Hello guys... I am making a GUI, and I need help. Please answer the questions before critics, because this are the issues I really have doubts about, but after that, any advise will be taken inconsideration, of course.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/La_Lore/Critics%20Lounge/GUI.png)
Do you understand the icons? Would you explain them in a readme.doc, or will you write the action in the cursor after clicking in the icon?
Guess the icons, and look if you have guessed correctly...
Spoiler
Look, Examine, Ask, Talk, Walk, Pick Up, Give, Use, Push, Pull, Ope, Close
Have you guessed them? Did it take too much to you, or has it been quite intuitive?
Would you change the "Open" icon for one with a closed box (therefore, you should have to open it) And the "Close" for an opened one?
Do you like the pallete, or should you change it, adding more tones?
What would you put in the middle? I will definitelly put an @Overhotspot@, but, something else? A police plaque? The guy is going to be a detective...
And, yeah... the BG is a Police Quest 3 one, it's just for filling the image... Don't mind it.
Thanks... ^_^
P.S. After the questions, paintovers are wellcome too...
I don't see the purpose of both having look + examine and ask + talk...
the open and close icons are fine, they were easy to read.
in the middle: a private eye logo? maybe...
All of the icons seemed pretty intuitive to me. I think they work fine. Open/close...well I prefer to have the "open" box as the Open action, that makes the most sense to my brain :P
Boney: looking at something and actually examining something are completely different actions. As is talking to someone and asking someone someting.
but a conversation can include both questions and comments...
and having two icons for something that is basically the same thing is one icon too much...
Examine and look is a difference I've seen in some Adventure games and it makes sense to me, specially in a detective game. One think is to look to a jacket "This seems to be an old jacket" and the other to examine it "The jacket has a matchbox of the Shaman Pub in the pocket".
Same for asking and telling... Shit, this post is almost exact to Becky's... :(
I agree. Since this is a police-based game, you could think of it as the difference between 'Converse' and 'Interrogate'. And at the risk of repeating Becky (again, since Nacho posted while I was typing) 'Look' and 'Examine' is a logical distinction in this case. Or look at the first Gabriel Knight game, which had the same options.
The only icon I couldn't immediately get was 'Give' - perhaps because of where it is, I thought it was 'Carry'. Knowing what it is, however, it makes perfect sense and the rest are fine. Still, I'd certainly explain the icons in a ReadMe and if you don't have anything in mind for the middle, adding an '@OVERHOTSPOT@' with mode might make sense too. For the background, I think a police badge/shield would work (is that what you meant? Like is on the lectern in the temporary BG), but maybe lower its opacity so it doesn't stand out too much against the blue.
I had problems identifying the "pick up" symbol. I'd use a hand or something.
I had trouble guessing the meaning of pick up and give icons. From the arrow I guessed pick up would be something like lift, so not too far off. I first though give would be then push, but when I saw push icon and counting what's left I figured it was give. Also on the first time around I couldn't make up what the guy was doing in the pickup icon. Was he carrying a rock or what :)
So yes I would explain them in readme. Palette is good for a GUI and open-close are good as they are.
For the center I must say I'm not a fan of something that I feel is not absolutely necessary in a GUI. I always used shortcuts for commands when they where available so the verb buttons usually come unnecessary for me. And somehow I think the center is a little narrow for @OVERHOTSPOT@ or would it be multiple rows? What I would personally do is to pack verbs and inventory in two rows and have @OVERHOTSPOT@ on top of them, maybe even on transparent background if background size is not decided yet.
Howdy!
Yeah, I pretty much sussed them all out, with the exception of "pickup" which I did by a process of elimation. I assumed that one of the icons must be pickup so therefore it must be the one left over. I still can't work out what the icon is supposed to be, I'm afraid.
I like the consistency, except for the "look at" which breaks that consistency - every other icon is black outlined and a discrete object(s) or part of an object on a sandy backdrop.
The only other issue I have is that the blue arrows you use indicate reletive movement of the object you're interacting with (pull towards me, push away, pick up to me, give away, etc). On "Open" and "close", the arrows don't work for me because there's no reletive character like in the other icons with arrows. Perhaps you could do a different style arrow, like an arc almost like motion lines indicating that the lid has been opened or closed. Since as it is now, to me, these arrows more imply putting something in, or taking something out of the box.
Cheers,
Cap'n Binky
Push and Pull are great, though!
QuoteI still can't work out what the icon is supposed to be, I'm afraid.
I see it as a figure in blue trousers and a brown jacket, kneeling down to pick up something by his knees. The head is out of the frame, and the arm covers the 'break' between the legs - which might be confusing some people? Making it look like a single round blue mass rather than two legs.
Like zabnat, I first saw it as 'Lift', before realising it was 'Pick Up' - I think that 'Lift' is what made me see 'Give' as 'Carry', the character has his arms extended, to hold a box or something.
Quote from: Ashen on Wed 20/09/2006 14:39:00
I see it as a figure in blue trousers and a brown jacket, kneeling down to pick up something by his knees.
Ah yes! Obvious when you know what you're looking at ;D
I must say I did not have any difficullities understanding them
And I also think they are nice but to explain them in the readme could be a good idea :).
I likes the colours and I agree about what to put in the middle, a police badge and to add the @Overhotspot@ would be nice.
Adding the activated verb to the @Overhotspot@ would normally eliminate problems of icon-readability, eg. "Open" when clicked changes to "Open door" when mouse over door.
You could have the police plaque slowly come in, piece by piece, as a sort of reward for doing well in the game. Or you could award different medals/plaques for reaching different acheivements in the game.
Hey guys, I wanted to come and say that I am reading the comments... I will try to upload updated work asap, with new icons... I am taking all the advises in consideration.
I endorse the distinction between look and examine and between talk and interrogate. Bravo!
The only buttons I'm not sure about are open and close. They appear on many GUIs, not just this one, but they seem unnecessary to me. You can rarely open something that's open, nor can you close something that's closed. To my mind in most circumstances you'd just need an open/closed icon.
"Pick up" was the only I couldn't get. At first I also confused "open" and "close" with "put in" and "take out". You might want to do what Captain Binky suggested about changing the arrows for "open" and "close." I also agree with Ali that you probably don't need these as separate actions, but one action that toggles (if it's already open, you close it, and vice versa). I think people will figure out what these do pretty quickly if they're actually playing the game, but you may want to include a readme that tells people beforehand.
As for the middle, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by @overhotspot@. But how about a large picture of whatever the player is examining or has currently selected in their inventory? If this is a detective game, you could provide some visual clues besides just relying on what the player tells you about the item.
I too found the pick up and look icons confusing. I was wondering...."Pray icon"? WOW! That would be useful in a game! I know it might break the consistency and style of the icons, but I would have another person in the GIVE icon (who is recieving). I also had some confusion with the OPEN and CLOSE icon. It looked like a PUT IN and TAKE OUT icon (something to do with inventory?). Perhaps you can use a door instead of a box? I guess for me there is a clearer connection between DOOR and OPEN than with BOX and OPEN.
For ease of use you could have text pop up along with the mouse when you move it over one of the icons?
Here it is... The badges in the middle are the typical plaques the cops have in their chests "Valkowiak", and things like that... There I'll contruct the sentences "VERB/THIS/with THAT" (I.e: "Use" "Gun" on "Criminal"), I hope it will make sense and will make the icons "recognisability" less necessary.
Now I am more open to see paintovers if someone feels like could help ^_^.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a214/La_Lore/Critics%20Lounge/GUI2.png)
And thanks for all, guys... :)
Actually I just now understood how the person was in the pickup icon :) Maybe it could have something in his händ that he's picking up? And somehow the look icon pops out being different than all others. But I don't know if just an eyeball would work there. Give icon is much better now and the colors are better now.
I really like the way the background of the middle piece looks now. I think the new colour scheme is much better.
Hi,
I agree with everyone else that the new colour scheme is much nicer - much more "police-y". Personally, I would do something more like this...
(http://www.cgempire.com/forgottenelement/lemmyandbinky/Gui_edit.gif)
...for the "look" icon though, to make it more consistent with the other icons.
Cheers,
Cap'n Binky
edit: Just noticed... have you swapped the direction of the arrows for the "open" and "close" icons? They're a bit confusing to me now... I'm not sure whether the first icon is an open box which can be "closed" and the second box a closed box to be "opened" or whether it's the other way round. It was clearer to me (but it may just be me :)) the way it was before. My head wants the open verb to be before the closed verb, but that's not how I read it. If the first icon is "close" perhaps just swapping them round would make it all alright.
Capt: For me makes sense that "Open" must be done in a "closed" box... And vice-versa. But I agree, that adventre game players are more used to see first "open", than "close". Freudian thing? Too used to Lucasarts? Dunno, but I flipped it...
I dont like the badges in the middle very much, I think they draw too much attention to be that insignificant to the game itself.
You could add something more original, I dont know, maybe a police radio (like in Syberia where you clicked in the mobile icon to make calls and other stuff) or the main character face so we can see his expressions as he talks or do something, etc.
Well those are not very original maybe...
Great GUI by the way.
Someone gave me some good advice once: if you have to tell the player what an icon is then you might as well not use an icon. Why have arrows if the image can adequately (and should) describe what the icon is doing? I did an example edit to show you what I mean.
1. Made the gui more reflective like polished metal.
2. Removed the arrows as they were redundant.
3. Changed some of the icons to make their use more obvious.
4. Added some shading to the gui using existing colors and to make the design consistent.
(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/Gui_edit.gif)
(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/Gui_edit.gif)
Hopefully you will see what I'm talking about. Hope this helps.
I think ProgZmax nailed it. Nice work! (I'm sure you're tired of hearing how great you are! :))
You still might want to work on the "pick up" icon a little. Right now it looks more like "hold". My first thought is to rotate the hand 90 degrees (so it's reaching down from the top) and add a floor. You could have the hand just about to pick up the object (which is still sitting on the floor).
QuoteRight now it looks more like "hold"
I'm not sure this is an issue since simply holding something wouldn't be a useful game icon (unless you're able to wield weapons and such, hence why I made the pickup object a generic sphere and not something specific).
Quote from: ProgZmax on Sat 23/09/2006 01:39:23I'm not sure this is an issue ...
Yeah, it's just a minor comment. If you leave it the way it is I think it will be fine. Either way ....
Quote from: zabnat on Fri 22/09/2006 00:32:22
Actually I just now understood how the person was in the pickup icon :) Maybe it could have something in his händ that he's picking up?
Actually, I have to agree here. A little more work is needed to clarify the icons (ProgZmax's doesn't quite do it for me). I think the open and close ones need a rethink too.
QuoteWhy have arrows if the image can adequately (and should) describe what the icon is doing?
I don't have a problem with the arrows in principle. To me, having arrows is not really any different to putting speed lines on a cartoon panel. They just indicate movement or the direction of interaction. Without the arrow, the "open" icon just looks like a brick and relies on the "close" icon next to it to give it any sort of context.
In fact, most icon standards will include arrows and other symbolic overlays to add meaning to the icons. XP (like it or loathe it) uses arrows for move, open, refresh, etc and in most cases the icon wouldn't make any sense without them. I don't think using this sort of principle is a bad thing at all. I do however agree with this statement:
Quoteif you have to tell the player what an icon is then you might as well not use an icon.
in that if you require a
textual description to go alongside an icon, then the icon is largely redundant.
Cap'n Binky
hmm, why not have the open and close icon animated?
open, a closed box opening (when mouse is over it offcourse)
and close, a open box closing.
anyway, when I see the box I think of the open box for opening and the closed to close.
I really liked Progz edit as it gives it a bit more "life".
for example push and pull look alot better his way.
OK, Im not an edit genious as you can see xD
But I did this in order to show my idea of changing the badges for a close-up of the character face showing expressions as he talks or something happens, I also tried to make the GUI more metallic :S
(http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/3972/clipboard02hx4.jpg)
Sorry I know is a bit rough =P