WizardStan
Mega GP Mania
- Joined
- May 24, 2008
- Messages
- 16,733
Label the buttons NSEW directly and in the middle of them, printed on the case, use ↟, ↞, ↠, and ↡, like a real compass with arrows?
My guess, too.Why not label them with some kind of "compass arrows"
Because people will talk about up-arrow and not know whether they mean dpad or face buttons.
Two sets of arrows is begging for confusion
Still if we use NSWE in letters, they have to look different than the other regular letter keys. Otherwise it just looks random, not like a compass.
I'm sold.Put th or st after them (possibly in a smaller font), to give clear abbreviations Nth, Sth, Est, Wst.
It does not have to look like a compass but it could well be pretty cool if that was incorporated into the design.Still if we use NSWE in letters, they have to look different than the other regular letter keys. Otherwise it just looks random, not like a compass.
See also:
Larger image: http://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~jon.sneyers/tmp/action_buttons4.png
This concept is based on the alchemical symbols: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_symbol)
but the symbols are a bit modified to hide ABXY in them.Four basic elements
Main article: Classical elements
Western alchemy makes use of the Hellenic elements. The symbols used for these are:[1]
These symbols are also appropriate for Home/End/PgUp/PgDn.
Yay Finland PEIL (Pohjoinen, Etelä, Itä, Länsi)Other European languages would mostly be NSEO or NSOW, wouldn't they? - Not too far off.
It actually has a slight additional advantage of depicting the pageup/pagedown/home/end in a somewhat intuitive way (as said in the quote).I actually really like the classical element one.
And from the discussion it seemed that the UK isn't different. The surprising thing was that there seemed to be some kind of existential Angst surrounding the possibility of using any foreign symbols (not only greek). My favorite argument (paraphrased by me) was: My mother doesn't know them, therefore they will confuse me. It seems that it isn't doing you much good if most of the world is speaking your language and copying your culture.I can say pretty much all of the USA...Are there some stats with how many people in first world countrys dont know what the first greek letters are?
It was a joke.Not eliminating it completely is not a good reason to avoid the issue.
yea, me too, it's my personal favorite. Kinda meets the whole dragon esque / fire logo theme of the pyra.I actually really like the classical element one.
For me the problem is that there is no inherent connection with button position for the elements so if we're told to press the AIR button in game then concious thought / learning has to take place to press the left button, also being told to press the Fire button could lead to a bit of confusion with us oldies who are used to joystick buttons in general being called the fire button.I think the idea got shot down by people originally, but maybe the button graphics just weren't right.
I can feel ya on that, I'm not saying it's intuitive by any means, nor is it better than cardinal directions, my stance is purely on flavor and meeting the requirements for "not a bad system", just not necessarily be the "best system"For me the problem is that there is no inherent connection with button position for the elements so if we're told to press the AIR button in game then concious thought / learning has to take place to press the left button, also being told to press the Fire button could lead to a bit of confusion with us oldies who are used to joystick buttons in general being called the fire button.I think the idea got shot down by people originally, but maybe the button graphics just weren't right.
Using the elements as button labels also strikes me as Uber Nerdy / likely to appeal to 14 year old D&D players and people like me, of course (a 45 year old ex D&D playing hippy).
Still waiting for someone who would not be easily able to press the correct button if we used the cardinal points of the compass (+ NW & SW for the extra 2 buttons).
I get East and West mixed up. As in I can't remember which is left and which is right.For me the problem is that there is no inherent connection with button position for the elements so if we're told to press the AIR button in game then concious thought / learning has to take place to press the left button, also being told to press the Fire button could lead to a bit of confusion with us oldies who are used to joystick buttons in general being called the fire button.I think the idea got shot down by people originally, but maybe the button graphics just weren't right.
Using the elements as button labels also strikes me as Uber Nerdy / likely to appeal to 14 year old D&D players and people like me, of course (a 45 year old ex D&D playing hippy).
Still waiting for someone who would not be easily able to press the correct button if we used the cardinal points of the compass (+ NW & SW for the extra 2 buttons).