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Fantasy UI

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Re: Fantasy UI

#61

Post by coldtea »

krm01 wrote: post #10

As a UI/UX agency that focusses on B2B SaaS, I’ve always found Fantasy UIs fascinating. It’s the complete opposite of the simple & clean interfaces clients ask us to design. I’ve spent some time thinking about why these Fantasy UIs are so fascinating despite the fact they seem not very user friendly. My conclusion was that fantasy Interfaces are very much like the early web. Lots of moving parts (dancing banana gifs)…

>We lost the Art of interface building and turned it into a complete science.

In the realm of VST/AU plugins (virtual music instruments and effects), the art of interface building is alive and kicking, and the different interfaces add (a) to the excitement, (b) to be able to differentiate quickly among dozens (or 100s) of different plugins you use, (c) helps test/create novel interaction ideas...

Here are example VST UIs:

https://www.pinterest.com/satyatunes/gui-for-vst-plugins/

Re: Fantasy UI

#62

Post by DonHopkins »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #46

The single biggest common denominator between so many fantasy UIs, is transparent (HUD-style) interfaces. I was just watching the latest episode of The Expanse , last night, and saw them all using these transparent PDA/phones. Ever try using a transparent UI? It's absolutely maddening. Looks cool on the screen, but is pretty much unusable IRL.

I came here to say that too! Exactly what I was thinking while watching The Expanse (which is a great series), and so many other shows that pander to the cliché of pointlessly transparent phones. Goodbye privacy! Why would you ever want your phone display to be harder for YOU to see, and easier for EVERYONE ELSE to see?

Re: Fantasy UI

#63

Post by afavour »

protomyth wrote: post #51
pc86 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "I can't navigate a website just using my keyboard" is sort of like saying "I can't drive my car just using the steering." Well, of course you can't. You're not supposed to be able to, unless you have some sort of assistance hardware/software loaded that articulates/emulates the missing control(s).

I'm a little confused how a person can play a 3D video game with just a keyboard, but a website is beyond control? I don't think a car is a good comparison as it is in 3D space unlike a website.

Because there’s a very small defined set of actions a person can take in such games: backwards, forwards, left, right, etc.

By comparison pages have dozens of links, form fields, menus, etc. It’s not that they can’t be navigated with the keyboard alone, it’s that it’s rarely the most efficient way of doing it. Clicking a link will always be quicker than pressing tab X number of times to select it.

Re: Fantasy UI

#64

Post by tucosan »

pc86 wrote: post #49
_trampeltier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most todays UI is not really great. On websites you often can't navigate just with the keyboard and shortcuts does not work at all. An a really terrible new UI thing are these on / off sliders. So often is not clear where the slider is, because it's not clear if the slider or the background is colored. Also a lot of new software comes with shortcuts, but you would need 3 hands to push all buttons for it. Also for…

Saying "I can't navigate a website just using my keyboard" is sort of like saying "I can't drive my car just using the steering." Well, of course you can't. You're not supposed to be able to, unless you have some sort of assistance hardware/software loaded that articulates/emulates the missing control(s).

I navigate the web mostly via keyboard. Vimium [1] is the First Plugin I install on every desktop browser.

The car analogy makes little sense.

[1]: https://vimium.github.io

Re: Fantasy UI

#65

Post by afavour »

_trampeltier wrote: post #41
weego wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced we even turned it into science. I think we turned it into a pseudo-science of confirmation biases, poor contextual understanding and even distain for our own users while actively devaluing the role that design plays in interaction.

No, most todays UI is not really great. On websites you often can't navigate just with the keyboard and shortcuts does not work at all. An a really terrible new UI thing are these on / off sliders. So often is not clear where the slider is, because it's not clear if the slider or the background is colored. Also a lot of new software comes with shortcuts, but you would need 3 hands to push all buttons for it. Also for…

Why is keyboard use the pinnacle of UI? Pretty much every device has some kind of mouse-like device attached to it, and trackpads with good scrolling (e.g. Apple ones) are a wonderfully intuitive way to control movement.

I get that HN likes using the keyboard for stuff like terminals, I do too. But web pages aren’t terminal applications.

Re: Fantasy UI

#66

Post by nottorp »

depressedpanda wrote: post #44
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #38

My fantasy UI would be a sort of large flat desktop plane, with ~infinite zoom. FVWM and other do have the one large desktop space that you scroll around, instead of discrete virtual desktops, but I want to see the ultimate version of that. A vast virtual plane that you could scroll and zoom around, drag your files/content around, make groups with marked delineations like a map. Obviously there would be some kind of…

Yes, very much this. I don't have much to add except that I wonder why something similar hasn't been done already? I mean, it's an UI that works fine in RTS games, so why wouldn't it work for application windows?

It would be pretty maddening to keep losing the application you're working on because of the infinite scroll.

In RTS games you have keyboard shortcuts to return to your unit groups, bases etc to mitigate that, but there you're supposed to jump between points of interest while for general use you tend to keep the same point of interest for a long time...

Re: Fantasy UI

#67

Post by kls »

afavour wrote: post #65
_trampeltier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most todays UI is not really great. On websites you often can't navigate just with the keyboard and shortcuts does not work at all. An a really terrible new UI thing are these on / off sliders. So often is not clear where the slider is, because it's not clear if the slider or the background is colored. Also a lot of new software comes with shortcuts, but you would need 3 hands to push all buttons for it. Also for…

Why is keyboard use the pinnacle of UI? Pretty much every device has some kind of mouse-like device attached to it, and trackpads with good scrolling (e.g. Apple ones) are a wonderfully intuitive way to control movement. I get that HN likes using the keyboard for stuff like terminals, I do too. But web pages aren’t terminal applications.

I was with a fortune 10 company as a tech executive, we had an effort to move all of the call center technology over to web based technologies in a modernization effort. The call center lost over 15 million dollars in revenue in the first week when we moved from the old UNIX terminal app to the web UI, after an extensive study it was deemed the issue was loss of speed due to lack of keyboard shortcuts and navigation. For power-users keyboard shortcuts allow them to navigate and use the app up to 3 to 4 times faster than a mouse based interface. If you ever watch a 3D artist work in Max, Maya or Blender this becomes evident quickly. It is not that keyboard use is the pinnacle, it is that in high use cases it saves time and money.

Re: Fantasy UI

#68

Post by afavour »

kls wrote: post #67
afavour wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is keyboard use the pinnacle of UI? Pretty much every device has some kind of mouse-like device attached to it, and trackpads with good scrolling (e.g. Apple ones) are a wonderfully intuitive way to control movement. I get that HN likes using the keyboard for stuff like terminals, I do too. But web pages aren’t terminal applications.

I was with a fortune 10 company as a tech executive, we had an effort to move all of the call center technology over to web based technologies in a modernization effort. The call center lost over 15 million dollars in revenue in the first week when we moved from the old UNIX terminal app to the web UI, after an extensive study it was deemed the issue was loss of speed due to lack of keyboard shortcuts and navigation.…

The situation you’re describing is one where trained professionals use one and only one UI.

Web sites aren’t like that. They’re used by a vast number of people of differing technical ability, and different sites do incredibly different things.

I’m not saying a keyboard UI is never right. I’m saying that it isn’t universally right.

Re: Fantasy UI

#69

Post by teorema »

afavour wrote: post #65
_trampeltier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, most todays UI is not really great. On websites you often can't navigate just with the keyboard and shortcuts does not work at all. An a really terrible new UI thing are these on / off sliders. So often is not clear where the slider is, because it's not clear if the slider or the background is colored. Also a lot of new software comes with shortcuts, but you would need 3 hands to push all buttons for it. Also for…

Why is keyboard use the pinnacle of UI? Pretty much every device has some kind of mouse-like device attached to it, and trackpads with good scrolling (e.g. Apple ones) are a wonderfully intuitive way to control movement. I get that HN likes using the keyboard for stuff like terminals, I do too. But web pages aren’t terminal applications.

Every so often my mouse or track pad bonks out. Less and less as time goes on, but happens.

In those cases, I might want or need to use the web for some reason before I get a new one (to locate or purchase a new one if nothing else). I definitely have appreciated sites that take keyboard navigation into consideration at those times.

The keyboard is a common UI mechanism. Why not try to design the site to increase access via diversity of mechanisms instead of dismissing them due to low use rates?

I agree with some of the other posters that something has gone awry with UI testing and design. A lot of it is good, but there's these huge holes that pop up all the time. Usually it feels like something that's a trend that's being applied inappropriately... Other times obvious considerations seem completely ignored.

In general I think there's problems with UI trying to be too clever and novel, or too "fresh" without focusing critically on functionally. I'm all for clever, novel, and fresh, as long as it's actually driven by function and not using the UI to implicitly assert some kind of status of taste or ability.

Re: Fantasy UI

#70

Post by tyingq »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #38

My fantasy UI would be a sort of large flat desktop plane, with ~infinite zoom. FVWM and other do have the one large desktop space that you scroll around, instead of discrete virtual desktops, but I want to see the ultimate version of that. A vast virtual plane that you could scroll and zoom around, drag your files/content around, make groups with marked delineations like a map. Obviously there would be some kind of…

A toned down version of what's in Minority Report does seem like it could be practical, while still being futuristic.

The heavily personalized ads the main character encounters are interesting as well.

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