Eugene
Brilliant brilliant brilliant. Exactly. Very well put.
I often think of the analogy of mobile phones. Before Apple (and don't
get me wrong here, I'm no Apple fan boy) you had flip phones, slidey
phones, phones with loads of keys, phones with few all sorts of ugly
shapes and ill considered graphics. Apple came along and you thought how
could it have been any other way. That is what you are aiming for and,
to an extent, what Softimage has. It has been designed with some
thought. The Maya UI has not been designed by a good designer.
Alastair
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On 17/03/2014 11:21, Eugen Sares wrote:
Cite from Chris Vienneau:
As for the workflows we have an internal project called Project H
(or Humanize Maya) where we are working with all sorts of users from
students to pros to studios to come up with proposals to the problems
that have come up here and in the Maya user base. We invite anyone
here and many of you have taken up our offer to contribute and it is
up to us to show that we are delivering over the next two years
during the transition period. If we don't at the end than you will
all have choices and plenty of time to evaluate your options.
'Humanize Maya'... I like that!
It brings me to a topic that often seems to falls short in discussions
about a user interface, due to the technical nature of 3d
applications: aesthetics/readability.
Not workflow logic/consistency/ergonomics, which are of course
absolutely vital (and also one of Maya's big weaknesses, but I'm
leaving this out intentionally for now), but just the sheer visual
appearance.
An equally important piece in the puzzle in my opinion.
As someone with an education and background in graphics design, I dare
to say that Maya's UI is ugly. Like the devil's old grandmother.
Why?
Imagine the cockpit of a jet plane riddled with such a motley bunch of
deranged elements and icons... get the point?
Presenting complexity in a way that can be processed by our visual
cortex with the least effort is an art form, and Maya fails miserably.
Softimage did it right.
Ironically, where Maya shows it's qualities mostly (...) is as a
studio 'backbone' - exactly where you would least expect people
fancying funny little fiddly colored icons.
Like putting a hello kitty sticker on the airplane's throttle control....
Some recommendations:
Generally, reduce the visual clutter! Hide everything that isn't
important - show in only in the proper context.
Hire graphics designers, in addition to user interface designers, if
you didn't already - the best you can find. The ones with a good taste.
Text instead of icons, wherever you can!
For me, it's no question that text is easier to 'read' than icons,
from a certain (quite low) level of complexity on. A simple arrow is
ok, but just don't tell me most of those Maya icons are intuitive...
Tastes are different, true, but at least give the user the option to
switch icon/text, or both!
Offer a colorless UI scheme, or at least one with a much reduced palette!
Make the UI steplessly scalable! You probably have the chance now,
after all you use Qt.
The hypergraph/hypershade icons, also the Bifröst nodes, from what I
see... horrible design. Compare this to ICE!
Try to find a color code where the different colors have the same
lightness. E.g. dark blue is barely visible, and you get a confusing
and misleading visual contrast between elements of equal importance.
Get inspired... Softimage has this noble, modest and efficient
appearance. Windows Metro - if Microsoft has the courage for such a
step, maybe you do, too.
Less is more - I can't think of a better example of that old saying!
We all eat with our eyes also, don't we, and after all 3d users are
mostly visual people (sometimes I'm not so sure about developers).
All this might sound superficial, but when it helps keeping track, it
ain't anymore.
And, finally, what harm is done when your girlfriend puts one some
mascara... ; }
Thanks for your attention!
Respectfully,
Eugen
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