MWIF Game Interface Design

[YohanTM2]

What are your thoughts on coding for folks who are colour blind?

I think your most reecnt revision is laid out well but I kow I am going to have issues and I am only partially colour bilnd. Maybe use more primary colours? But for folks who are very colour blind i wonder if a toggle to a number system or going with different shaped symbols might help?

[peskpesk]

Diffrent shaps, maybe...Like this?

[peskpesk]

Here are ex of good colors to use.

[Sewerlobster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Here is a revised version.This is a screen shot - I've written the code to display this when the menu item for status indicators help is selected.

This caused me no confusion whatsoever, clearly the lowest common denominator has now been achieved!

[composer99]

The revised shot looks okay, but it seems rather cluttered. Perhaps more white space is required?

[Grapeshot Bob]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is a revised version.

This is a screen shot - I've written the code to display this when the menu item for status indicators help is selected.

I suggest that the various status indicator colors be modified slightly so they are more intuitive when you glance at them.

I suggest a pallete that has a spectrum that is green at one end and red at the other.

The "shades" indicate levels of "goodness". For example green is the best possible status. Red is the worst. The colors in between are varous shades that go from the green end of the spectrum to red (dark green, light green, dark blue, light blue, yellow, orange, red, for example).



GSB

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: peskpesk

Here are ex of good colors to use.

Thanks.

The colors used in the game are slightly different from the ones shown on the help page because I have trouble matching them precisely in CorelDraw (which I used to create the help page). That is not a limitation of CorelDraw, which goes to extremes to give the user choices in colors and ways of specifying them. It is simply that my skill at matching program-generated colors (from Microsoft) is deficient.

I'll review what I am using presently against this list (I think I am pretty close to matching it if I swap out Red and Green with Vermillion and a Blueish-green, respectively). I do want 2 shades of green for supply, but I think Lime (bright) and a darker Blueish-green should work.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

The revised shot looks okay, but it seems rather cluttered. Perhaps more white space is required?

I'll change the font size (make it smaller). When using one application for design and a second for implementation, it is often difficult to get the font size right. I tend to err on the side of making the font size too large.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Grapeshot Bob

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is a revised version.

This is a screen shot - I've written the code to display this when the menu item for status indicators help is selected.

I suggest that the various status indicator colors be modified slightly so they are more intuitive when you glance at them.

I suggest a pallete that has a spectrum that is green at one end and red at the other.

The "shades" indicate levels of "goodness". For example green is the best possible status. Red is the worst. The colors in between are varous shades that go from the green end of the spectrum to red (dark green, light green, dark blue, light blue, yellow, orange, red, for example).



GSB

That would work if I were trying to present an ordinal scale (ranging from a low value to a high value) everywhere. But in many cases here that is not true. For example, the use of Eng in combat, fighting through versus initiating naval combat, sentry, etc..

In those cases where it is true, I am using a bright green --> dark green --> yellow --> orange --> red 'scale' to represent good --> bad.

[Taxman66]

I presume for a stack of units the color of the worst status indicator is displayed.  Would it be possible to stick a number inside the status indicator so we know how many units are out of supply or disorganized, etc...
 
 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Taxman66

I presume for a stack of units the color of the worst status indicator is displayed.  Would it be possible to stick a number inside the status indicator so we know how many units are out of supply or disorganized, etc...

No, the status indicators are for the top unit only. However, when viewing a stack of units using any of the forms, each unit is shown separately, which makes the status indicators clear for each unit.

The status indicators are very small so putting a number inside isn't possible.

I tried what you suggested, displaying the indicator for the 'worst' unit in the hex as the indicator for the stack. In fact, I have a complete system developed, ranking the various stati for each indicator. I even had a system where 3 indicators were shown, slightly offset (left to right) so you could see the status for each of the top 3 units. But all of these fell by the wayside simply because there is so little room available. Rather than communicate information, they were just confusing, or even worse, so muddy as to be illegible. In the end I had to give up trying to show the status for more than 1 unit in a stack as hopeless, simply because of the small number of pixels available.

To emphasize my point here, I agree with you comlpetely that it would be a great thing to have, and I put 60+ hours into trying different schemes to find something that would work. ... I am emotionally past that now, and committed to the current system.

[Taxman66]

Ok, fair enough.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is today's version of the status indicator form.

Changes since the last posted version are:

1 - Reduced the size of the fonts to make for more "white space". This also made the grouping more pronounced.

2 - Reduced the size of the indicators within the explanations - to match the font size.

3 - Changed the color scheme for the status indicators so they can be distinguished one from the other even by people with difficulty telling colors apart. For those of us who do not have that problem, the colors seem somewhat more muted. But that is a small price to pay for enabling every player to be able to interpret the status indicators correctly.

4 - Reworked some of the text for clarity.

5 - Added the NOTES section.

6 - Placed the black squares behind the status indicators, since that is how they appear in the game.

So, wadda ya think?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is today's version of the status indicator form.

Changes since the last posted version are:

1 - Reduced the size of the fonts to make for more "white space". This also made the grouping more pronounced.

2 - Reduced the size of the indicators within the explanations - to match the font size.

3 - Changed the color scheme for the status indicators so they can be distinguished one from the other even by people with difficulty telling colors apart. For those of us who do not have that problem, the colors seem somewhat more muted. But that is a small price to pay for enabling every player to be able to interpret the status indicators correctly.

4 - Reworked some of the text for clarity.

5 - Added the NOTES section.

6 - Placed the black squares behind the status indicators, since that is how they appear in the game.

So, wadda ya think?

All good changes.
Looks good to me.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

So, wadda ya think?

I think it looks awesome.

I made some small observations.

Position 1.
-A parethesis with (may not be undone) after "Done movement" for clarification.

Position 5
-A 'space' is missing in the sentence "Naval unitforced to abort"

Position 3
- think it might look better if position 3 supply is moved on step to the right so it gets to the top right corner.

-"Pimary supply source for turn (HQ)" feels a bit unclear and confusing to me since
"A primary supply source for a unit is:
• any friendly city in the unit’s unconquered home country; or
• for a Commonwealth unit, any friendly city in another
unconquered Commonwealth home country; or
• any friendly city in an unconquered home country of a major
power the unit co-operates with (see 18.1)."
and
"A secondary supply source for a unit is:
• an HQ the unit co-operates with (see 18.1); or
• the capital city of a minor country controlled by the unit’s major
power; or
• the capital city of a major power, or a minor country, conquered by
the unit’s major power, or by a major power the unit co-operates
with."

-Often (for me) the most important information about a unit is if it is organized and in supply or not.
So if both of these could be to the right of the "stack indicator" would make it faster and easier for me to note the units status.

And with that said.

It looks truly awesome.[&o]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Orm,

Thanks.

I'll make some of your suggested changes. I am not sure about moving the Organization status to the right side since it leaves a hole on the left. And a disorganized unit can't move, so having that next to Movement appeals to me. An argument could even be made for merging those two positions.

The Primary & Emergency supply status indicator only applies to HQ units, if those optional rules are being used. Note that these are unit status indicators; they have nothing to do with cities, which are the only other supply sources.

[Orm]

Steve,

I cited the rules since the primary supply for HQ confused me. I forgot about the supply counter. I blame it on the wine I had to the family dinner.

Still. Since this is a help page and got a me, a player of WIF since 25 years confused, it may also confuse sober new players.

Could the wording be made clearer?
Perhaps a note would be best.
Maybe something in the notes like this?

"HQ made a primary supply source for the rest of the turn by a supply unit"

-Orm

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Steve,

I cited the rules since the primary supply for HQ confused me. I forgot about the supply counter. I blame it on the wine I had to the family dinner.

Still. Since this is a help page and got a me, a player of WIF since 25 years confused, it may also confuse sober new players.

Could the wording be made clearer?
Perhaps a note would be best.
Maybe something in the notes like this?

"HQ made a primary supply source for the rest of the turn by a supply unit"

-Orm

Yeah, well, what I had originally was "(HQ only)" instead of (HQ), but the one line is so long I trimmed them all. Probably a poor decision on my part.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

How about this:

[Taxman66]

I poked around trying to find a picture of the flyouts but wasn't successful.  Yeah I know, I'm lame...
 
If the flyouts have the status indicators for each unit I think that pretty much takes care of the issue of looking at multiple units with different status indicators 'lit'.