Quick Access for click economy (mouse clicking).

[Remis]

Quick Access for click economy (mouse clicking).
Desired: 1 or 2 clicks
Reality: 3+ plus clicks

Example Map access from character sheet. but there are many others.

Previous:
Used to be 2 (open character sheet -> Portrait). [3 clicks if you then closed the character sheet]
Issue: No good feedback to player that they are not on a map.
Issue: Not fully intuitive that you had to click the Portrait to maybe open a map (likely a partial reason for the most recent change).

Recent Change:
4-5 clicks (open/click character sheet -> open/click Portrait -> click map? icon -> close Pictures and Tokens Window-> close character sheet)
Issue: double the number of clicks to get to the map you may be on, and close the windows you may not use regularily
Issue: No more intuitive as you still click the the Portrait for unknown capabilities
Issue: No good feedback to player that they are not on a map.
Issue: 'buttons' don't look interactive


And there are many example of this type of 'UI' punishment of users. It would perhaps be less of an issue having multiple windows open if you were able to pop them out onto another monitor and there was indication of activation and ability to interact. but buttons don't often look interactive, and you can't open windows out of the main app window.



:confused::bandit:

[Griogre]

I agree with you in general. However they were trying to do some refinement of the interface (which is tough after its been in place this long) and setting up for some new features.

To two action open the map a character is on: Open the player combat tracker; double click the PC token on the combat tracker. You're right, a "beep" or system wrong sound would be a good response if the token is not on a map.

The portrait selection is a mess and is still in an early stage of iteration. They are going to allow multiple portraits for a character, I'm not an insider but presumably it will allow portrait changes based on different circumstances, ie new features.

[Zacchaeus]

As @Griorge says the easiest way to open the map that the character is on is double clicking on the token area of the Combat Tracker. (This is new functionality for players - the DM always had this).

Players always have their character sheet open anyway so really there's only one extra click if you use the character sheet to open the map. Additionally there is now an option in options to Restore windows on start. This will open all of the windows that were open when FGU last closed when you open up the campaign again. Using this will negate the need to do any clicking - unless you close down all your windows before exiting of course - so really we have gone from 3 clicks to none at all.

[Remis]

Opening the map was one example, which I mentioned because it is a pretty regular action.
I will agree to disagree that it is better.
The additional issue with the UX is having multiple ways to do the same thing (i.e. the new functionality to open from Combat Tracker), and it previously having different behavior for player and DM.

The underlying issues remain.

Unintuitive interface with unclear results.
1. Buttons don't look interactive and even if they are, they may have no result.
2. Unclear intent: you have to know to click the token to bring up another window that has another icon you need to click to open the map or you have to know to click your token in the combat tracker (which prev did not work)

I am not arguing about that particular map feature, just that thought should be put into how often an action occurs and ease of use. There are many basic UX guidelines out there, and FGU violates many of them needlessly.

[LordEntrails]

Yes FGU violates many of the various conflicting UX guidelines. The devs know this and are working to improve the UX experience. They have chosen not to try to re-design the UX in one step. Probably for two reasons; the time it would take to do such (and that such is not per agile methodology) and that it would alienate all the existing users who actually like the current UX experience.

While they do these incremental changes, we (the users) should expect some changes that are incremental in nature. And sometimes this means small steps backwards or sideways. This also is in keeping with an agile approach; small changes allow them to receive user input to help focus future direction, and continuously deliver small improvements instead of large quarterly or yearly updates.

If you notice, community feedback such as your is critical to agile being successful. So it's important for us (the community) to provide this feedback. But, we need to understand the place and usefulness of such feedback. Generic feedback such as "And there are many example of this type of 'UI' punishment of users" does not provide actionable feedback. But, "Buttons don't look interactive and even if they are, they may have no result." is great feedback. And so you know is something they have already talked about resolving, incrementally.