Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

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henke37
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by henke37 »

Let's see:
  • The tab order for the characters tab doesn't include the checkbox nor the dropdowns or the buttons.
  • The big insert character buttons doesn't look like buttons.
  • The add a custom pose button doesn't even remotely look like a button.
  • It is not obvious that the boxes in the profile/evidence tabs are text fields.
  • The drop downs in the editor looks like they are too small heightwise.
  • The plus sign button is very unclear. Even when thinking about it I have no idea what it is for.
  • The speaker badge is unintutive when it switches between being a textfield and a drop down. Controlls should stick to just one type at a time.
  • The point at picture action lacks any and all forms of setting the position. I am just going to assume that it's just not coded yet.
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Unas »

Thanks for your answers :-)

Henke :
The tab order for the characters tab doesn't include the checkbox nor the dropdowns or the buttons.
I haven't worried about keyboard navigation yet. However, now that I test it, it does seem to work fine on the characters tab, using Firefox 4. The problems are on the storyboard tab since there are menus that pop up and so on.
henke37 wrote:The drop downs in the editor looks like they are too small heightwise.
I noticed something like that on Chromium, but Firefox 4 should display them properly. Some details I have to fix, I guess.
henke37 wrote:The plus sign button is very unclear. Even when thinking about it I have no idea what it is for.
The speaker badge is unintutive when it switches between being a textfield and a drop down. Controlls should stick to just one type at a time.
Yeah, the "Plus" label was only temporary, and I haven't replaced it yet. It's here to dissociate the Speaker name from the character synchronised with speech.
When you select from the normal drop down, all is managed automatically, but when you dissociate them you can enter a different name manually in the text field while keeping things synchronised if you want.
henke37 wrote:The point at picture action lacks any and all forms of setting the position. I am just going to assume that it's just not coded yet.
Indeed, it's just not coded. Like several other parameter types that are only text fields at the moment but shall be improved in the future.
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Meph »

I've submitted my answers. Although, I might be bias, since I've been using development builds for months, now. :P
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Unas »

Meph wrote:I've submitted my answers.
Thanks.
You should pay more attention to what is said though, the first post clearly mentions the custom pose screen is not ready at all so commenting on it isn't pertinent :-P
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by TrialmanAKASoma Cruz »

I've submitted my answers today, can't remember what time at all.
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Meph »

Unas wrote:You should pay more attention to what is said though, the first post clearly mentions the custom pose screen is not ready at all so commenting on it isn't pertinent :-P
Oh. I didn't notice that point. :oops:
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Milkmanfire »

:oops: Everyone here sounds so smart, well it's time to talk anyway...Most of the problems I had have already been stated, but the only problem I had was overlapping during sprite layout it was very hard to fit that third sprite in there, but I know it's only temporary and I also have done the questionnaire. I hope a feeble registered user has helped the Admins and mods. :calisto:
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Unas »

All answers are useful ;-) , especially since the questionnaire is supposed to show me a general tendency - I need to have a lot of people answering it for it to be really representative.
Thanks !
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Hodou Okappa »

I'm going to be brutally honest here -- so far, not a fan. I did the questionnaire, but I feel the need to address a few huge issues:
  • I can't STAND the way sounds/music are done in Storyboard. The drop down list that appears when you hover gets in the way of other buttons and just generally looks messy. It should be implemented into the design of the frame editor rather than just a spontaneously-appearing hoverover. I need to point out just how big of a problem this is for me -- if the final version is like this, I may seriously be tempted to use only the most minimal amounts of music and sounds in my trials. It would prevent me from taking advantage of one of my favorite parts of trial making, it's that annoying.
  • The sprite selection takes more work than it did before, and feels less intuitive. It took me a while to realize I had to choose which side of the courtroom the characters were on.
  • In the sprite selection, there NEEDS to be a way to preview sprites while still on the drop down list. The way it is now (basically, pick a sprite from the list and hope it was the right one) is incredibly tedious now, since the lists are big enough that we need to scroll through them.
  • The Remove button on sprite selection doesn't work. I put Edgeworth in a frame with Phoenix and he was just permanently there -- had to change his alignment to get him off the screen.
  • Sprites shouldn't default to the center of the courtroom. If a background is set in advance, they should probably default to where that background is -- otherwise, can't you logically make defense default to left, prosecution default to right, witnesses to center, etc? -_- I mean, it's a complete pain, and though I can see where AAI cases might need it, it needlessly complicates normal trials.
  • The arrow next to the name looks messy. I'd suggest blending it in better or maybe removing it and just let clicking on the name open the dropdown list. This one's nitpicking, though.
  • A great number of the new options are totally unexplained and unintuitive, leaving me confused. For example, what is the second, white box on top of the text boxes that appears to let you choose another name? Also pertaining to this box, once it's open the primary name box can no longer be touched for some reason.
  • Another unintuitive bit -- how on earth do we do Objections?!
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Unas »

First, thanks for your answers. :)
Hodou Okappa wrote:
  • I can't STAND the way sounds/music are done in Storyboard. The drop down list that appears when you hover gets in the way of other buttons and just generally looks messy. It should be implemented into the design of the frame editor rather than just a spontaneously-appearing hoverover. I need to point out just how big of a problem this is for me -- if the final version is like this, I may seriously be tempted to use only the most minimal amounts of music and sounds in my trials. It would prevent me from taking advantage of one of my favorite parts of trial making, it's that annoying.
[*]In the sprite selection, there NEEDS to be a way to preview sprites while still on the drop down list. The way it is now (basically, pick a sprite from the list and hope it was the right one) is incredibly tedious now, since the lists are big enough that we need to scroll through them.
First, on thing I should say : the media selector menus will be changed, it is already planned, and should feature navigable subcategories (so that the list dont be so long) and previsualisation. :wink:

As for the issue of having the menu appearing on hover, I do think it makes the interface lighter. (Not to mention the performance aspect which "forced" me not to generate them in the frame row)
However, could you elaborate how it's actually more annoying than V5, which requires opening a submenu, selecting and confirming for doing the same job ? :|
Hodou Okappa wrote:
  • The Remove button on sprite selection doesn't work. I put Edgeworth in a frame with Phoenix and he was just permanently there -- had to change his alignment to get him off the screen.
  • Another unintuitive bit -- how on earth do we do Objections?!
  • A great number of the new options are totally unexplained and unintuitive, leaving me confused. For example, what is the second, white box on top of the text boxes that appears to let you choose another name? Also pertaining to this box, once it's open the primary name box can no longer be touched for some reason.
These are respectively a bug, a not-implemented-yet and a not-completely-implemented-yet features - the system is far from finished, as I said in the first post.
As for the unexplained part, a documentation should be released for V6 to explain its behaviour in all situations, but most default settings of a frame (or a character or a piece of evidence) should be fine for simple uses.
Hodou Okappa wrote:Sprites shouldn't default to the center of the courtroom. If a background is set in advance, they should probably default to where that background is -- otherwise, can't you logically make defense default to left, prosecution default to right, witnesses to center, etc? -_- I mean, it's a complete pain, and though I can see where AAI cases might need it, it needlessly complicates normal trials.
Would an "auto place" feature for character solve the problem ? So you would only have to select the talking character, and it would set the place, the position of the character, and the position of the screen; an evolution of the Auto-bg feature, as a matter of fact ?
I was planning to include that anyway.
Or do you think an "auto-position" that would apply as default setting to any scene would be better ?
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by henke37 »

I think that the bg, the fg and the character position should all be grouped into one preset.
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Unas »

That's what I meant in the first alternative I mentioned :-)
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by henke37 »

My point is that it's not linked to a character. Your alternative makes it quite clear that it would be linked to one.
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Meph »

Hodou Okappa wrote:[*]The arrow next to the name looks messy. I'd suggest blending it in better or maybe removing it and just let clicking on the name open the dropdown list. This one's nitpicking, though.[/list]
The arrow is added by the browser, because it is a <select> element (which is what makes the dropdown menus ;) ). We can't easily remove it (unless Unas creates his own, which he may do).
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Re: Development news: Editor preview and usability testing

Post by Hodou Okappa »

Going back to V5, the music setting is technically more work. But for some reason V6 feels harder for me... I think it could just be an adjustment thing.

In any case, my biggest problem with that aspect is just that it looks messy when the list appears. The way it pops up when you hover over bothers me -- I feel like it should either permanently be there (which would require expanding the frame size a little to prevent overlap) or it should be triggered some other way (perhaps clicking on the music note, which is now kind of a pointless symbol otherwise?)

My other problems sound like they're mostly going to be fixed, so I'm sure I'll be fine with it when it comes out. The thing that really needs to be fixed is just the way characters are auto-placed to the center, because it makes setting sprites in a frame needlessly complicated and I can see that some brand new users could be confused by this. Still, if auto-placement was changed properly, then the way you place characters would become intuitive enough.

Another question: I know I should probably know this already, but since you're planning to implement so many other aspects of AAI, will there also be moving investigation portions, or will those still be limited to the typical PW style?
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