UI Opinions

[erica647]

Hey all... been working on this for a while now and would like to get your opinions on it. I used EEPanels for some of the custom panels along with skinner. The goal with my UI is to have it clean but also very functional. I tried to keep everything in easy reach and may have sacrificed the look a bit trying to get the functionality I'm looking for. The full list of mods I'm using are as follows:

Bagnon
Bartender 3
Bigwigs
Buffalo
Bugsack
Cartographer
Clearfonts2 w/Fontpack
Clique
Closetgnome
Cooldown Count
Cycircled
EEPanels 2
Fishing Ace
Fubar (BagFu, MicromenuFu OmenFu ProfessionsFu, TinyPadFu, and VolumeFu )
Grid
Itempricetooltip
Lightheaded
Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text
Mobhealth
MrPlow
nQuestLog
Ora2
Pitbull
Postal
Prat
Quartz
Shared Media2
Skinner
SorrenTimers
Rico Minimap
Tinytip
Violation
Witchhunt

As always, thanks much to the original authors of these mods who make our in-game lives so much more enjoyable.

[MidgetMage55]

Nice and clean certainly sums it up =) Good use of space and no clutter i can see. Over all very nice.

[Tsikura]

You don't need any opinions. If you like it, then that is all that matters.

[erica647]

Originally Posted by Tsikura You don't need any opinions. If you like it, then that is all that matters.

I like the way you think. I'd been trying others but they've just seemed a bit awkward to me. Like I mentioned, my goal is to clear my screen as much as I can and have everything I want close at hand... so I guess I'm asking for input if anyone can see anything I can do to clean it up even more. Also I'm a mouse clicker and I don't really use many hotkeys so I like lots of buttons,

[naeem151287]

i suggest using Autobar...it will clear up a lot of buttons as stuff like hearthstone, mounts, potions, and a lot of other stuff will go on just 1 bar....tht way u can have less buttons and still the same functionality...i suggest u give it a try

[naeem151287]

also once the buttons in the bars are less u will have some place left at the bottom...u can use tht space and have Violation thr and i see tht u dont even have a threat meter...so i suggest using Omen...tht way it will free up more viewing space

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...008_132625.jpg

[erica647]

Originally Posted by naeem151287 also once the buttons in the bars are less u will have some place left at the bottom...u can use tht space and have Violation thr and i see tht u dont even have a threat meter...so i suggest using Omen...tht way it will free up more viewing space http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l1...008_132625.jpg

I do have the lite version of Omen installed... just seems not a lot of people know about it. You can see it on the bottom fubar. It's a lot simpler than Omen and only shows target threat but I think it works great for a non-healer and non-tank classes. It also uses Threat 1.0. I love the fact too that I don't have to have another window on my screen.

In reference to autobar, I've tried it and it seems to work well for some things... I've just had a hard time finding a good place for it since it has the popouts. I couldn't get the autohide function to work at all which I think would have given me what I was looking for since I could just hide it.

Thanks again for the responses!

[Tonedef]

The setup is nice for a non-widescreen monitor. Though something I often see in peoples' UIs is that they are too busy. By noise I mean the use of textures and eccentric fonts. The UI serves one purpose, to deliver information is some way shape or form, in a quick and efficient manner. But when you have textures everywhere it distracts the eye. You want to get rid of all of those distractions, let the eye find what it needs to fast. And that is where the fonts come in.

Once the information is found it needs to be read, duh , so you would want to use a font that has good tracking (spacing between letters) and distinguished forms for each letter. The font also should stand out from the surroundings (color). Eyes see value fist and foremost and process color after. So contrast is your friend here, but don't get carried away, extremes can be almost as ineffective as similar values. So play with all the colors you can, since font colors are harder to edit in WoW than backgrounds, focus on the backdrop values.

So all in all, think about how the brain works. Use solid colors or soft gradients. Try to steer clear of fancy fonts, use some like Calibri, Gothic line, Sans, Arial, Trebuchet, Tahoma, Veranda. Try to avoid script (handwritten) fonts. Another thing to look out for is Header fonts, fonts with lots of detail to them are often meant for large pt font, 18+ at a smaller size they will blur and become harder to read.


Hope this helps

[erica647]

Tonedef... wow thanks a lot! I've never been much of an artist so what you describe sounds wonderful... I just have to play with it some more with that in mind. I've gotten lots of neat ideas from other ui's I've seen here but nothing seems to be exactly what I want. I'm sure it all comes down to each of us finding a "fit" for our personality and playstyle. Messing with ui's and mods is a lot of fun I think too!

[PerfectH]

Originally Posted by erica647 Hey all... been working on this for a while now and would like to get your opinions on it. I used EEPanels for some of the custom panels along with skinner. The goal with my UI is to have it clean but also very functional. I tried to keep everything in easy reach and may have sacrificed the look a bit trying to get the functionality I'm looking for. The full list of mods I'm using are as follows: As always, thanks much to the original authors of these mods who make our in-game lives so much more enjoyable.

I like your choice of font, well done!

[erica647]

Originally Posted by PerfectH I like your choice of font, well done!

Thanks PerfectH! That font is the Enviro font which is the same font used in Seerah's Suitcase as that's one of my favorite compilations out there. It's part of the clearfonts 2 fontpack (if I remember correctly... may exist elsewhere as well) if anyone wants to try it.

[Seerah]

You remember correctly. I rolled the Seerah's Suitcase font pack into the clearfont one on wowace.