Infraction for amz370: Profile Infraction

Kaubel · 07/24/07, 6:09 PM

Post: Pimp My UI: The Art of Interface Design
User: amz370
Infraction: Profile Infraction
Points: 1

Administrative Note:

Message to User:

For someone who doesn't play WoW (according to your profile), you sure do have a lot to say about your current UI.

Original Post:

Originally Posted by Spider

Having a set of bars with relative max-length is a total disaster, and should be avoided at all costs, when designing a graph-based, you really have to have a "common min/max" set for them to show relatively consistent information that is actually useful. Please tell me you don't know anyone who'd actually -use- such a UI?

THIS is the reason i switched from bar version of dotimer to icon and actual time. Yes you're right it takes more processing time to read the time than it did bars, but as you mentioned seeing 4 or more debuffs per target (upwards of 5 or 6 latent targets) all at various time but on the same realative size bar is very confusing. admittedly as a warlock whose been using the same dot rotation for months my timing is almost memorized. But for curses, which change with the blink of an eye especially its nice to see the time and be able to look wile i cast my next shadow bolt and see, "oh after this is done i can begin my dot cycle again and be just on time" or "uh oh, my curse of doom expired ten seconds ago on that damn phase shifted bulwark"

As for the comment of speed of a ui, i find speed to be the ultimate factor, The ui i designed originally came about because i was back seat raid leading, as my gm of the time was, well, incompetent. As such i had to see who was alive etc and i needed to know quick. Now i don't need all the info i have, but it sure is nice to see an incoming heal on our mt when hes down to 4k life. Best part of grid, that and aggro monitoring. Sure i dont need to see a single raid member, /tar works fine for quick soulstones, but its that extra bit of info that i can look at and see, "well 15 people are dead, lifetap hellfire time".

I find that a GOOD ui gives you no more and no less info than you need at any given point. The way my ui is designed is to break up my view. I have the main screen with very little clutter other than info that is pertanant at all times. SCT (which is whittled down to direct dmg, incoming heals over 500 incoming dmg, hits/crits/misses and various warnings) Dottimer just above unit frames, and boss mods. For the most part my view is unobstructed. I then have 2 bars a tiny one at the top for buffs and other things i dont need to look a every second, and then my main bottom bar which houses ora2 timers, buttons minimap chat frame combat log etc. The idea is at any time i can quickly glance down to a place on that bottom bar and see threat, or raid really quickly and at the same time maybe see something else nice too, like a cooldown soon to be up.

Receiving info quickly and acting upon it is essential to any activity, game, job. If you delay in a raid it will result in one of many things, either it being an over all lack of dps (half a second delay once is one thing, but if you delay once, you will delay again, and again decreasing dps) lack of crucial heals at proper times, or in appropriate over heals why hit your life taping warlock with an extra 8k worth of heals if you don't need to, maybe some one else needs them? Loss or gain of aggro, this is a big one, delays on a soulshatter or fade or taunt can cost hours of work, tons of gold farmed for consumables and more.

A slow ui benefits no one and hurts more than just you

Friends don't let friends play with out bindings