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Dev blog: UI Modernization - Icon Strategy

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Saturday Beerun
Lost Ark Enterprises
#301 - 2015-03-10 15:35:34 UTC
Not modern,not improved!! They are so last century.

I Want The Black Vindicator Back
CCP Surge
C C P
C C P Alliance
#302 - 2015-03-11 19:25:30 UTC
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#303 - 2015-03-11 19:32:49 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!

The current build on sisi is an improvement could you run thru the changes and give us a couple days to play with it.
The more time its on sisi the better. Push it back so the Fan Fest crowd can have its say but dont take it of sisi or there will be no way for us to give feed back.

If you have to revert please add screen shots of each updated iteration in this thread so we can comment off of that.

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#304 - 2015-03-11 20:08:54 UTC
Salpun wrote:
CCP Surge wrote:
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!

The current build on sisi is an improvement could you run thru the changes and give us a couple days to play with it.
The more time its on sisi the better. Push it back so the Fan Fest crowd can have its say but dont take it of sisi or there will be no way for us to give feed back.

If you have to revert please add screen shots of each updated iteration in this thread so we can comment off of that.


it would make sense too just update sisi gradually as you work on the icons so people can see the differences aswell as get used too them you would get better feedback that way surely.

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
allfonso Hekard
HIgh Sec Care Bears
Brothers of Tangra
#305 - 2015-03-11 21:18:32 UTC
I gotta say the current brackets in this SISI configuration is way much better. I didn't check all them out, but i can already say its an improvement.

Oh yeah, did rogue drones get retextured?
I like the new animation for the small frigate size rogue drones, looks like they swimming through space ShockedBig smile
Circumstantial Evidence
#306 - 2015-03-11 21:30:08 UTC
CCP uses polls as little as possible, but this feature might be less subject to metagaming compared to sov changes. So, if you develop alternate icon schemes, consider setting up a poll to ask us to vote our preference of A, B, C, or D.

And as is always suggested, the best of both worlds is to make this a modular system where CCP can drop in iterations, and players can choose which icon set they want to look at.
FistyMcBumBardier
State War Academy
Caldari State
#307 - 2015-03-11 23:06:03 UTC
Keep them on Sisi for the time being. The new Icons are better than the old crosses, but I will agree that they can still be improved.
Jonat Eken
T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.
#308 - 2015-03-11 23:10:21 UTC
Circumstantial Evidence wrote:
CCP uses polls as little as possible, but this feature might be less subject to metagaming compared to sov changes. So, if you develop alternate icon schemes, consider setting up a poll to ask us to vote our preference of A, B, C, or D.

And as is always suggested, the best of both worlds is to make this a modular system where CCP can drop in iterations, and players can choose which icon set they want to look at.


Yep, mechanism is already in place for the voting, i.e. CSM voting. Love it. Make it so, CCP! Big smile
Reina Xyaer
Tha Lench Mob
#309 - 2015-03-12 00:03:39 UTC
Was on SiSi and saw the new icons for the first time.

There is too much "white". The icons need color coding options, preferably customizable.

Also I feel like Drones should be smaller and simpler, and ship icons should be a bit larger.
Xaero Petraeus
Balls Deep Inc.
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#310 - 2015-03-12 00:25:58 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!


Attention Just use Sisi to test whatever version of the icons you are working on and put the version from the dev blog as an opt-in beta on TQ. Attention
Rain6637
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#311 - 2015-03-12 00:53:37 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!

well, damn

Help, I can't download EVE

President of the Commissar Kate Fanclub

PLEX: A Giffen good? (It's 1B?)
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#312 - 2015-03-12 01:59:04 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

No problem. Please take your time - I eagerly look forward to the final implementation.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Max Groote
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#313 - 2015-03-12 02:23:36 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!


I think that it would be much better to keep the current ISIS-based icons on Sisi I so that people can get used to them, and then slowly iterate on them. After all, most go on Sisi to test anyway, so it's not like there would be a significant gameplay impact.

I do agree though that the ship icons could be a *bit* larger, and perhaps something should be done to make the various types of drones a bit more distinct. However, as a brand new player I find the ISIS icons much more intuitive than the differently sized crosses that we have on TQ right now.
Jessica Danikov
Network Danikov
#314 - 2015-03-12 07:17:57 UTC
The criticism of the icons as proposed is in no way a slight on them- they are an improvement on what we already have. We're just perfectionists and I hope most people will join me in saying that we're glad you are too. Such things are, after all, an iterative process, one I understand not wanting to expose all EVE players to ("why do you keep changing X") but certainly very welcome on Singularity.

However, I do think there's a fundamental issue here, which is that icons are always going to be subjective. Some will prefer the detailed ISIS-matching icons, some might want their red crosses and white squares back, some might prefer geometric shapes, some might need high-contrast colours due to colour-blindness, others might want to colour code by ship class. This degree of customization already exists with ship names due to usage of undocumented text styling applied to the overview settings. I think that CCP would do well to provide a collection of selectable default icon sets but also allow for players to load in their own. There certainly is enough interest in such a thing (I have ideas for my own) and I'd hope the technical implementation would not be overly complex.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#315 - 2015-03-12 07:59:03 UTC
Jessica Danikov wrote:
The criticism of the icons as proposed is in no way a slight on them- they are an improvement on what we already have. We're just perfectionists and I hope most people will join me in saying that we're glad you are too. Such things are, after all, an iterative process, one I understand not wanting to expose all EVE players to ("why do you keep changing X") but certainly very welcome on Singularity.

However, I do think there's a fundamental issue here, which is that icons are always going to be subjective. Some will prefer the detailed ISIS-matching icons, some might want their red crosses and white squares back, some might prefer geometric shapes, some might need high-contrast colours due to colour-blindness, others might want to colour code by ship class. This degree of customization already exists with ship names due to usage of undocumented text styling applied to the overview settings. I think that CCP would do well to provide a collection of selectable default icon sets but also allow for players to load in their own. There certainly is enough interest in such a thing (I have ideas for my own) and I'd hope the technical implementation would not be overly complex.

Personally I couldn't care less about the aesthetics. I just want the icons to function properly at as many sizes and resolutions as possible. They should be easy to distinguish that's all.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#316 - 2015-03-12 08:28:41 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
Jessica Danikov wrote:
The criticism of the icons as proposed is in no way a slight on them- they are an improvement on what we already have. We're just perfectionists and I hope most people will join me in saying that we're glad you are too. Such things are, after all, an iterative process, one I understand not wanting to expose all EVE players to ("why do you keep changing X") but certainly very welcome on Singularity.

However, I do think there's a fundamental issue here, which is that icons are always going to be subjective. Some will prefer the detailed ISIS-matching icons, some might want their red crosses and white squares back, some might prefer geometric shapes, some might need high-contrast colours due to colour-blindness, others might want to colour code by ship class. This degree of customization already exists with ship names due to usage of undocumented text styling applied to the overview settings. I think that CCP would do well to provide a collection of selectable default icon sets but also allow for players to load in their own. There certainly is enough interest in such a thing (I have ideas for my own) and I'd hope the technical implementation would not be overly complex.

Jessica, with respect, the issue for many is not subjective, once one leaves the thirties behind, it becomes a matter of necessity.
One can appreciate many artistic styles, but the practicality of the primary method of display is paramount.
Multiple poorly visible icons does not solve that unfortunately.
And although, artistically fun, interesting, and even pretty. Practicality overrides all of those subjective considerations.

A shout out to CCP for taking into account, the serious concerns, a surprisingly large number of people have had with this issue.

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Jessica Danikov
Network Danikov
#317 - 2015-03-12 08:29:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Jessica Danikov
Zappity wrote:

Personally I couldn't care less about the aesthetics. I just want the icons to function properly at as many sizes and resolutions as possible. They should be easy to distinguish that's all.


That's just it though. It's not simple aesthetics, it's an information channel. You have people who will get their information from the overview, who respond better to colour, or certain geometries. There is no single solution that can cater to all.

epicurus ataraxia wrote:

Jessica, with respect, the issue for many is not subjective, once one leaves the thirties behind, it becomes a matter of necessity.
One can appreciate many artistic styles, but the practicality of the primary method of display is paramount.
Multiple poorly visible icons does not solve that unfortunately.
And although, artistically fun, interesting, and even pretty. Practicality overrides all of those subjective considerations.

A shout out to CCP for taking into account, the serious concerns, a surprisingly large number of people have had with this issue.


Oh, you misunderstand me. I'm saying that your individual experience is subjective. High-contrast icons are garish for some, necessary for others. Some may require oversized icons because of their eyesight or their resolution, others would find them to be obstructive. One might appreciate squares and circles, another might find them to be ugly. The idea that you can create a perfect icon set that caters not only to personal aesthetic preferences, but to the more basic needs and requirements of some players, is unrealistic, especially given that some of those needs are mutually exclusive. Expecting CCP to cover all those bases is asking too much. Making icons an extension point that, those with particular needs can fill by themselves if needs be, stops the CCP art team from being the bottleneck for not catering to obscure visual requirements (and to a lesser extent, the whimsy of personal aesthetics).

Of course there will always be the issue of the technical limitations (at the moment, the icons seem limited to 16x16), but it'd be ideal for the art team to come up with a 'good enough' icon set as a baseline and then focus on catering to the more extreme requirements of those with visual difficulties that cannot be solved with merely a custom icon set, such as large icon scaling.
War Kitten
Panda McLegion
#318 - 2015-03-12 12:24:20 UTC
CCP Surge wrote:
Hey guys, checking back in with news. First of all thanks everyone for participating in the playtest and giving us your impressions of the new icons.

Your feedback actually prompted a lot of interesting internal discussions (hail all-powerful EVE community Big smile) And while the new icons certainly didn't perform poorly for many of you, there were many legitimate concerns over readability and areas of improvement we've identified as well.

As a result but decided instead of pushing these immediately out to TQ with the Scylla release, we will leave them in the oven a bit longer for additional testing and iteration.

What this means in the short term is we have to revert the new icons back to the old brackets on Sisi. Afterwards we will be conducting more tests with new icon sets in the coming weeks. I'm actually curious to hear how many of you would like to keep the ISIS-based brackets on Sisi for reference (or learning) in the meantime? Let me know, and again thanks for helping us test these out!


Hey, that's great news, thanks for listening!

Postponing this feature hopefully means you're going deep into the design again and reworking some of the core issues that were identified and not just little cosmetic tweaks.

I don't judge people by their race, religion, color, size, age, gender, or ethnicity. I judge them by their grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity of expression, and logical consistency.
Castelo Selva
Forcas armadas
Brave Collective
#319 - 2015-03-12 14:22:57 UTC
Jessica Danikov wrote:
Oh, you misunderstand me. I'm saying that your individual experience is subjective. High-contrast icons are garish for some, necessary for others. Some may require oversized icons because of their eyesight or their resolution, others would find them to be obstructive. One might appreciate squares and circles, another might find them to be ugly. The idea that you can create a perfect icon set that caters not only to personal aesthetic preferences, but to the more basic needs and requirements of some players, is unrealistic, especially given that some of those needs are mutually exclusive. Expecting CCP to cover all those bases is asking too much. Making icons an extension point that, those with particular needs can fill by themselves if needs be, stops the CCP art team from being the bottleneck for not catering to obscure visual requirements (and to a lesser extent, the whimsy of personal aesthetics).

Of course there will always be the issue of the technical limitations (at the moment, the icons seem limited to 16x16), but it'd be ideal for the art team to come up with a 'good enough' icon set as a baseline and then focus on catering to the more extreme requirements of those with visual difficulties that cannot be solved with merely a custom icon set, such as large icon scaling.


Well, I totally agree with Jessica. In a general manner, any change will not be able to please everyone because of personal views. I am a bit frustrated that change do not get in the next release, but I know it is better wait a little more and get a better feature.

The solution for the general please lays in customization. Of course create (and maintain) more than one set of icons are a hard work for all the developers involved. Maybe release one set with the customization options already mentioned by many (color code / chose size / different shapes / and go on) will be the better. With customization, people adjust the initial set of icon for the way it better suits themselves.

For the return Singularity of a current set of icons, my personal opinion are to keep the new set and do not get back to old ones. That way people will still give feedback in how to improve, even if the new (still to be developed) set will be different.

Castelo

Best post ever!
Asp IV
Apex Abyss
#320 - 2015-03-13 14:47:05 UTC
Well any type of colored blob will be very hard to distinguish from another. My solution is to design icons as Brackets type rather than colored blobs, bracket can then be colored but not "filled". This will keep within the HUD theme as well. Also red blots are too crude.

Also all "flags" attached to icons look dated and blobby. Work with brackets not with colours that looks like I am playing squares vs squares. I personally hate the fleet icon (looks like a icon for men's restroom)

When I saw them on SISI it was very obvious.


also this mock up U should be used as inspiration.

http://forum.eve-ru.com/index.php?showtopic=111739&page=13