Wow, give Enzo a break
I don't usually comment here, but I see his point and must defend his attitude here.

Michael I am surprised you disregard his opinion, you say that Enzo is one of these pretentious artist types who think they know better, but reading your comments, I can easily turn it around as saying you sound like those pretentious engineer types, who disregard simple aesthetics rules as irrelevant in the big scheme of things.

Now all the time I am working in Moi, I am working on details, aesthetics, fine tuning each detail I have spent 7 years in school learning and practicing for 10 years.

Sure you can defend any aesthetics decision by saying its subjective, but there are believe it or not some rules, color schemes, layout, font use, icons color... for most part Moi has made it good. its 90% right but those 10 percent just irritate the hell out of me, and make this look like a 200 dollar software. Now let me emphasize these are details, easy to fix graphics.

Let me list some points:

Advantages of Moi GUI!

1. Moi UI is clean, simple and easy to use!
2. The color scheme is not the most important factor when talking about aesthetics. I personally find the color scheme nice, different and low key.

Attached is a screenshot and some notes what I see wrong with the interface layout.

olio,
I was in opposition to Enzo. If you look back you will see that most of the opposition was due to his just voicing an opinion and never providing anything specific. You, on the other hand, have provided something that can actually be discussed and worked with. Without anything concrete- it's just personal, and for someone who believes in the software and uses it, that makes it hard to take from someone who doesn't use it and is merely finding fault with it.

I actually see what you're saying and for the most part agree with your changes. The part that I don't is the icon reduction to 80%. Maybe the other elements could be enlarged. I don't think you are taking into account screen size, screen resolution and, well, people like me who need things just a bit larger to see them. Reducing resolution to make an icon a little more visible takes away from modeling space.

Also, I haven't made any changes to my interface, but I'm pretty sure these changes can already be made, actually without any intervention at all from Michael. I also believe that was a point that was made. If you'd like I can bone up on MOI UI customization and make those changes for you?

About the crammed text : seems you have not regulated your Screen at the maximum! ;)


For the rest maybe some constraints exist between maximum "Work screen" and maximun place for text under the "work screen"

Yeah... but it's AESTHETICS right? It's not as if this damages functionality and prevents people from using it, which is what Enzo claims in the original post (well, maybe it prevents Enzo). The over-reaction lies with Enzo, not the other MoI users or Michael.

Pratically speaking, the problem with small changes like the ones you suggest is that "fixing" them in a certain way may satisfy YOU but is so subjective that it will probably simultaneously annoy someone else. I had never even noticed the blue arrow before, for example. This is trivial stuff. Even assuming that you are right and that the aesthetics need improving (and I personally disagree) Michael is only one man. There are only 24 hours in a day. He cannot do everything. There must be a prioritised "to do" list and I know I would prefer Michael to be working on something like functions for grouping objects rather than agonising over the exact shade of an arrow or the alignment of the browser button.

This thread is going nowhere. Time to lock it I think...

Dan

It's called Moment of Inspiration for a reason. It's GUI is designed towards the simple goal of materializing your design. It's a dedicated, specialized workflow that puts the work area first and is complimented with a simplified context sensitive menu system that Michael has taken great care not to clutter when new features are added.

Tablet users are not second class citizens in the MOI user community. You can see the forethought and accommodations all throughout the GUI for tablet users. From the number keys that are visible for numerical input, to the default action system present in every feature of MOI.

If that's not enough, you can customize the look and feel of MOI to almost no end. Change the lighting? - no problem, Dont like the grid spacing? - change it then, Dont like the icons? - make and use your own, Want a dark theme? - you got it.

Now, can we get back to being production here folks?

Hello,

I have to disagree about the icon sizing. If it was made smaller it would provide a lesser target and would become more difficult to use. Personally I think the larger icons in MoI are a benefit to faster production. How quickly I can get to the intended target and how inaccurate I can be while still executing the desired command, that is what works, and MoI does this very well IMO. I do not have a spacing problem under the icons on my screen, must be a problem with your setup. Aside from some minor alignment issues the GUI is very nice. I think the imbalance issue is there a bit, but it apparently isn't a deal breaker by any means for the target audience.

Ultimately, the company providing the product should listen to it's customer base, which MG does better than any other that I am aware of. Even if there was a glaring problem with the aesthetics of the product I'm not sure it would really effect the sales. MoI is an exceptional product in it's work flow among other things. It sounds like those knocking it do not come close to appreciating that obvious asset. Perhaps it's because they don't really produce content and/or have no experience with other applications to see how bad it can get.

That is why the vast majority of these usability and aesthetic "initiatives" end in abject failure. If I had to pick I would have to say it is because the aesthetic and usability "experts" do not use the product, nor do they even understand how the product is used by the market. If more companies followed MG's method we would have much better, more usable software.

Olio, real classy coming on and calling MG a pretentious developer of amateur software. By the way, the blue arrow bothers you but not for the reasons you stated. It is the incorrect iconic representation for the task it performs. Way to miss the forest through the trees. Keep practicing.

Hi Olio,

Stating that your program is 'too ugly to use' without giving any pointers is easy to misinterpret!

For me the the interface is excellent but yeah, maybe some small details could use attention.
There are some good points in what you illustrate.
The alignment of the input boxes may probably mean smaller numbers though...

The generic icons ones like history, undo and options could be better but could easily be worse.
I really like all the other icons for functions though.

I gather it's different for everybody.

Maybe general Hue/Saturation/Lightness sliders would be a simple solution for users who doesn't like the current color?

Marc

Olio, nooo I cant believe someone here sees a problem and can demonstrate a level of professionalism.
I have to admit that Michael and the community managed to convince me that the interface is EXACTLY the way it should be.

About your red-marks:
Of course... all of that is so obvious... I can continue the way you started and go on and on.. Come on, lets be honest. The interface is not just slightly bad or slightly childish like someone sad earlier. The attempt for establishing visual relationship between the graphic elements is barely recognizable. I don't blame Michael for not having qualification in this area and even less the hobbyist community. They are what they are. But frankly I am too a little surprised of the attitude he demonstrated.

Another thing is, small changes here and there wont help, only serious intervention could save that thing. But this is not an open-source project and providing Michael with our random suggestions is very wrong way to do it. Please, you and eventually others - don't do that. At least out of respect for the professions we represent. If some day, somehow Michael sees the obvious, he will contract with someone to work hard and put the GUI in shape.

As for the others who don't believe the look of the interface repelled me to the point I decided not to use it – ok, I'll satisfy your curiosity with some details:

Some years ago, like most of my colleagues I used Studio Tools for nurbs surfacing and sketching. I remember we used to think that the interface is kind of cool :) compared to the other software back than. Finally I end up using it for illustrations only, because I switched to the good old Rhino. It is hard to say something good for its interface. It feels and looks ancient. It would require tremendous amount of courage for McNeel guys to redesign it. I continued to spend good amount of time working with my Cintiq and I couldn't believe there is no 3D modeler optimized for tablet use. It looked so natural and the advantages was so obvious to me. I am seldom enthusiastic about software, but when I heard about the first public release of MOI I was so eager to try it. The web site and the interface stroke me with their amateur look, but I knew MOI is one man show. Michael just started it and probably didn't have the financial courage to look for qualified assistance for the graphics, so I didn't even mention that. I even install it and did same small things with it. I wanted to see how it feels and it felt good, but the look.. oh..:) when I looked at my work surrounded by the funny GUI I just couldn't continue. So I decided to give MOI some time to mature and check it back later. Now, since V2 is ready I felt like mentioning that to Michael. Well... now we all know that the problem is not in the money for hiring some one to fix it. And I have another good reason to stay away of it.

By the way lately I have the heretic idea to use polygon modeler for my concept studies and I picked Modo for that. The reason is the overall professionalism Luxology demonstrates, but also for the descent level of styling of their GUI, website, manual and so on. It is true that the market of polygon modelers is over-saturated and a website/GUI like the one of MOI will mean nothing less than suicide. But I think we really should give them the credit because the problem is not that much in the money, it is about vision, management and visual culture.

Yes, I know Michael is alone, and I he has done of course amazing job.

the things i pointed out are trivial no doubt for most people, I don't want to stir things up, i just felt Enzo was treated little unfairly.

But I do think little things like that are important, this is not some kind of excel software for number geeks:), this is a design software right? most of the time we are making tangible things on a virtual screen probably many users are designer or perfectionist, thinking of small details all the time, making aesthetically pleasing renderings with their output to other software.

I know a lot of people who need a super clean environment to do their jobs, can't think if there are two cups of coffee on their table. There is research that indicate that graphic designers feel more creative on the mac, because of the 'clean' look of the mac, they feel they have an uncluttered piece of canvas in front of them. Instead of perhaps the opposite low end PC, that has stickers all over it (INTEL, GEFORCE...). I know it is strange to some but true. Same can go for computer desktop, I can't start a task before I clean my desktop... very subjective i know, but its something I need to do, I get anxiety attack when I see 200 icons of a computer screen desktop:)

"I have the heretic idea to use polygon modeler for my concept studies and I picked Modo for that."

If Modo gives you the desired results then that is the program you should use.

But if UI aesthetics are strongly driving your decision on which program to use, I find that very strange.

My priorities on choosing a software tool (in order) are:

1. Does it produce the results I need?

2. Does it interface and play well with other programs I use? Is the software stable and reliable?

3. Is timely support and documentation available? Is there a user community?

4. Is the company viable, responsive, and continuously improving the product?

5. Is it easy to learn and use?

6. Cost.
.
.

10. Aesthetics ( way down on the list )

I love MoI's clean, friendly interface. It's easy on the eyes and doesn't give me a headache after hours of use. I'm glad MoI doesn't try to overwhelm the user with overly-complicated menus and option boxes or super-sleek UIs that seem convoluted on purpose. Everything serves a purpose. MoI is elegant, consistent and easy-to-use. It works with you rather than against you.

Hi Olio, I actually agree with several of your comments there, I'll address them one by one:


> 1 - "This arrow bothers me, I don't understand why it is dark blue. It should have equal space top, bottom, and right"

This is one that I don't particularly agree with though - the color here is fine.

The spacing is an issue that would be nice to have perfect, however MoI's entire UI is based on a scalable system - that's why it has the unique feature of having a "UI size" slider in options, where you can tweak the size of the UI to whatever you want.

Part of that scalability comes at the cost of not having fixed "to the pixel" spacing in various spots of the UI.

It seems that most of your complaints have to do with that. But hard coding specific pixel spacing in areas would have the bad side effect of also hard coding the UI size as well. MoI's scalable UI is quite useful in many circumstances, especially working on laptops where sometimes the screen is not very large, and also sometimes a laptop screen has a very high DPI and a fixed pixel size UI is too small on it.


> 2 - This text has no breathing space underneath it, it looks like it's crammed down there not in line with anything.

That is again a side effect of the UI scaling mechanism, if you go and tweak the UI size slider up or down just a slight amount you will likely see that particular spacing change to be nicer.


> 3 - These icons look little too big, should reduce them to 80% of the original size.

You mean specifically the Undo/Redo icons? I do agree that those could use some tweaking, probably desaturating them a bit and slightly reducing their size would be a good idea.

However, the idea that you just could not stand to use the undo/redo button because they are just _SO_ ugly and horrible that you can't even bring yourself to click on them is ridiculous - that's basically what the original poster was saying about the UI.

By the way, the Undo/Redo buttons here come from a professional icon designer's icon pack, I did not draw them myself.

One of the really funny things that I've found is that people have said "You should get a professional designer to draw this particular icon, I don't like it", and often times they are referring to an icon that was actually done by a professional designer.

> 4 - Again it don't line up with anything, looks chaotic! Random placement, no structure.

Again, that's something that comes along with having a scalable UI rather than one that is fixed in pixel size.


> 5 - Too big in comparison with the Moi Button next to it.

I agree with this one too, but that one you are complaining about here is modeled closely after the standard Windows minimize/restore images in Windows XP, it's not really something that I just randomly came up with.

I think that I am going to be tweaking these at some point to look more like the newer style min/restore buttons though.


> 6 - Browser button, not in line, looks out of place there...

Where would you expect to find it?


Overall I agree with several of your criticisms.

However, a key thing is that they are all extremely minor quibbles, nothing even vaguely remotely in the vicinity of being "oh so bad that I can't even look at it" as was originally described.

And many of the problems that you find are actually related to having the nice feature of being able to scale the UI to different sizes rather than having it locked at a fixed pixel size.

Overall, I don't find anything that you wrote very convincing that the MoI UI is so terrible and cannot even be looked at, I totally stand by my earlier reply.


- Michael

Hello,

Enzo, I believe a component of "professionalism" entails being a person of your word. Your quote:

"Annoying the visitors of this forum is the opposite of my intention so I will not reply further."

It is apparent by your post you are neither professional or a person of your word. I have a suggestion, why don't you and oilo go back under the bridge and talk among yourselves about how everyone here doesn't "get it", since you have absolutely no constructive input on the matter of interface, usability or aesthetics, other than some lame duck "hire a professional" line. It is showing that you have zero experience dealing with anyone on a professional level. You might want to work on that.

If you are so convinced that a design overhaul is going to skyrocket sales of MoI get your checkbook out and pay for it. See if TSS will be open to that investment of at least six figures to make it worthwhile, and then be held to either hitting a sales figure directly attributable to the design changes or lose your investment entirely. Since you are speaking with such confidence you should have no trouble ponying up the funds and signing the contracts, since it would turn out to be a nice investment for you.

You're not going to do that, because you don't really believe in what you're trying to "sell" to everyone else. If you want to see what professionalism looks like take a look at Mr. Gibsons posts. He is responding in a measured and civil manner to your rants.

Hi Michael,

Well even if these icons are done by a professional designer, that does not make it good automatically! I guess not every Software engineer can make Moi as nicely as you, even though he is a professional software engineer.

And in general everyone should avoid any prepackaged icon libraries, no real professional designer uses these, these are intended most of the time for the average office worker to make their .docx files more pretty.

About that scalability factor that is very nice, but even if you scale the gui up or down you still have the exactly same problem of layout, elements need to line up.

That being said I agree, 90% of Moi is FANTASTIC, even 99%... I am just one of those picky bastards who screams when I see e.g. the font Comic Sans used anywhere.

I have gotten the impression you are all about the details too michael, a perfectionist, that is why I am voicing my concern over silly graphical errors, that should be easily avoided or fixed. I agree this is not something I would look at and disregard the software for, but I honestly don't see these errors from adobe, autodesk...now I know these are huge corporations with probably tens of GUI designers.

Again this is nitpicking, I saw a list earlier listing out more important things, that put this at number 10. probably where I would put it too, but even at number 10 it should be done right.

Hi Enzo, I should have pegged you as a Studio Tools user - that culture just has so much of that pretentious "we are soooo extra more special and professional" than you vibe saturating through it.

We ran into that a lot when I was developing Rhino - at that point Rhino actually used the exact same NURBS library as in Alias Studio, and I saw all kinds of comments from Alias users about how much better their surface quality was when they were actually running the exact same code!

It seems to come from some kind of special "designer name brand" type worship, where the attitude is that obviously something that costs $20,000 is so high class and better than something that costs $1000. I mean how could you miserable unwashed masses even think that you are approaching our lofty perfection?

Needless to say, I am not a particularly big fan of that attitude, I find it distasteful and borderline offensive. Your last post is just dripping with it, with loads of absolutely ridiculous statements.


The bottom line is that it is far more important to focus on things that actually matter, like a smooth and fluid workflow, rather than miniscule pixel tweaks.

Putting such a hysterical emphasis on visuals like you seem to want is just not the right focus for a tool.

I have actually spent quite a bit more effort in improving the visuals of MoI as compared to what I did in Rhino, specifically because I know that there are people out there that have a kind of shallow "judge it by its looks" type outlook. You seem to have one of the most severe cases of that kind of an outlook that I have ever encountered.


It's obvious that MoI is not the right software for you, and that's ok with me, I don't expect for it to be the right fit for every kind of person.


- Michael

Now I really recent that OSTexo.

I really don't comment here often, but this is not very encouraging to continue.

Why are you suggesting I should go with Enzo under a bridge and talk among ourself. I have no relation with Enzo, I tried to point out some minor flaws aesthetically with a picture that was requested.

You say "It is showing that you have zero experience dealing with anyone on a professional level", do you mean every time I don't agree with someone, or someone has a lame argument, I should tell him to go under a bridge?

Sorry Michael I missed it,

I would put the browser button on the left of 'options' or in that row. Now it sneaks in on the right column, so it is like it's part of that right column, like an icon that is supposed to be there with the tools.
Maybe it would be better to make a icon for the browser similar to the 'option' icon, so they would fit nicely in a row together.

thanks mate.

Hi olio,

> About that scalability factor that is very nice, but even if
> you scale the gui up or down you still have the exactly
> same problem of layout, elements need to line up.

Technically it is very difficult to make a system that allows text to scale arbitrarily and to maintain exact lining up of some separate objects.

By making things able to be scaled in size, it just naturally goes along with giving up a bit of "down to the pixel" type spacing.

That's a good example of one of the many kinds of trade-offs that I encounter when designing software - in this case I have judged that being able to scale the UI provides more overall value to more people than having pixel-level control over the kinds of alignments that you were mentioning.


Sometimes it is not possible to solve every single problem all at the same time, you have to prioritize. That can mean that some smaller problems persist because they are a side effect of something else with a greater value.


> I agree this is not something I would look at and disregard
> the software for, but I honestly don't see these errors from
> adobe, autodesk...now I know these are huge corporations
> with probably tens of GUI designers.

They actually don't have the kind of arbitrarily scalable UI that MoI has, and as a consequence they can be difficult to use in many situations, like on a laptop that has a small screen but with a high DPI their buttons are extremely tiny and hard to interact with.


> that is why I am voicing my concern over silly graphical errors

Well, some of the ones you mentioned I agree with, I just have not yet had time to tweak the undo/redo buttons and the min/restore buttons. At some point I'll get to those.

The overall priority of those things has been rather low compared to actually making modeling commands or fixing bugs.

- Michael

Hi olio,

> I would put the browser button on the left of 'options' or in that row.

On a 1024x768 screen there is not enough room to the left of 'options' to contain the browser button.

That's another GUI problem that pixel-oriented graphic artists often fail to deal with, that users are not all running on the exact same screen that the graphic designer happens to have in front of them.

It's another area where I tend to have to make sacrifices in the UI design.

The payoff is that MoI actually runs for example on a little netbook computer instead of only working on a high resolution desktop machine.


Doing what you suggest here would cause a scroll bar to appear and force the user to scroll the bottom toolbar left and right.


Believe me, it would be hugely easier for me to make a UI design that did not have to run on lower resolution screens, it would change a variety of different things.


This is a pretty good example of how it is easy for someone to not really have an understanding of the various kinds of constraints and tradeoffs that come into play with UI design, it is not the exact same thing as graphic design although they are frequently mistaken for one another by graphic designers.


- Michael

I'm going to lock this thread now since it is getting rather ridiculous.

- Michael