Though I was quick to judge the new UI when the Rush hour update came out, I wanted to give it a while to sink in and form a well rounded opinion. After about a month and a half now, I can say my opinion really has not changed. Instead of another thread of just UI bashing, however, I wanted to give some constructive criticism and alternatives. For the point of this, I'm only focusing on the main menu UI. The main problem with the current game UI is that there's no consistency in design. Some things are semi-transparent, some opaque, some black, some grey. There's also way to many buttons/menus to click through to get to things, less menus/buttons/scrolling = better experience. The accent color is used in a lot of places it really shouldn't be. The accent color should be used to bring attention to things, like current hover, not just to vary the color in a specific UI element. The main menu UI is also very dark and gloomy, especially with the train diorama now being inside, which also hinders weather preview. The angle of the camera doesn't bother me personally as much, but I get the point that some would rather view a more side-on view of the loco. Starting out with the initial menu screen. I can tell the idea was to modernize the UI, but it was just poorly executed. It feels way too tailored to a game controller, and isn't very friendly to use with the mouse. I personally have a total of 16 routes installed, only 5 of which are visible here. I've found this much harder to choose from when I don't know what I want to play. Personally, I would prefer a grid approach, showing off as many owned routes as possible, and I think it's still possible to maintain the level of detail in the current menu. Below is my mock up of what my thought process is. The nice thing is I haven't done anything new. I'm reusing elements and designs from other parts of the UI to make this, bringing it all together rather than making every screen unique. I've only included the TOC logos for a couple to show they can still be displayed, but in this view I can view 16 routes in one go. Still have the nice images, the TOCs, but it's much better organized. And if this is an issue for accessibility, it can always be downsized to a 3-column grid to make things a little bigger, still giving you 9-12 routes. But this list takes the available screen real estate and only scrolls (vertically) if necessary. You could still filter routes, and do everything that is currently doable. A couple changes...First and foremost, that stupid character showing the uniform is gone...goodbye. I've moved the store & dovetail live buttons to the bottom left menu, which matches the rest of the main menu UI pages. I've also added a sort button, because that is desperately needed. Right now, the game defaults to the most recent add-on, in my case London Brighton. Which I will probably rarely play. It should be sortable by alphabet or most recently played, or something other than most recently installed. This gets the player back into the game quicker. (less scrolling/menus = better) One suggestion I'd make is to vary the route images, maybe have 2 or 3 that show off other trains or scenic landmarks on the route that is randomly chosen when the menu loads. SKA and HMA basically have the same image (even if its a different model) but I don't think some of the images really show off the route. Next up is the route menu screen. My big issue here, is once you've decided what route you want to play, there is an extra menu screen needed to go through (ie, Route Selection -> Explore -> Timetable -> ...) . I think this actually started before rush hour, but it's still a bad design. IMO, the first extra menu screen should be removed, and immediately give you an organized list of options: Again, the icons really should be white here, and a consistent color & transparency for the UI elements should be selected. I actually think the scenario/training selection screens are alright. I prefer vertical over horizontal scrolling, but it uses the screen real estate nicely. Personally, I'd use an outline with the accent color to show the currently "selected" scenario rather than paint it all orange, and the medals don't need the accent background. I'd follow how it is in timetable mode, where a placeholder icon is used until the medal is earned. Then there's timetable mode... Starting with the train/weather menu. The month selection text is large, but all other other elements are much smaller, especially the pre-defined weather selections, which is tiny and italicized. "LightClouds" also has no space between the words The weather sliders need individual hover and selection indications, and the sensitivity on the sliders is off when using a mouse depending on where you click on the slider bar. And accent color outlines should be used for hover, rather than turning the entire tile bright orange. In the timetable service selection menu: The lack of consistency with transparency and color really shows here. The grey elements disappear and now everything is solid black. And the score card on the right is a dark orange/brown color that draws too much attention to itself. However the search bar and layout of services, including the start & duration is nicely done, those were good changes. Those are my general thoughts. While I expect absolutely nothing to be done about any of this, I hope that some of our feedback is making it into notes for future discussions when the next round of UI changes is made.
