My argument against flat UIs in factorio

[Xunie]

A current hip and trendy design practice is to make user interfaces "flat". Just google "flat UI" and you'll get good examples:
https://www.google.com/search?q=flat+UI&tbm=isch.

When I say "flat interfaces", I mean GUIs characterized by

• Monochrome widgets/elements with no shading/shadows.
• No clear indication between what is and isn't clickable.
• Artsy 'design' being prioritized over efficient workflow.
• The same overbright/washed out colors everywhere, the ones you can get from http://www.flatuicolorpicker.com/ (no, I'm not making that up)
• Redesigning the UI every couple of months for the sake of change.

(You also get infinite scrolling webpages with important information at the footer yet you're never quite able to reach that. Smart!, but that's besides the point and applicable to web design only.)

Meanwhile, if you look at Windows NT 4.1 from over 20 years ago, you see this:

Windows NT 4.0

Windows_NT_4.0.png (10.48 KiB) Viewed 2010 times

Also Windows NT 4.0

LAkrkE9.png (21.16 KiB) Viewed 2010 times

• Buttons have a pseudo-3D effect with a bright/dark side that 'pops out', giving immediate sense of interactivity
• Consistent layout between programs with the menu bar/entries below the window title, status bar at the bottom of the window
• Sub-sections of windows are shaded, like the buttons and windows themselves (compare Windows 10 notepad vs NT 4.0 Notepad!)
• A smart use of numeric control inside natural language sentence
• (Efficient rendering!)

UI design from 20 years ago is somehow still better than web dev nowadays.

(I still use the Windows 7 'classic theme', by the way.)

Now I ain't saying Factorio should look like the Hotdog Stand theme for Windows. In short, I'm simply saying that:

• Factorio's user interface works, people are now used to it, I see no reason to overhaul how it works.
• The UI works well by contextual hinting with a sort of digital-skeuomorphism
• The UI also has that shaded (what some call "ugly") look to it, but it's efficient in transferring usage hints and I think a nice throwback to days gone by. (I personally like how it looks.)
• Resources spent overhauling the UI can be better spent making the game itself better.

As Factorio is about engineering and "getting shit done", I think a 'spartan' UI fits the spirit of the game more than some hyper modernized sleek thing.

These are just my $0.02, request for comments/thoughts I guess?

[AileTheAlien]

Is this in response to some other suggestion/post? Why not just post there? I don't understand the purpose of this thread, if nobody's suggested changing the GUI in Factorio, to be flat.

[ssilk]

See also latest FFF: The GUI will be reworked.

[PureAwesome]

See also latest FFF: The GUI will be reworked.

Yes, but I don't think the idea is to change the look and feel too much. It is to make it more intuitive, and to add new and useful features. See, e.g., https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-170. Heck, even the latest improvements to the minimap are technically GUI improvements.

Factorio's user interface works, people are now used to it, I see no reason to overhaul how it works.
...
Resources spent overhauling the UI can be better spent making the game itself better.

Just look at the kind of improvements they have made to the train network GUI: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-114

I think you will agree that the new train GUI looks better than that and is more intuitive. *These* are the kinds of improvements they are talking about, and I believe the time spent on these improvements is not wasted time; it's stuff which *will* make the game better.

[ssilk]

The GUI was improved with every version. Just small, but continuous improvements. And so it will be with 0.15.