Assembly Hall

I originally posted in Features and Ideas where the post was quickly lost to the general noise of AFK-cloaking tears and new I-WIN button mechanics, and forgetting I should be leveraging the power of our new CSM overlords instead.

I am proposing a small change to how in-game menu navigation works, that would have (in my opinion) huge user experience benefits.

So, I have a problem when I try and quickly navigate menus, sometimes I'll try and move my mouse directly towards a sub-menu item and in the process manage to close the menu I was aiming for.

Lots of companies (especially those with a large web presence) are recognising this as a huge user experience problem, and are solving it with basic mouse path prediction.

Imagine an invisible triangle between where your mouse cursor currently is, and the upper and lower bounds of the sub-menu you have just opened. If you move your mouse within the triangle the menu the odds are you're aiming for the sub-menu and so it stays open, and if your cursor leaves the triangle you're probably aiming somewhere else, so the sub-menu can safely be closed

Amazon uses this to improve navigation on their site. There's a breakdown here with some lovely graphics to demonstrate: http://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega-dropdown

I think this would be a tremendous boost the EVE in-game UI, as most actions in EVE are menu and sub-menu driven. Imagine warp to 100km, or orbit at current distance where you didn't have to carefully navigate your mouse horizontally and then vertically, you just beeline towards your desired option and the menu stays open.

I personally feel that the development time to user smiles ratio for this is a no-brainer.