Examples of good UI

Well, I just drove back and it's cooler here in the office than it was up there. Long day though. LOL

Just quickly due to time constraints,

I felt that SW's UI was headed in the right direction. It was just never completely/finished. It was half done. A good UI is a consistant and extensively customisable UI. One that makes use of screen realestate. SW's UI was always only half of this (8perhaps a third!). Things were half 'moved' to the FMT's way of doing things (why oh why leave out 'center dim text' and all teh other right click options etc that you use ALL THE TIME!).

The space in the FMT is so totally wasted its not funny. So much wasted space! A good example (perhaps not the best but still...) is 3D Studio MAX. It usues very similar appraches to SW's direction in this regard. They make good use of space. They are consistant to boot! And its a fast and snappy UI!

All these things are BLINDINGLY obvoius points that anyone that has any common sense at all and uses the software to do even but a smal amount of things, will realise very quickly are "no brainer" flaws.

/end rant. :P

-HoffY

Sorry just one point i forgot to mention.

Some people have said they dont care how pretty it looks, that it doesnt matter. I beg to differ. I feel a consistant and quality UI is much easier and i.e. faster to use. And at the end of the day if i'm looking at and using something all day, i want it to at least look cool!

I don't think the amount of work put into creating a nice looking UI is in any way a waste of effort. Especially when you consider the oppsotie (sorry CATIA lovers but that UI looks so Win 3.11). :P

Over all the directon SWCorp have in this is acceptable. Just not added to or advanced upon. (i should be able to change icon sizes and resolutions.. se prior post re customizing). Which again should point out also one fo the big positives in what i feel is agood UI... user options! Yeah its complex... but you can't simplify something that is complex. If you can, then it aint complex is it! Everyone that uses CAD loves complexity, thats why we're here to create complex things! :)

HoffY ( snipped-for-privacy@no.com) wrote in news:sqKdnZ8uf9 _MdkrbnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Excellent point. I forgot to go off on a rant about how sluggish the SW UI is (in this thread, anyhow). From a user experience point of view, SW _feels_ slow. Independent of rebuild time, this contributes significantly to the perception of SW being slow on all but small assemblies. Frequently, I can wait for one or several seconds for SW to recover after dragging a note in a drawing. Bad, naughty, evil UI!

The HP Macro Set. ;-)

Jerry Steiger Tripod Data Systems "take the garbage out, dear"