Test Server Feedback

I have found the black/black theme which looks nice but my 2 concerns with the new UI re-skin are;

As a pvper, i much prefer function over form. While i understand the design choice, I want to be able to see brackets though my windows (perhaps as an option). Without this, the whole UI change is a typical ccp hatchet job aimed at appearance and marketing with no eye on function.

And when i select a window (specially if it is pinned) i dont want it to darken or be in any other way different to any of my other windows (i know which is the active window because i just clicked on it and i am not a complete ******* ******). Maybe just darken the title bar, but absolutely not the whole window. Or *gasp* give us the ability to chose whole window darken/title bar darken only.

These are two very important aspects of any UI change for me, and i would appreciate some sort of consideration to these as OPTIONS instead of just shoehorning a less functional, less practical UI on us in the name of glitz.

One other suggestion, the fleet window currently obliterates any other tabs its stacked with because it lists how many members, what wing and squad you are in IN THE TAB TITLE. Since the green arrow this is not needed, and the windows tab could easily be called 'fleet' only

That's Amarr theme + Amarr station + postprocessing disabled.

I do admit it's more of a showcase, but quite telling nonetheless.

From amarr theme we get shiny unreadable highlights.
The color scheme blends with the station. No. Actually the correct way would be "the camo pattern allows UI to hide in the plain sight on amarr stations".
From disabled postprocessing we get completely transparent pinned windows (including neocom by the way). Which is completely unreadable on any complex background. And while windows like market or item info don't have to be pinned, the always-on ones like overwiew, d-scan and chat windows do.
On the positive side, disabled postprocessing is the only way to get 100% opaque windows.

right click menu needs some work. It displays excellently in dark areas of space and against a less detsailed backround, but it impossible to read in opposing condistions. Especially in stations and against bright nebulae.

E: and its is also especially difficult to read when the box is over other text.

Yyyep. Monochrome icons for ammo types would be a huge step. Into something.
While we are at it, let's vouch for monochrome icons for overview colortags. After all + is clearly distinguishable from - without any colours involved
And background colours can be replaced with hatching.

I have some more feedback now I've spent a little more time using the new UI and playing around with it more.

Although I don't use station or neocom icons much cause I remember most of there keybinds, I'm still having a lot of trouble getting familiar with what icons are which though. I still believe the old icons are better and CCP is better off just making the old icons more crisp and cleaner, aka less blurry and richer color.

After spending some time playing with each theme, Amarr and Amarr2 need work. Amarr completely makes tabs unreadable and Amarr2 aint much better. Caldari, Blue and Green tab glow could use some dimming also. Minmatar2, Gallente2, Caldari2, Hologram tab glow needs to be more of a solid color and little less glow.

I've noticed now that when in-space, panning the camera makes windows little more see-through which I like the idea of but once you stop panning, I believe the windows should get less see-through then currently, or again have a slider to adjust this on a personal feel for each person, window, theme Etc all separate from each other.

On another note about the same thing if its possible, is that when a window is over a bright nebula, windows should darken to help with making the text readable while both panning and stationary.

Edit: As a whole I'm very happy so far with what your trying to do. I'm currently study diploma of media and interactive games. The reference materials you provided with the test notes make me think that you're trying to base the UI off such things just as a quick example; Tony Starks computer screen and whatnot in his garage in the movies "Ironman" and another movie called "Minority Report" where he uses a interactive holographic wrap around screen. I think you've done a good job so far if thats what you're chasing for!

Enjoyed playing around with this for a bit, it is nice, flashy, and responsive. Here is some hopefully constructive feedback:

The icon glow in Amarr and Amarr 2 currently renders the tab title unreadable. Yellow glow above a white text is not optimal, maybe consider toning down the glow amount in certain themes.

It would be ideal if we could customize themes, but if that is not the case, please have more like Sansha, SOE, and maybe a JOVE theme :) But if not I see Minmatar being my go to theme.

I personally like the new monochrome icons on the left, but consider giving the icons on the left side the same colour as the station services to increase the immersion of the individual themes. Will also help aide in differentiating characters when multi boxing since I have different themes for each character.

Are there changes coming to try and decrease the number of windows actually required to be opened while in combat? Currently what I have is Local, chat channels, overview, selected item, drones, d-scanner , probe scanner (to find the mice), cargo hold (when using boosters), fleet window and watch list (if in fleet). This is ends up being a whole lot of screen real estate and I am curious about your plans to make the overview more intuitive with information more readily available.

UI feedback

The blur, oh my god the blur. It is seriously disturbing to the eye. Its not so bad when the windows are unpinned because they are so dark, but the overall effect is that everything becomes a little hard to look at. Pinning just makes the windows impossible to look at. Eve is a complex game and I myself have maybe 5-6 windows open at any given time, that is a lot of blur.

The blur needs to go, it is not clever, it doesn’t aid legibility, it is just intrusive and unpleasant to look at.

I am really not sure about the opacity either, of course if the blur goes then the opacity needs to go aswell. Opacity is not so bad on a website on a static background, but when stuff is moving around back there... yuck.

Personally I dont use pinning, but if it was done properly I might use it on chat windows. If I understand correctly the idea is that semi-inactive windows can fade in and out of focus as they become active? So why not go the whole-hog and make the inactive faded out completely so the window is a mearest suggestion, I mean if pinning just makes the background transparent and blurred thereby also making content harder to read, then what is the point? Its not like you get to see more of space anyway, because there is stuff all over it (buttons and text) which draw the eye (and also the blur, oh my god, the blur).

Active buttons - if the background is bright then the text needs to be dark. This should be obvious to anyone.

Buttons also need to be a little bigger, the size is much more preferable when you scale the ui to 110%.

What is wrong with a little whitespace? I think that part of why the UI is so complicated to look at is that while you have a lot of information to look at, everything also really cramped in there. You can improve matters a lot by adding a little more air around the content.

There isn’t enough to distinguish the icons on the neocon from each other. I know its modern design and all, but I think you need to find a way to make them more individually distinguishable, Modern design be damned.

Edit: Upper right corner buttons are way too small, those are pin, minimize and close. You will use them pretty frequently so its rather fiddly that they are so small.

Ok, now my 2 cents

- My first feeling is quite good. I just told myself "Waow, where are the colors ?" for about 10 secs, then the bad feeling just disappeared. Good point, the B&W Econ icons is easy to assimilate. Just 2 little points : first, the "People & Places" icon is too "generic" to my taste and I'd rather have something more appealing, like the heads of the old icon or even a google-maps-style-place icon, which could be more accurate than the "file" icon ; then why having changed the ISIS icon for this ... mmmmm ... print-paper-like absolutely not self-explaining icon ? Why not, for example, using the BS-Isis-icon shape ?

- Then the colors. ah, the colors. My feeling is, the only one useful is the Galente (the 1st one, not the Gal2). The reason is quite simple : this is the most "pastel" color (with the black one, that I don't like caus all this black depresses me). The other ones are too shiny to be usable. My advice : fade'em a bit and that'll be good.

- About trransparency : it's a big troll ;-) My advice : just let users set the transparency when the windows is focused, from, le's say, 0% to 50%, and let both unfocused and pinned transparency unchanged.

- About bluring : have definitely to be an option in the genreal parameters. It's nice to see but not so practical to use.

jm2c

Love the new look.

But...

The lack of brackets not showing behind windows in space is very annoying.