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[shachar2like]

I somehow know the answer is no but I was wondering about making the menus a TINY BIT more user friendly and human design.
Human design means building a product or menu in the way that people work.

Because there are lots of small things in the menu system that could be improved and are just (designed) bad...
I mean it works, but it could be better...

[Ggobs]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Shonai_Dweller]

This is a complaint, not a suggestion. A quick search would have revealed user interface improvement threads which people have put actual thought into. If you have a suggestion on how to make a temporary interface more user friendly bearing in mind that it'll be scrapped whenever development progresses, then add your thoughts to one of those threads.

And the menu does improve. So the answer's not "no". Each time development progresses, the interface updates and gets slightly better. Have you seen the upcoming hypertext style mythgen screens? The new map (well, no-one's seen that one yet, but certainly sounds like an improvement)?

Personally I find the clear on-screen menu, with no hidden keys to remember (most traditional roguelikes) is completely simple to use. It's just the amount of stuff you can do which makes it complex. Guess I'm not human...

[IT 000]

Yeah it's slowly reaching a point where you're going to need a steel battalion setup to play this game. Would be nice if the dev spent a one or two updates improving the UI but I doubt that's ever going to happen.

Simple changes are all it really needs, make all menus like the workshop menu with one item per line instead of cramming everything into a three inch square.

And the map in fortress mode is completely useless.

[anewaname]

So many different humans... so many different ways they are inconvenienced. New cellphone doesn't have buttons in the same place with the same function, complain complain complain...

[Shonai_Dweller]

Hey Zach, lets spend the next three weeks, which we were going to use fixing major bugs and optimizing on arranging the menu so workshops are all grouped together!

The workshops we said we weren't going to put any more development time into since we're going to scrap them for a new system similar to location zones to make fortress mode much more flexible and coherent which will need a brand new interface anyhow? Sure, we could do that...

Yeah...I...weapon trap crash, right...

[Shonai_Dweller]

And the map in fortress mode is completely useless.

No, the map finally links us visibly to the outside world without any extra effort required to dig through Legends and export xml to offsite viewers and is therefore probably one of the most important elements to be added so far for adding understanding of the game for the more 'casual' player.

I love how you can write off something you've never seen or used as useless.

What about it seems "useless"?

[lethosor]

Yeah it's slowly reaching a point where you're going to need a steel battalion setup to play this game. Would be nice if the dev spent a one or two updates improving the UI but I doubt that's ever going to happen. .

He has, several times (the trade screen in 0.34 was hard to use, for one thing).

Simple changes are all it really needs, make all menus like the workshop menu with one item per line instead of cramming everything into a three inch square.

I'm having a hard time finding menus that look like what you're describing. Mind providing an example?

[Salmeuk]

And the map in fortress mode is completely useless.

No, the map finally links us visibly to the outside world without any extra effort required to dig through Legends and export xml to offsite viewers and is therefore probably one of the most important elements to be added so far for adding understanding of the game for the more 'casual' player.

I love how you can write off something you've never seen or used as useless.

What about it seems "useless"?

I think they were referring to the fortress-mode map that you can tab to from the paused game screen, not the soon-to-be-implemented world map accessible from the civilization screen [iirc]

Still, IT 000, that map isn't completely useless. It highlights in a faint red any creature groups, so you can use it to quickly pinpoint the general location of dangerous creatures without having to scan the whole screen level-by-level. I mean, it's a lot easier to just 'z'oom to a creature from the units list, but the functionality is there.

Interface complaints accomplish nothing and are poorly received by longtime players, who have entered into a symbiotic relationship with their processors and can no longer remember the tedious realities of DF's vanilla interface.

The larger takeaway from this thread should be that interface issues are acknowledged but mostly ignored in favor of ☼cool shit☼, and if you have the time it's totally worthwhile to just play anyways. All it takes is patience!

[Velocifaptor]

I kind of just feel like "make an interface designed the way humans work" is just a buzzword sort of phrase people use without any sense of what they're actually trying to say or imply. For some reason people think touchscreen gestures are some how more intuitive than an interface that reads like a manual, a manual that's literally readable by anyone that can read English. The problem with DF's UI isn't the layout its the features that are accessed via the UI.
 
I don't see how something like (H) Hotkey, (i) Zones, (p) Stockpiles could get any clearer than it currently is in terms of actually interfacing with user input (you know, a user interface), the actual method of using the interface is as straight forward as it can possibly get for pretty much every menu. However there are a bunch of complexities with the actual systems that you're interacting with that aren't entirely clear. What IS a burrow? What's a zone?, Why are my cows blinking with a brown down arrow?, I built beds and put them in individual bedrooms so why are my dwarves complaining that they don't have bedrooms?

These aren't UI problems and I don't think you can just "fix" them by changing the UI layout. Dwarf Fortress is always going to be a game that you need to read the manual(wiki) to play. You're not going to use Photoshop, Excel, or Maya by fumbling around looking for "human readable UI" either. Once you breach a certain level of complexity you lose the ability to mask complexity (which is what intuitive UI does), it just becomes more beneficial for the user and the developer to have everything laid out plain and clear and to expect the user to read about stuff they don't understand.

The good news is that once you play for a bit you'll find out that Dwarf Fortress is actually a pretty easy game with a very direct, simple, and consistent design/interface.

[Aquillion]

My understanding is that Toady does eventually intend for an interface rework (or did intend it at one point, anyway), but that it's waiting until the game is more complete, since otherwise the interface would be getting redesigned constantly - which would cause even more problems.

[shachar2like]

My understanding is that Toady does eventually intend for an interface rework (or did intend it at one point, anyway), but that it's waiting until the game is more complete, since otherwise the interface would be getting redesigned constantly - which would cause even more problems.

Yes which is why I was talking about basic menu rearranging.
Changing some of them to make the game a tiny bit more friendly.
the whole purpose of this is to be really small and doable and not a big project since we're talking about a single person making everything.

there are two examples I remember from the top of my head:
1. is the stockpile selection (where you choose what to store in it) which isn't how you make this kind of interface and isn't how humans work on this kind of interface.
2. small and a lot easier is the loading screen, you can move the 3rd loading screen (the screen where you can press R to rename the world/save) to the screen before it.


those kind of things I was talking about
but I'm guessing that whoever's making this game doesn't place a great importance on user friendly design or a human design (which is in short how I described it earlier. I'm seeing those kinds of mistakes for decades on my country local websites and business applications)

I guess I'll shut up and live with what it is

[lethosor]

there are two examples I remember from the top of my head:
1. is the stockpile selection (where you choose what to store in it) which isn't how you make this kind of interface and isn't how humans work on this kind of interface.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I've been able to work with it just fine.

2. small and a lot easier is the loading screen, you can move the 3rd loading screen (the screen where you can press R to rename the world/save) to the screen before it.

The "rename" screen is a DFHack feature. In fact, there's a DFHack script that replaces that entire screen, which is probably what you're using. The screen with that option is intended to also be a confirmation, in case you select the wrong save, and might end up with more options in the future.

[anewaname]

there are two examples I remember from the top of my head:
1. is the stockpile selection (where you choose what to store in it) which isn't how you make this kind of interface and isn't how humans work on this kind of interface.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I've been able to work with it just fine.

I've found that going through some of the larger item lists is an endurance test sometimes, because they are not in alphabetical order. You may want just a few creature types for a "target practice" animal stockpile, then you are swearing because, why are "Crundles so hard to find this time?". This happens to me with the lists for Animals, Food/Plant, and Refuse (to the butchery, or not to the butchery?).

[Velocifaptor]

I've found that going through some of the larger item lists is an endurance test sometimes, because they are not in alphabetical order. You may want just a few creature types for a "target practice" animal stockpile, then you are swearing because, why are "Crundles so hard to find this time?". This happens to me with the lists for Animals, Food/Plant, and Refuse (to the butchery, or not to the butchery?).

I can understand this and theirs things that DF Hack adds that I'd like to see become vanilla such as the ability to text filter items in a list. Another thing is Dwarf Therapist which many people oncluding myself feel is basically mandatory for playing the game for any significant length of time (though the DF hack labor screen is actually pretty good too, but Therapist provides far more information). I don't think he's going to spend any time right now rolling in 3rd party utilities like that. Though I could be wrong, he added in automining ore/gems, priority designations, the automated manager workflow system etc that are all heavily inspired from DF hack tools like digv, and DF hacks workflow system. There's really no way to tell for certain what will get worked in and when (until it gets announced that is).