Matrix Games Forums

Reading through forums and reviews, it is not uncommon to see very positive comments about many of the Matrix games, but then some criticisms of UI. As Matrix works with a lot of independent developers who do not have significant resources to devote to advanced UI design and testing, I wonder if it might make sense for Matrix to compile some UI best practices as a "cheat sheet" for their developers. In addition to providing some hopefully helpful hints, it might tend to make the UI across titles more consistent, which seems like it would benefit both Matrix and the its user community.

Even very simple things like a standard reference source for NATO symbols would be helpful. Standard color usage in info windows or on counters would be nice. And more consistent usage of right and left mouse clicks and especially common keyboard shortcuts would be great. Naturally, following the advice would be completely optional. Projects based on an existing board game would likely choose to be faithful to elements that were present in the original game. And we wouldn't want to impose a UI straight jacket as we'd like to see continuing evolution and improvement of interfaces. But hopefully some consistent high-level best practices would prove useful enough to gain acceptance over time and would reduce the number of reviews we're reading about clumbsy and difficult interfaces.

Crafting a really good UI is a very difficult job to do but there is no one thing more critical to the acceptance of the game than that, IMHO.  I spend more time on that than I do on any other category of effort in Flashpoint - much to my surprise because it was orginally at the bottom of my list. 
 
Consistency for common UI elements would be wonderful and might indeed be something to work towards.  For myself I try to adhere to standard Windows conventions where possible - but of course that itself is a moving target over time!  Ah well.
 
Cheers, Rob C

14 years in the computer industry as a UI specialist taught me that it is one of the more challenging jobs in the field. Sometimes the most complex problems were solved by the simplest solutions. I agree that a standardization of UI could benefit the company but reaching that standard is such a delicate process and it would take some real heads to do things right. At the surface level (key commands, mouse gestures, those elements jchastain writes of) would certainly be a great start but also important would be an ability to see through the "glitz" that Matrix places over cumbersome UIs to reach a better functionality. This would involve re-working many things from the ground up.

Bah, I'm just blathering on here. I'd love to see Matrix take on this challenge. I'm just afraid some of their individual developers wouldn't be so happy with the idea of someone coming in and re-papering the walls.

The problem with a common interface or look to a whole bunch of games from various dev houses is that folks start to wonder why they are paying $40 for game X that looks a whole lot like game y and Z. Some games do not fit the Windows Office format too. Mainly RTS/Shooters. Most "table top" wargames already tend to track in the direction of MS Office standards with menu bars at the top and simple right click menus etc. I know Rob and I are working to keep the MS look in the Flashpoint Series. We are doing this to keep things simple for new folks who are mainly MS Office literate. I would agree that a level of similarity in function would be nice depending on game type. I don't see symbols and other graphics falling into this since the feel of the game is tied to the artistic slant the particular Dev is shooting for.
 
Only time will tell.