Improve UX for v1.0

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llazaroff
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Joined: Sat Apr 09, 2022 2:51 pm

Improve UX for v1.0

Post by llazaroff »

When the v1.0 releases there will be a considerable amount of new and returning users trying FC - this happens always when there is a major release of any SW. Regardless of whether 1.0 is the biggest update to FC ever, or no-bigger than any previous updates this will happen simply because of the version number (this also applies to any SW in general). For FC this applies double because its not the next major update its The Major Update - v1.0 .
There will be a lot of users having their first impressions with FC. I 'd argue first impressions (AKA the first few minutes to few hours) are the most important time period of SW usage, as based on that the user decides whether to stick with the SW - FC in this case - or not.
UX changes i propose and highly recommend FC having by the time v1.0 releases are:
  • modern, dark and light UI theme - most people subcounsciously judge the age and feature-parity of SW based on the looks - therefore: if it looks like its 10+ years old, there weren't any updates in 10+ years. probably the best path to go here would be complete UI revamp, that however would require considerable amount of time and resources (possibly something the Epic MegaGrant i suggested few months ago could be used on ... also think about having full-time devs in general), so for now (v1.0) a clean and modern theme on top of the old UI should suffice. closest community theme to this i could find is ProDark. i recommend iterating on that
  • modern icon theme - same thing as for the theme applies here. one really good icon theme i 'd consider using is the icon theme by user st_phan. some users might want to stay with the legacy (current) icon theme in which case icon theming would probably need to become a native (without plugin) feature of FC
  • adjust background gradient so it reflect the new UI changes (AKA it looks clean and modern) ... possibly greyscale as shown in the first of the screenshots below ?
  • getting started wizard - this would include which workbenches are visible based on whether the person chooses BIM or mechanical CAD; as well as theme selection (light / dark) and possibly the ability to choose using legacy icons among other things
  • although i dont find this as necessary as previously mentioned features i recommend redesigning start page - at least to the point where it aligns with the new UI theme (both dark and light)
  • also not as important but while browsing this forum i ve noticed that on some screenshots the outline of modelled objects looks a lot sharper then default; i dont know how this is done (whether its some plugin ...) but it looks a lot cleaner
    screenshot taken from forum:
    Screenshot_20221219_094224.png
    Screenshot_20221219_094224.png (100.5 KiB) Viewed 1420 times
    default:
    Screenshot_20221219_094238.png
    Screenshot_20221219_094238.png (22.97 KiB) Viewed 1420 times
  • update the manual for v1.0 prior to its release
  • update the website (with new screenshots at least)
Disclaimer: I'm not a UX or UI designer and everything here is taken from personal experience or highly calculated guesses.
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FBXL5
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Re: Improve UX for v1.0

Post by FBXL5 »

llazaroff wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:49 am also not as important but while browsing this forum i ve noticed that on some screenshots the outline of modelled objects looks a lot sharper then default; i dont know how this is done (whether its some plugin ...) but it looks a lot cleaner
The sharpness of edges depend on the zoom factor of the used 3D view, and the resolution and size of your screenshot.
Tiny pictures that need to be scaled up for display tend to show broad edges, but only consume a little amount of memory. Thin lines could be derived from memory-hungry, large images which most of us try to avoid. 8-)

BTW There is a discussion about UX improvement going, elsewhere. I just can't find it :roll:
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Roy_043
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Re: Improve UX for v1.0

Post by Roy_043 »

FBXL5 wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 10:05 am The sharpness of edges
Also depends on Anti-Aliasing: Preferences_Editor#3D_View.
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onekk
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Re: Improve UX for v1.0

Post by onekk »

llazaroff wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:49 am ...
Good Advice.

BUt speaking of UI improvements, take in account that at least 20% of people have some color blindness so I don't see too much urge to "modernize things" in this part od FC prior to have a real way to change in a consistent manner colors of the whole interface, and some developers are working on it, but is is not a trivial task, as something is managed by Qt some ohter thing by pivy (Coin3D) with some subtle differences in how things are managed, plus the fact that each OS will manage things in a different way, so Qt running on Windows could be different on Qt running on MacOs or on Linux, and these things have to be managed by developers.

Without counting your settings for your graphics stack (graphics card >> OS driver >> OS settings >> Tollkit (Qt or Coin)) if you read around in the forum you will easily see that as example dpi settings have a big role in visualizations, but for such sort of things, what part of the graphics stack has to be blamed? (sometimes is the "component" between the chair an the keyboard, that is applying blindly forum advices without knowing what is really doing, and in this case almost all users have done such mistakes, even me. :mrgreen:)

Criticize is easy, make good advices is sligtly less easy, volunteering to make something that improve things is rare, so any help will be appreciated.

There are many ways to help FreeCAD, just ask if you want to improve things.

Regards

Carlo D.
GitHub page: https://github.com/onekk/freecad-doc.
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FBXL5
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Re: Improve UX for v1.0

Post by FBXL5 »

Roy_043 wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 11:11 amAlso depends on Anti-Aliasing: Preferences_Editor#3D_View.
Indeed. I have never used anti-aliasing in connection with CAD in the past 3 decades and so don't have it on my radar.
I still don't see a need to have blurred edges while modelling.
chrisb
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Re: Improve UX for v1.0

Post by chrisb »

llazaroff wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:49 am I 'd argue first impressions (AKA the first few minutes to few hours) are the most important time period of SW usage, as based on that the user decides whether to stick with the SW - FC in this case - or not.
It is well known that a better UI would be appreciated and it is also rather well known what could be done. But something that is frequently forgotten, is the fact that FreeCAD doesn't have to sell to be successful. What would be the benefit of attracting and keeping lots of new users, who would like to have a shiny CAD program? Would they immediately start helping to improve FreeCAD even further? Or would they rather slow down development because the developers are kept busy working through loads of tickets pretending to show errors?

I would rather say it's done when it's done.

From what I see here it would not be easy to implement UI changes, and not only due to the lack of developer power, but rather because people got used to the way it is now. And to be honest, if you don't only want to play with the program, but rather are interested in the end result, it's not that bad once you get used to it.
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