Though this thread is closed I really liked to give my opinion and maybe start a discussion on a more constructive ground.
I am referring to this thread.
I am new to Unity3D and I fight my own personal fight with the problems.
However I think userfriendliness of a program should be defined on the complexity of topic it covers. While I agree that learning to make games is not easy and timeconsuming, I also would like to point out it is a very very complex topic. So to put a lot of time to learn is a default I think. So programs like Blender and Unity3D should be judged from a neutral point of view. Means, ok, I know I am trying to cover a complex topic. How userfriendly is the program helping me to cover my problems.
I think it is totally clear that I cannot expect results before 6 months pass in a complex matter, with no game engine, except some click wysiwig engines. However, those are very very limited and no comparison to Unity3D for example. Who expects different simply entered the wrong field I would dare to say or maybe has huge experience already in a special field, like for example a programmer with C#.
So I think userfriendliness is very relative and is based on how good are the forums for these programs, how friendly is the community (there are some terrible and aggressive communities out there I tell you) and of course how good is their documentation and how much does the program cost.
I think in all these points Unity3D excels and I would call it userfriendly from this point of view.
A piece of software that does not make the user click, scroll, type, or anything else. Error messages are not allowed. In the case that an unexpected error occurs, it must start with please and end with thank you. The software must do everything the user needs, but they must not have to click, scroll, type, or anything else.
Thatâs what it seems to mean where I work.
More seriously, I think unity is very user friendly because the interface is clean and well designed. For example, a mesh field allows you to drag a mesh from the explorer straight into the field rather than opening a file window to browse for the file. You can still browse for a file, but the browser allows you to filter results rather than scrolling through pages upon pages of data. Some settings do seem buried, but theyâre obscure settings to begin with.
More examples:
Blender is very user unfriendly, not because of the user interface, but because you need a cheat sheet to know what keys do what and the cheat sheet is like 4 pages long.
ZBrush on the other hand is very user friendly, it probably has as many, if not more keybinds than blender, but holding Ctrl will show the shortcuts for each button on the screen and hovering over any option gives you a tooltip with help.
Sketchup (to me) is terribly user unfriendly because there are no shortcut letters on any option and they went with some crappy middle mouse button pan/rotate/move rather than the seemingly standard WASD controls that everything else seems to use now.
Visual Studio - Very user friendly because there are smart tooltips everywhere and context sensitive mouse actions, plus intellisense and the like. Once you master it, you can type entire lines of code in 1/10th of the keystrokes that it should take.
User friendliness is about making your users use your software in a natural way, in a way that they expect things to behave. The main problem with creating user friendliness is all the stinking usersâ stinking opinions. If your users stare at your software and say âuhhhh, what do i do?â then its probably unfriendly. If they can start clicking around and start causing trouble right away then its user friendly. Note that this requires the caveat that the user know something about the topic before opening the software. If I open 3ds max and canât use it, thatâs probably my fault because I donât know a thing about 3d modeling. If I open visual studio for the first time, I should be able to find my way around easily because I know quite a bit about programming.
@delinx32 I hated Sketchup too, hehe. And yes Blender is not sooo userfriendly, but then ZBrush is playing in the league of expensive programs.
However I was more trying to point out that some people expect a program to do all their work, even if covering a huge complex field, and not understanding, that userfriendliness does not mean you donât have to put quite your share of time to learn it anyway. So I was referring to the closed post.
But I surely support also all you wrote here delinx32.
Works on non standard hardware (Ever try Blender on a touch pad grrrr!)
Well documented
Adheres to industry standards
User friendly also is very dependent on the target user. Unity assumes the user is a game developer. There is a certain level of coding ability implied. On the other hand my three year old should be able to figure out the interface for paint or a browser.
Iâve noticed kids have a tendency to become better at computers far faster than the adults though. My nephew, who is not quite three yet, knows how to open the browserâs history to visit places he has already been to. He can navigate around the Windows 7 Start Menu well enough to find games he enjoys.
@Kiwasi I think that is short and concise to the point While all you point out is important I would like to support the âindustry Standardâ most, that is for me the superkiller for a software, even if it excels in all your other points. I mean if I am given a quirky software that produces standard files I will turn to that over the one with the best interface that gives out glibbering proprietary files.
I was actually looking at the interface rather then the file format, but the same principle applies. Many of us use Microsoft products all of the time. The standard shortcuts like ctrl+C to copy or ctrl+Z or right clicking for a contextual menu are so ingrained in users that anything else is painful. If you are on a Mac your software should use whatever wacky conventions they use over there. Under no circumstances should you try and force users to learn some new convention just for your software.
(Iâm looking at blender, that tries to run Mac conventions on a PC. Or Windows 8, that tries touch screen conventions without a touch screen. Or lately the Unity home page, that totally ignores the convention of the scroll bar making browser content go up and down.)
It all depends on what you are exposed too. I grew up coding macros for my father in Lotus 123, and later VBA for excel. Iâve never had a real problem since getting my head around how code works.
My three and five year old are crazily competent on touch screen devices, and have been since about two years old. Starting to go off topic here, but we had a couple of cute moments when the kids were younger and we gave them a laptop or TV instead of the touch screen device. They would consistently try to change channels by swiping the screen.
Haha, my 2 year old has discovered siri on the ipad and now presses buttons and yells âCOOKIEâ or âBERRIESâ into them expecting pictures to appear.
I guess, figure out what an âunfriendlyâ game would be like, and donât do it.
Also usability is a very big part of this. I recommend the book âdont make me thinkâ. If you make people have to think to figure out how to USE your game, there is a problem.
Also just wanted to add that, although often forgotten these days, it used to be more readily known that something being âintuitiveâ was important⌠that means, you donât have to really think that much to figure out how to bridge the gap between yourself and what the computer requires you to do. You donât want to have to be making up for the computer not speaking your language, or not understanding you. You donât want to have to be doing the work of translating what you want to happen into making it happen through some long convoluted or complicated or unobvious interface. Things should be clear, readable, symbolic, well defined/distinguished, no clutter, get rid of the noise, take the most direct path possible, and gradually teach the user what they need to know.
While the topic was more about software we use, I think we might also need to think how we make the products we create with Unity3D userfriendly. So yes, well spoken @imaginaryhuman_1 . It is incredible how complicated some userinterfaces are out there for games. I would say, userfriendliness with a game is more important even with games than applications. People play games for fun and will possibly drop a game fast if it makes them think too much how to use it.
I would even go so far to seriously question some features for a game that canât be implemented with an easy interface in a game, whether they should be implemented. If it is not obvious, complicated or needs more than one click or a list of 30 different letters on the keyboard ⌠maybe one should think about making the game less complex. Also what other games use, should be compared with. There are meanwhile quasi standards for certain buttons, like WASD for movement, M for map, I for inventory and TAB for a general overview of all background actions like M,I, etc that let you access the subpages in case you forgot one of the letters. This is mainly for RPGâs, but I see that any game that has movements uses WASD. I think gamedesigners should try to follow such quasi standards. While I normally avoid a to copy from other games and go great leangths to be original, the user interface is surely NOT the place to be original I think it is a good plan to play 1 or 2 of the latest AAA games of the genre you want to publish and copy their keys.
Not user friendly:
You have to go into the script and manually change the configuration type. User friendly:
There is a dropdown in the inspector that lets you choose which one you want and the script does the rest.
If some particular change in the interface or design can give the same result or better but will take workload and complication away from the user then that change will increase user friendliness.
There isnât an explicitly defined âUser Friendlyâ standard or stamp of approval. Itâs just a matter of if the interface or program is easy for the user to operate and manipulate to the extent of its purpose.
Based on my own experiences and watching others learn, many kids will pick up the technology far faster than someone much older. If youâre targeting children then I feel youâre better off focusing on making the device more durable and crash proof than actually trying to make a superior interface.
As an adult Iâve found myself less âOh letâs try this buttonâ and more âOh thereâs the button with the text I expectedâ.
In fact Iâd say âintuitive everythingâ (implying consistency) by which I mean - when the user has a sense for how the core of an application works itâs easy to use new or different features based upon establishes usability standards.
I would not go that far, I mean some games and application need an adult to understand the action. So we have to take care that we donât mix up userfriendly with simplified âŚ
A calculus dirivative helper may be incredibly user friendly and amazing to someone used to doing it all by hand, but the symbols and input fields confuse someone whom stumbled upon the topic and wants to give it a shot.
Later the Algebra 1 student complains that the calculus helper application isnât user friendly.
While all you point out is important I would like to support the âindustry Standardâ most, that is for me the superkiller for a software, even if it excels in all your other points. I mean if I am given a quirky software that produces standard files I will turn to that over the one with the best interface that gives out glibbering proprietary files.