functions are complex, the big focus on collaboration in the workplace now results in people with fundamentally different job functions using the same piece of software which clutters up user interfaces as well.
My impression is that as applications have grown in complexity, there has not been a corresponding change in our approach to GUI design. I'm talking of desktop apps for doing 3D content creation (Maya, Houdini, Blender, etc).
The menubar and hierarchical menus worked elegantly in the simpler days of the Xerox Star and Apple Macintosh, but the continued reliance on them makes me chuckle at times.
The other day I decided to count the number of GUI elements visible in one such app. There were over 200. I can't prove this, but my feeling is that this visual/usage clutter can create confusion and anxiety in users. Or maybe users just learn to ignore the 90% of widgets they never need to use.
I find it increasingly awkward to have to move the mouse to click inside a 16x16 pixel widget on a 4K screen. Most GUI actions are not inherently graphical (click on a button, menu, icon).
One app has such a large contextual menu (with many submenus) that the menu includes its own search field, and users click to make the menu appear, then type in a few characters to locate the menu item they want, then click on the item. I can't help but shake my head and chuckle.
My own attempts at coming up with something different have resulted in a series of (short) popup menus that can be invoked via keyboard. My hope is that users will develop muscle memory to go to the selection they want quickly. For example, hitting "C,C,C" (the "c" key three times) invokes, in order, the Create, Curves, Circle menus (each menu replaces the previous one) and creates a circle in the 3D scene.
Been planning to make a video demo...