My take on the FreeCAD GUI

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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Even thought I want to be neutral on this topic, it still is refreshing to not get bashed by nearly every FreeCAD enthusiast.
Thank you robocat.
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Petrikas
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Petrikas »

Aleks wrote: Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:20 am Here is a very rough heatmap of how people look at landscape screens overlayed on top of one of the examples from the UI exploration.

Red = people look often here
Green = people dont look often here

The help button in the top-left corner provides information on a proposed workflow for the currently selected workbench.

The reason why the heatmap is this way is probably because you also read books this way and people got used to it (maybe except some asian countries, where its different). There have been studies performed on this - I have read them some years ago - but I cannot remember what they were specifically called and thus cannot find them. If you know of any study on this topic, please post a link.

Now you can see why I have chosen to put the help button in the top, left corner. This is the location of where someone, who is panicing, would look at for help. I have worked on defense projects, where it has been done in the exact same way, also for the same reason. Most websites use this location for the "home" link, usually represented by the website icon.



freecad-ui-wireframe-heatmap.png
Just a nit-pick,
This might've been true a while a go, but nowadays people are moving to larger and larger (or wider and wider) screens, especially full-time professionals.
Modern software is already moving all the things to the centre (DaVinci Resolve, Windows 11 to name a few I use), because the corners are moving further and further away from the centre, where the user stares most of the time time they work. That's why pie menus are getting more and more popular - they keep all the important stuff in the centre, next to your object(-s).
Good job otherwise!
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

This might've been true a while a go

Do you know any modern studies that have been performed? I could only find 20 year old ones.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by adrianinsaval »

robocat wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:15 pm That said, the idea that the UI/UX could do with an upgrade, in my opinion, should not be a controversial idea. I don't think it is a statement aimed at downplaying what already exists, rather an idea that it can be built upon to be even better and appeal to even more people.
I don't think it is, most people agree with that from what I've seen.
A second point I wanted to address was the idea that a UI/UX redesign would harm existing "Pro" users. I think the main point that some people may be missing here is that functionality and user interface are not independent. Many people seem to have suggested that changing the layout will not improve the underlying functionality of the software. In saying this they may have missed the more important factor which is that accesibility to existing functionality will be greatly improved for pros and newcomers alike. In simple terms, buttons and functions that may not have been used before may be used more frequently as people can more easily understand their purpose. This is what good UX design is all about!
I agree, but many times the proposed changes consist of not showing this or that command because "they clutter", how is that helping you discover functionality? (and I agree to some extent, the view commands for example since they are mostly redundant with the presence of the navi cube)
Petrikas wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:33 am Just a nit-pick,
This might've been true a while a go, but nowadays people are moving to larger and larger (or wider and wider) screens, especially full-time professionals.
Modern software is already moving all the things to the centre (DaVinci Resolve, Windows 11 to name a few I use), because the corners are moving further and further away from the centre, where the user stares most of the time time they work. That's why pie menus are getting more and more popular - they keep all the important stuff in the centre, next to your object(-s).
Good job otherwise!
that's a good point, since I don't have a wide screen I don't personally want center aligned stuff but it probably wouldn't be detrimental either. It might be the better choice to accommodate more users.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by chrisb »

Petrikas wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:33 am but nowadays people are moving to larger and larger (or wider and wider) screens, especially full-time professionals.
Yes and no. Yes if they are always at home. And no, because more people are using solely a laptop.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

chrisb wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:38 pm Yes and no. Yes if they are always at home. And no, because more people are using solely a laptop.
I think a lot of people that use their computer for work have a laptop + mouse + external screen setup. This is also how I have setup my work environment because it alows for a lot of flexibility and is nearly as productive as having a dedicated desktop pc.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by robocat »

adrianinsaval wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 2:09 pm I agree, but many times the proposed changes consist of not showing this or that command because "they clutter", how is that helping you discover functionality? (and I agree to some extent, the view commands for example since they are mostly redundant with the presence of the navi cube)
I agree it's a little counter intuitive on the face of it. The way I see it is that although ideally we could see and understand every bit of information presented to us, like computers, humans too have a finite ability to process what we see in finite time. The more granular the content the harder we must work to process it.

In essence, this means that when someone casually looks for something in a granular space they have the choice of either:
- Straining to see individual items but the process will be slow to find a particular item.
- Making do with only seeing a fuzzy collection.
Neither of these options is ideal!

Now, although this applies to everyone, someone who has already arranged a granular space in their own layout can overcome this strain through repetition. This way of learning is however not easy for a beginner as it requires you know what each item does already. This commiting of button location to memory also exists independently of the UI. That is, whether the UI is good or bad, has options hidden or not, once youve learnt where something is by using it, it won't feel difficult in either situation. The main interesting point is to get people moving to these different locations more easily so that they can start memorising where new things are (discovering functionality).

The common solution used everywhere in modern GUIs (which is nothing new), is to use size and scale to leverage how a user looks around a space. Fewer larger items serve as a coarse grained macrospace that can be quickly scoured. These items serve as easy targets for the eye to lock onto. Near to each target a finer grained microspace can exist with finer options or details. This can either be next to or "behind" the target depending on how much information needs to be to displayed in the available space. Obviously the ratios of just how much "stuff" is in each macro and micro space is critical in creating an intuitive experience.

One more thought i've had, regarding the reason some people may not want a new UI, is that having learnt a more crudely constructed UI and finding it to be a difficult experience, people may expect learning a new system to be similarly difficult. This is however counter to the aim of good UX design which is that a new UI should mostly teach itself.

Anyway enough with my ideals and philosophy on the art of good design, so I won't hold up the real design discussion any longer!

I suppose I should end with an example. I'd say here is a clear case of too many details obscuring the abillity to pick the most important details of a simple wall. I think we would all expect the height width and length of the wall to be the most easy to spot details (they are actually some of the last options). Variations of this sort of thing appear in other workbenches too.

example.png

TL;DR
Too many similar sized items on a screen pose issues for catching the attention of a human in a meaningful way. By seeing less you'll be able to find more. Intuition is the name of the game.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Markymark »

Aleks wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:50 pm Even thought I want to be neutral on this topic, it still is refreshing to not get bashed by nearly every FreeCAD enthusiast.
Thank you robocat.
+1 for your comprehensive approach on this. Don't be discouraged.
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by chrisb »

Aleks wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:50 pm Even thought I want to be neutral on this topic, it still is refreshing to not get bashed by nearly every FreeCAD enthusiast.
I don't see any bashing here.

Bashing: "How can you idiot dare to change the existing GUI. Didn't your mother tell you to never touch other's work because your whole family never had improved anything ever? ..."

Critical discussion: "What's wrong with the existing GUI? I prefer the workbench concept. It works very well, everything can be done much easier than with your proposal and is much clearer. Counting clicks doesn't tell the whole story ..."
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Someone on facebook wrote: "I hope you dont succeed with this project, because I dont want FreeCAD to change" Something along those lines. And I am not even changing anything right now. This is just supposed to be a concrete discussion about how to improve the GUI for beginners.

The problem is that some of the people commenting act like they dont want to understand that there are other people out there that are not CAD experts and for them FreeCAD is hard to use right now.
But idk, baybe bashing isnt the correct word for this.
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