Pandora Gui Concept I Made


Joppu said:
WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE EVERYTHING I DRAW. I always make my images for like an hour and then what I get: "your concepts fail :D ". Nice, constructive criticism. I'll make another better concept with tabs (as it seems all of you love them so much). I don't get it. Why does everyone want some kind of dumbed-down UI? I'd rather make my own shortcuts and folders the way I want.
Mostly because trying to use a full windowed gui on a handheld isn't much fun. There's enough resolution, but there's simply not enough screen realestate. If you're on a 17" monitor, take your original image and shrink it by half on both x and y axis, or zoom out to 50% (approximately so you can see just how small the image would be). You'll notice several things. Firslty, that the text is only just readable, and secondly that, if there were more than one window it *definitely* wouldn't be readable.

We all want some of the *features* of a windowed gui (applications housed in separate containers, and switchable), but a windowed gui itself just isn't practical based on the size of the screen.

Re: people not immediately liking your designs in general, I suspect that much as we may deny it, there is an element of people expecting at least some glitz, and your designs, regardless of how functional, do not provide such. Certainly the camp who are against clutter like it in moderation - and those who are *for* clutter are likely to be against your design on the basis of it being a list, which is less efficient in terms of number of clicks to get into a game than a grid. I'm afraid that's just how it is...
 
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chad78 said:
MAKE GOOGLE PANDORA’S HOME PAGE***
NO NO NO NO NOOOO!!!!

Google has NOTHING to do with Pandora. Zippo. ZILCH! The last thinkg I need is another device/application trying to FORCE google down my throat.

I like Yahoo! thankyou very much. I can always find what I'm looking for, and 90% of the time the information I need can be found within the first page of results, somethng that I simply can't say for google.

Anyway, I don't want Yahoo! as the default homepage, either. The homepage should, in my humble opinion be a dedicated mini-site for pandora. The page should be split into 4 segments showing: Latest homebrow game, latest app, latest news posting, and random accessory from the pandora store. Clicking the image of the app or game would direct you to download the app, but each section would also have a 'more' button which would take you to the relevent section of the site.

By the way, apart from the google slur, I think your design concept is spot on. Beautiful and functional. :)

QUOTE

My thought process on the screenshots I put up was - well, what better way to pick an emulator than by a game screenshot?



I'd personally prefer a picture of the system itself. Think that'd be cool :)
 
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Joppu said:
WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE EVERYTHING I DRAW. I always make my images for like an hour and then what I get: "your concepts fail :D ". Nice, constructive criticism. I'll make another better concept with tabs (as it seems all of you love them so much). I don't get it. Why does everyone want some kind of dumbed-down UI? I'd rather make my own shortcuts and folders the way I want.
People have already given constructive feedback about the isses with your design. It's dull to look at, and would be difficult to read on a screen the size of Pandora's. Just look at Chad's design compare to yours. It oozes class, and is easy to know where everything is. Your interface is, by comparison, dull to look at, confusing to understand how to navigate, and frankly looks like one of the 'graphical' application launchers that were around in the MSDOS/DRDOS 6 days. It'd be far better suited to a simple database or spreadsheet app than the first thing to be looking at when you pwer up your new toy
 
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@tobriand Oh really? Pandora has a touchscreen, which means, that even complex UIs are easy to use. And wait, if you have like 100 roms is a grid easier to use then?
 
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That is looking fantastic you should defo team up just graphics and idea wise with whoever is doing the GUI!

Couple of things though, I would personally use the actual game machine unit shots for the launcher pics for emulators and not a particular game shot.
And maybe when the icon is selected a scroll menu will appear on the next screen to select a game / though obvously its down the the emulator devs on how they do this but scrolling through one game at a time is tedious and slow.

Lastly the homepage is a little clutered for my liking, though hopefully it would customisable to take RSS feeds or whatever off that screen, I would like to just open up a seperate program to find out news/weather etc i think the cluter would take away from people having the option to have their own wallpaper as they would want to see it in its clearest form!

Great work though, this is getting more exciting and interesting as the days go on now!
 
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Joppu said:
Oh really? Pandora has a touchscreen, which means, that even complex UIs are easy to use. And wait, if you have like 100 roms is a grid easier to use then?
If you aren't interested in peoples opinions then don't ask for them! If you just want people to tell you that your cencept is great then you should state that at the beginning of the thread (but make sure you're wearing some fireproof overalls)

A touchscreen does not, by default, make a device easy to use. That's the most rediculous sentiment I've heard in this thread so far. Even if were true then you're arguing that you're making the interface overy complex 'because you can'.

I shall be using the d-pad to navigate my menus, thankyou very much.

It doesn't really matter how many ROMS you have because you will generally only want to launch the emulator from the front screen. You will then select your roms from within the emulators own interface.

Yes, if you want to scroll through a list of files, your design is fine and functional (get rid of the window around it and the start menu though). But you didn't post it as a file manager concept, you posted it as a GUI concept and as one, [holding language back] it's not very good [/holding]
 
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Joppu said:
Well, this is meant to be "advanced" windowed gui (which some people prefer more than ease-to-use menus). And everyone loves start buttons. Even Ubuntu has them.
Not everyone. I don't even have one. I have a few buttons for frequently used programs, and a mini command line for the rest. Infinitely faster than digging though menus. :p (I use heavily customsed xubuntu if you're wondering.)
 
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Joppu - I apologize for taking over your thread. And I apologize for making you feel bad. I don't hate your GUI. I think it is an excellent GUI for a file manager type approach. There are definitely times when even Apple's flashiness gets in my way and makes things a little harder to do than it would be with a more textual interface. And, I love Apple's stuff. I'm a MacBook owner, and I think OS X is awesome. But still there are times I just want a list of the files - not previews, not coverflow, not thumbnails - just the name (with extension) of the file and some basic info about it - exactly what you did.

Even in the GUI I'm envisioning - and remember, I have no control over the Pandora. I'm not a programmer or a part of the Pandora team. All the stuff I've done are just Photoshop mockups of what I'd like to see - nothing more. But even in my thinking, there would need to be a file manager interface at some point. I just didn't make that first, because, to me as a designer, the flashy stuff is more fun to do. And since I'm just doing this for fun, that's what I did.

So, again, I do not hate your design. I'm very sorry for hijacking your thread. And I hope you don't stop designing stuff. Art is supposed to be fun, and it doesn't matter if other people like it or not - if its something you saw in your head and got out into the real world - that's a good thing.

That being said, you mentioned that you felt like no one was giving you constructive criticism, so I will try to do that.

One thing that I try to do as a designer (it's what I do professionally - mostly print media) is consider my audience. Who is going to be looking at what I'm making. I could have the same message "Drink more Slurm Cola" and I would make the ad differently if I thought teenage boys were looking at the ad than I would if I though post menapausal women were going to look at it. Or if my magazine were targeted to IT professionals, it would look different than if it were targeted to hard core video gamers - even though those two groups overlap. It's a matter of context in that situation. But enough "more instance"es.

In this thread, your audience is gamers - particularly handheld gamers. Is the Pandora more than a gaming system? Heck yeah it is! But look where this forum is hosted - a gaming website. What separates the Pandora from the rest of the world of PMPs, UMPCs, MIDs, and WXYZs is that the Pandora is a handheld computer *with gaming controls built in*. Dual analog sticks are not going to come in too handy doing anything other than gaming. I'm sorry, but I don't need shoulder buttons to make a spreadsheet. Get my point?

When you consider that this is uniquely a gaming device - you think about the gaming culture. What drives it? What makes it tick? What excites its fan base? Well - it's not lines of text. I'm not trying to be mean in saying that. Think about it - they are called "VIDEO games". It's all about the visual. Why did the NES revive the console market? Was it because the world was thirsty for a new plumbing-based hero? No. It was because the 8-bit graphics of the NES/Famicom *KICKED ATARI'S ASS*! Graphics have always driven the video game market. Gaming is why we have such incredible graphic capabilities on our PCs. I mean, without the Crysis's of the world to push technology forward, we'd probably still be typing on our 16 color EGA monitors. You really don't need much more for emails, documents, spreadsheets, and chat.

So gamers like flashy graphics. That's the first thing.

Number two - I look at the competition. My first stab at the GUI was basically taking two systems I already own - a Sony PSP and a Nokia N800 - and combining their GUIs. The side-scrolling icons came from the PSP, and the right column of options from the N800. There are many reasons to look at the competition. 1. They want the same thing as you want - so what they do to try to get it might be something you want to try. 2. They already did a lot of work on what they've got - why reinvent the wheel? I'm not saying steal their stuff - or make another ____ clone - but there are certain things that just make sense, and if what they do works, there might just be something to it. Think about it - they have billions of dollars to spend on research & development , by simply releasing their finished product, we have access to the results of thousands of manhours of research! 3. It gives you an idea of what your audience expects. That goes back to my first point - consider your audience. There's a very good chance your competition already has.

So - second thing - the PSP, the N800, the Eee PC - they all have iconic based GUIs with little or no text. And particularly the PSP, but also the N800, they are flashy in their presentation... There might be something to that.

And finally - as another thread is asking - what is the Pandora's "WOW" factor? We can't really show off the full potential of the hardware with a game - not right now. This is simply because there are no (zero) games that have been written to natively run on the Pandora. There *will be* (hopefully!) - but at first, 99.9% of the games are going to run on emulators, or be ports from lesser systems. So, none of the games we have will be pushing the limits of the hardware. To make up for this, I would like to see, (and it's just my opinion), the GUI show off the hardware. I'm not saying that the CPUs should be spiking just to run the OS! But it should display some of the possibilites of the Pandora.

So you think about things like - hey, this is a touch screen device - how can we use that? It's a high resolution screen - what can we do with all that "real estate"? It's got WiFi - what does that add to the GUI? It has a some hard core graphics capabilities - why not use some shading and movement in the OS?

Going back to looking at competitors - Look at desktop operating systems - Mac OS X, of course, is known for being flashy and graphics driven. The "Coverflow" thing, and the dock, and the QuickLook... Using movement, scaling, shading, reflections - all to emphasize your focus. The Dock icons get Bigger as you mouse over them to draw attention to what you are actually about to click on. (it also makes it easier to click on it when it is bigger.) Windows Vista (sucks, but) was focused on adding flash and pizazz to Windows XP. The "Aero" interface. I don't personally like it - but it was a focus of Microsoft to make Windows *LOOK* better - even if it didn't work. And even the beloved Linux has been seeing a lot of eyecandy thrown its way lately - the Compriz stuff is awesome - KDE 4.0 looks incredible - 3D desktop effects, jiggily windows, spinning cubes a'plenty! Why in the world do you need a 3D way of switching virtual desktops? You don't! But it looks cool as hell! And, you know what? That simple graphics trick got a lot of people interested in Linux that would have otherwise never even looked at it.

So, hopefully this came across as helpful and not hurtful - as that was my intention, to help. Think about your audience, consider the competition, and think about your message. My message in my GUI was two fold - #1 - this is a uber cool gaming rig that is capable of some kick ass graphics and effects. #2 - this is *MUCH* more than a gaming rig it's a full fledged computer in your pocket - it can tell you the weather, keep you up-to-date on the latest news, surf the web, help you get your taxes done, and so much more, and look damn good doing it.

I sincerely hope that helps you understand why some people may be more attracted to something graphical rather than text driven. And I hope you keep working your craft. You learn a lot more from disappointment than you do from success - and eventually those lessons lead to success. So don't give up!
 
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Wow! Really nice GUI from chad78!

Don´t forget the Tango free icon library, all of you who wants to create you own gui (and, like me, don´t have the skill to create art... :rolleyes:)
 
sindbad said:
rokdcasbah said:
but i these discussions always end up dividing people into two camps..."clutter is bad" and "zomfg i need all my icons in one screen or i'll die". i think you can tell where my biases are.
Good configuration tools and nice plugin apis usually solve that problem gracefully. Plus, you can always just make your own.
And, for everyone worried about clutter. In my idea, the widgets would be completely customizable (read:REMOVABLE) by the user. You could just drag and drop (stylus or thumb) the corner of a widget to resize it, move it around the screen, or, through the options menu, hide / trash it. Maybe you want the weather, but not the huge link to openpandora.org - and you found a cool Google Maps app you'd like to add, go for it. What if you want just the search bar on your home page - that's cool too. Or you want to cram 10 different news readers on there - go right ahead. Think of the home tab as your computer's desktop - it can be a clean (boring) or as cluttered (useful) as you want it to be. (I put opposing views - not mine - in parenthesis.) It's all up to you.

And, like others have said - you don't *have* to ever go to the "home" tab.

Seiti said:
Wow! Really nice GUI from chad78!
Thank you!

QUOTE
Don´t forget the Tango free icon library, all of you who wants to create you own gui (and, like me, don´t have the skill to create art... :rolleyes:)



Actually, most of my icons (all but the Pandora logo and the "options" icon, I think) are from the Tango library! Well, I made the WiFi into a circle.
 
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chad78 said:
Joppu - I apologize for taking over your thread. And I apologize for making you feel bad. I don't hate your GUI. I think it is an excellent GUI for a file manager type approach. There are definitely times when even Apple's flashiness gets in my way and makes things a little harder to do than it would be with a more textual interface. And, I love Apple's stuff. I'm a MacBook owner, and I think OS X is awesome. But still there are times I just want a list of the files - not previews, not coverflow, not thumbnails - just the name (with extension) of the file and some basic info about it - exactly what you did.

Even in the GUI I'm envisioning - and remember, I have no control over the Pandora. I'm not a programmer or a part of the Pandora team. All the stuff I've done are just Photoshop mockups of what I'd like to see - nothing more. But even in my thinking, there would need to be a file manager interface at some point. I just didn't make that first, because, to me as a designer, the flashy stuff is more fun to do. And since I'm just doing this for fun, that's what I did.
.......
+1 Chad i agree with every thing you say (your post is too long to quote :p )
 
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Nice mock-up of toolbar and widgets but depressing there's nothing new there, tired old hackneyed metaphors of, "home" , and, "desktop", never made any sense in the 80's. Shrunken workstation, meh.

As dear old dad would fondly put it;
"Anybody can piss on the floor. Be a hero and shit on the ceiling."
 
Another one, hope you like it. (I didn't have time to add any eye candy)
16c50l4.png

Note that the adress bar disappears when file browser is not in use and the battery indicator etc. disappears too. I just realized, that I have to move the tabs up and squeeze date & battery into one bar.
 
what would be extremely cool imo, given the recent news about adobe releasing the flash specs, is if the pandora menu system could be flash-based. it seems like the screen is going to be hi-res enough that something like a 32x32 icon is too small. not that bigger icons can't be used...i'm just dreaming anyway.

i don't know how flash is about loading external resources...i know it can be done, but i don't know if you could load up something like an svg icon.

svg-based menu would be another similar thing. i don't know about the feasibility of all this, just something that i thought was worth mentioning.
 
Joppu said:
Another one, hope you like it. (I didn't have time to add any eye candy)
...
Note that the adress bar disappears when file browser is not in use and the battery indicator etc. disappears too. I just realized, that I have to move the tabs up and squeeze date & battery into one bar.
I like this, but I think for file management, the icons should be smaller so as to fit more on the screen at once. For an application launcher, on the other hand, large icons are good since you won't have as many applications as files.
 
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rokdcasbah said:
what would be extremely cool imo, given the recent news about adobe releasing the flash specs, is if the pandora menu system could be flash-based. it seems like the screen is going to be hi-res enough that something like a 32x32 icon is too small. not that bigger icons can't be used...i'm just dreaming anyway.

i don't know how flash is about loading external resources...i know it can be done, but i don't know if you could load up something like an svg icon.

svg-based menu would be another similar thing. i don't know about the feasibility of all this, just something that i thought was worth mentioning.
Flash would be quite slow, compared to a C/C++ coded GUI. Flash has its uses, but the main interface for a handheld like the Pandora is not one of them.

(On my Athlon 64 FX-53 desktop, it slows down when I'm playing a flash game and a flash-based, animated advertisement starts running. That shouldn't happen.)
 
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Vorporeal said:
(On my Athlon 64 FX-53 desktop, it slows down when I'm playing a flash game and a flash-based, animated advertisement starts running. That shouldn't happen.)
well this would be without adobe's code, though :D

but you're right, and it wouldn't have to be flash anyway. opengl es is enough of a framework to cook up what i mentioned. sdl would work too. i just figured that there's a lot more people out there that are familiar with flash than with actual coding :p
 
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