Help designing the screen of a policial interface... Thanks!

[Nacho]

Here are two versions of something I am trying to archieve... Make a screen of a PDA, it must be functional and attractive. The game is serious, so I am not sure if Dart's avatar works...Ã, 

The game is set in the near future (more or less like demolition man, I, robot...) And Lisa is a policial interface between Sentinel (a web of cyborgs with sensors) and the (human) agents... LLOYD is the main program who rules it all (Imagine HAL).

Lisa is supposed to be a humanoid interface, that's what I am trying to get with the upper left window...

I don't know if this can be improved... I wanted to give you the opportunity to help me, since that LISA is a very important part of the game.

P.S: Help for the acronym accepted, but it must LISA and explain more or less what lisa is.

[MarVelo]

It looks really excellent!

[Stefano]

I think it looks great!

If this was my game, I would change some things, though:
1. smaller screens usually have smaller interface elements, such as close buttons, scrollbars, etc. That's because each milimeter is precious when you have so little space to display all the information. I would shrink these elements! 
2. (just my personal oppinion) Unless you have a reason to do so, why use Windows XP icons (messanger doll, recycle bin, short cut indication, etc.)? I think your interface would look even cooler if the icons were all original.

It's a really cool design. Keep us posted!

Cheers,
Stefano

[Nacho]

Yes, I think it's a matter of my "logical mind". I was talking to it with Helm in Mittens. If I paint a futuristic vehicle, I just can't do it imagining some kind of anti-gravity device, I just gotta doo all the afterburners and stuff...

Same with the icons, I assumed that Microsoft was going to be the referecne for many many years, so I think I am being "logical" again.

I'll give a try.

[Scavenger]

The work area seems to be very small. Horizontal scrolling bars are annoying... I'm sure that they're not the most comfortable things to work with. It's certainly not the case with web browsers.  There's a lot of wasted space, too. I don't think you need the explaination of the acronym on the interface itself. It might be good on an ABOUT page, or a startup sequence, or even mentioned in conversation?

Question: What will LISA's mugshot be doing during the time on the PDA? I think it would be cool if she looked around, and talked when prompted. Makes it seem more alive. Or do you only have the one photo?

[Nacho]

The scroll bars are going out... I don't know how to script them, anyway...

About LISA... Ok... I'll ask the "model". I had in mind to animate her, but I thought that was too much work for nothing. If people sees so evident that it needs an animation, I'll give a try.

Thanks for the replies, but I need more!

[Nikolas]

How much of the computer screen will this screen of LISA take?

Because here, it's shown a bit small and it does give the impression that there is no space at all. I will have to agree with Stefano to reduce all the buttons. Even the Locate Capture and Ask LISA. Too much space for three buttons. And of course the recycle icon looks huge again.

But if it takes half of the computers screen, this could be ok...

[Nacho]

Here it is the new version. I preffer it so much. The bar bellow is intented to be a place where you can write. Then it'll appear the message by LISA in the middle of the blue screen, as in the example.



*NOTE* The message by Lisa is a silly comentary I wrote for showing how LISA should work. No offense, that is not a real message, Chris is alive.

P.S.


My mate Darth Mandarb is trying to help me!

[Sam.]

heh, lance.

looking good farl, maybe need a border around the response area, just so it is clearly defined

[LilBlueSmurf]

Hey, I took a crack at a quick redesign.Ã,  It isn't finished (like save/load icons etc) and there are some somewhat big differences from the other versions.Ã,  Would do more since I rather enjoyed this for some reason, but I am going to bed.  (I kind of assumed people would play this at at least 640, if not full screen, so some of the stuff is a little hard to see unless you go x2 or more in size.  BTW, if you want any of this junk, I got it all in layers in a psd so just ask.

[Nacho]

It'll be in low res, so, what you see is going to be the full screen. Wow, that rocks, lilBlue, thanks!

[Mozesh]

Keeps getting better, I like it and that's a real nice one lilblue.

[Stefano]

I liked the L.I.S.A logo.
Here's a quick edit, to give you diagramation ideas:

[edmundito]

I decided to go to a different direction:



I'll explain myself:

- I used the Windows XP-ish colors just because it's a good start. it's not the definite colors, I was working on the placement of everything a lot more

- There's a few reasons why everything is so confined.
1) it's a PDA and the screen is small. You gotta make the most room out of it.
2) if you're using a stylus (which I recommend will be the cursor for it!), then you're bound to miss if there's edges between buttons... that way if you tap the top right corner, the program will close, and if you tap the top left corner, the tasks list will pop up.
3) back to point 1. I decided to put all these taks under a menu because they fit much better in there. Sure you could put fancy icons next to every name, but I decided not to because it takes a lot longer to add them and I don't have that much spare time!

PS- you do know PDAs are usually viewed vertically, right? I mean, it's the future and all, but what would be the reason why they changed from horizontal view to vertical?

[esper]

For form and function, I would agree with you on everything, but this is a game... All text is wearisome to gameplayers.

[Nacho]

Thank for all suckers! Now I don't know which design to use!!! 

J/K... I think Lil's design is the best, while maybe not the most realistic, but this is a game. Anyway, that is giving me a lot of ideas, and Darth has told me to do more than one screen, so maybe I can include a "root" screen with the lovely direct access to the games (P:DA, JP, BJ2...) and some other with Edmundo's big message screen.

[Ishmael]

About the "direction" of PDAs... If I don't recall wrong, in Doom 3 the PDA as a device was horizontal, but the screen was vertical when it showed up to you

[edmundito]

Yeah, I was thinking of doom3 myself, too...

Anyways, one last thought is that I think when working on these pda interfaces you gotta think about two important things:

1) The user input is a stylus pen
2) The resolution on the PDA is limited, and it's a small screen

I actually liked the layout smurf did, and it's a good choice, but if you make a few changes thinking about point 1 and 2, then I think it would feel like it's a PDA interface instead of a general gui...

It's almost like developing a character, really... there has to be reasons why something or someone is such a way, you know?

[Haddas]

Say... If you use a pen, will the Cursor be a pen? I hope so. That would be a cool cursor. Think about it.