My take on the FreeCAD GUI

A forum for research and development of the user interface of FreeCAD
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Pauvres_honteux
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Pauvres_honteux »

Aleks wrote:
Hi Aleks, how's it going? Any mockups to show? Doodles on napkins? Any shiny things?
I'm climbing the walls of curiousity!!!
Gotta' have a blingie shot! ;)
Last edited by Pauvres_honteux on Sat Aug 21, 2021 8:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

I will add things as I get ideas.
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carlopav
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by carlopav »

Aleks wrote: Fri Aug 20, 2021 11:10 am I will add things as I get ideas.
Hey there Aleks, are you aware that with the Preferences Pack PR we will Be able to quickly switch from one FC user config setting to another?
This could be helpful for your idea about having different setup for different users (IIRC) at startup!
follow my experiments on BIM modelling for architecture design
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HakanSeven12
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by HakanSeven12 »

Nice ideas ;)
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

Exploring different positions of UI elements. Each configuration having inherent benefits and drawbacks.

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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

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Last edited by Aleks on Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Aleks
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by Aleks »

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.


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ThomasT
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by ThomasT »

As a beginner in FreeCAD I was mostly confused by the flow of things. I think an initial part of the learning curve can be flattened without graphic redesign. The goal is to make the first operations much be more logical for the user.

Idea 1: start FreeCAD in Part Design by default.
Idea 2: when no document is open, no buttons should be selectable in Part Design, apart from "New" and "Open". The "New" icon could be a bit brighter - it's important, and it is the dullest icon of all. (As it is. selection manipulation buttons and the "create a new part and make it active" button are visible even when no document is open. They are inviting to press, but do not work. This leads to frustration and the belief that FreeCAD is very difficult or non-functional).
Idea 3: when a new document is created in Part Design, the "Start Part" window is very useful. But it would be even better if only the "New body" button would show in color, and the rest of the toolbars greyed out. That will guide the novice to what to do. As it is, there is a complete toolbar with things that look like lines (datum plane, really) and boxes (pad, revolve, ...), but they are not what thy seem to be and they cannot work at this stage. Pressing those will lead to no reaction or even errors, again making everything look scary, non-functional, and complicated.

So we create a document and a body and start a sketch. Here we have a more normal learning curve. A problem (for me) was that drawing and constraint icons look too much like each other. I do not know how other CAD software does this, but greying out the constraint buttons when nothing is in the sketch could be a start - this will guide the new user to at least one drawing tool first. This could be extended (only show radius tool when a circle is in the sketch) but a wholesale greying out when the sketch is empty should work. Perhaps icon redesign might help as well - the constraint icons could echo some more of a "dimension" look, perhaps with some ruler lines, or looking more what dimension lines in actual drawings look like.

In conclusion: when we cannot select things that make no sense at the time, it will much easier for the beginner to pick up FreeCAD. When the first sketch is done and padded, the user has a tangible result.
robocat
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by robocat »

Hi Aleks and others,

I was reading through this forum and was a bit shocked to see such strong convictions against the simple reality of the current FreeCAD UI/UX that you pointed out, so I thought I'd give a few thoughts on the proposal.

Firstly I think it's important to say that the existance of FreeCAD and its current UI/UX is already a hugely commendable achievment. The idea that such a powerfull tool has been made free for the world is in itself amazing and I think it's fair to say that the current UI/UX is good enough for the program to already be usable for a lot of people.

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 have been using freecad for about a month now, and agree that the learning curve is indeed very steep. I myself have moved between CAD programs for around a decade with each swap becoming easier as I learn more about the fundamentals to be expected in any CAD program. My progression: Sketchup -> AutoCAD -> SolidEdge -> Inventor -> Fusion360 -> FreeCAD.

These fundamentals are the process of transferring an idea from ones head into a set of constraints that a computer will understand and display. I believe it is important to note that beyond everything else these fundamentals are the most important aspect of any CAD program. These same fundamentals apply to FreeCAD and the software no doubt is able to handle the process in the same way as any other CAD program. The difficulty in FreeCAD is finding the interfaces to enact these fundamental processes. This is a shortcoming of the current UI/UX.

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!

On the discussion of statistics surrounding UI usage, I would say that I disagree with the idea that minimising clicks is a good stat for judging how effective a UI is. At the end of the day the most important thing for me (and I suspect others) when I am CADing is that what I have made does not include some fatal flaw, due to the way in which I have constructed it, due to using tools that were ill suited to what I was trying to achieve. I do understand that FreeCAD has a more liberal workflow than other software however this does not exclude it from scrutiny in this area. Similarly, I would also point out that when one becomes fluent in a CAD program they usually transition to using hotkeys, which somewhat makes the issue of long click chains redundant for the vast majority of operations. Simply put, I suspect most people are more interested in maintaining quality in their CAD work over slightly faster operations. We all know how infuriating a broken CAD model can be!

All in all I understand you have now settled upon designing the layout for newer users, which is great as I think for a lot of people find the current UI/UX situation to be the biggest hurdle for using FreeCAD as their primary CAD program (For me this is my second attempt at moving to freeCAD). It should be remembered that every new user is potentially a future pro user! I also have a sneaky suspicion that a good UI/UX design update, even as an option will probably attract many existing "pros" to use it too!

Lastly, I just wanted to say good job on the mockups and I think it's a great idea to try and design an interface without too much influence from what exists already. Keep at it and good luck, I look forward to seeing where this goes!
LHC
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Re: My take on the FreeCAD GUI

Post by LHC »

robocat - well said. I'm lurking in this thread to keep tabs on new developments on the UI front and I suspect others are as well. I'm an ex F360 user myself and have been struggling along learning FreeCad for about a year now off and on. I am making progress, but it's probably the steepest learning curve I have ever experienced. Enjoying it for the most part though - with random fits of rage :lol:
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