About the new layout

[Meanwhile]

I know everyone has their different opinions on the new layout, but I couldn't find a better way to share my personal thoughts and struggles (and I didn't want to clutter up the announcement thread about it) so I decided to post here.

For context, I play HWO on a laptop only--never on mobile or desktop, and only with a trackpad (using a mouse generally isn't feasible for my setup). I have no idea if these problems are any different on other devices; but I've been playing this game on laptop for years and I don't see that ever changing.

There are several big obstacles that are preventing me from wanting to use the new layout, but I think I can at least definitively highlight the two that are making things impossible. If these two things were fixed, or if there was a way to change these in the layout options (and please tell me if there is and I've just missed it) it would go a long way in making the layout usable for me.

The first is the image sizes, primarily where the horses are concerned, but the tiny pastures aren't great either. Squinting at my screen trying to see the differences between horses when adopting from the AC, trying to enjoy my own horses in their pasture, looking for subtle changes or comparing phenotypes, are all pretty much impossible right now.

The second (and maybe biggest) problem for me, is the way that the layout is so extremely horizontally stretched. In the old layout, everything is oriented nicely in the middle of the screen, limited in width, with margins of breathing room on either side. I can process the information easily, the format is consistent across different screens, I don't have to move far to click or read things, etc. The new layout right now reads to me as completely uncontrolled horizontally, and buttons and graphics that are probably supposed to be easily-to-digest are having the opposite effect, nothing seems to mesh together well, it takes so much longer to do anything, and information is extremely difficult for me to process. I've given the new layout a shot, but I get overwhelmed so quickly that I can't play for very long at all before I feel like I need to rest my eyes and brain.

I hope all of this makes sense! If any other information would help, let me know. I thought about providing screenshots to show how the site looks on my laptop, but I don't know if that would actually help or not. Thanks!

[BlackOak2]

I hope all of this makes sense! If any other information would help, let me know. I thought about providing screenshots to show how the site looks on my laptop, but I don't know if that would actually help or not. Thanks!

Question. Have you tried the new magnifier option yet?

It's found on the farm page on the new layout. Going closer to your farm also changes the size of the AC horses. I don't know how useful this'll be in your situation, but if it's not enough, maybe admin can figure something else out.

It also saves your preference, so you don't have to go into it every time and adjust it.

As far as the horizontal layout... I don't have any additional suggestions for that. -_- Unfortunately.

[larissar]

Thank you for this feedback! We really do want to improve the layout so the more feedback we get the better we can do.

I hope all of this makes sense! If any other information would help, let me know. I thought about providing screenshots to show how the site looks on my laptop, but I don't know if that would actually help or not. Thanks!

I'm a very visual person so for me screenshots help a LOT to understand the problems better.

[Rakurosa]

I'm gonna piggyback on this thread here. I've never seen the old layout because I'm a newer player, but there are some issues I've seen with this one; primarily related to text on the background. Some of the things are really hard to see/notice, and I've got a visual example here. It took me a few days to find my friends list because... well, I didn't notice it, and even when I did, it's hard to really see well. :(



The orange is really hard to see against the grass. It would be nice if text was always backed by some kind of opaque background, even if the opacity lowered.

[larissar]

I'm gonna piggyback on this thread here. I've never seen the old layout because I'm a newer player, but there are some issues I've seen with this one; primarily related to text on the background. Some of the things are really hard to see/notice, and I've got a visual example here. It took me a few days to find my friends list because... well, I didn't notice it, and even when I did, it's hard to really see well.



The orange is really hard to see against the grass. It would be nice if text was always backed by some kind of opaque background, even if the opacity lowered.

This one is entirely my fault. I never actually got around to moving the friends list to a proper place. It sort of got plunked down into the bottom of the code on this page while I worked on other sections of it and I didn't get around to finishing that part. My apologies. I will get back to cleaning up that page as soon as I can.

[Meanwhile]

Sorry it took me so long to reply back to this! It was hard to get my thoughts in order and get examples of things that bothered me the most. I feel like there are other things that interrupt my "workflow" in the game, like actually trying to maneuver around horse profiles etc. but I haven't been able to describe exactly what about it is making things difficult. I feel like others would be better at putting those things into words.

Here are some screenshots of how things look on my laptop, and I'll try to point out what about it bothers me. Sorry in advance if this isn't actually helpful!

- Old view of the AC: Everything is together in easy-viewable and clickable range. The bars are no bigger than they need to be, and the "Show me the horses" and "Scatter" buttons are easily clickable and close together, so I can quickly cycle through the AC, looking for the horse I want.
- New view of the AC: The bars are huge and spread across the whole screen, the buttons I need to click are tiny and on opposite sides of the screen.

- Old view of training: Easy to process what I'm looking at, easy to click, things are all arranged similarly to one another.
- New view of training: Very hard for my brain to process everything that's happening here. There is just so much in my field of view, everything is arranged in different orientations, everything is all clustered into the same panel.

- Old farm view: This one is really important. I need to click through my pastures quickly, see everything at a glance, especially when I have so many. This view is nice and tidy, I can process what I'm looking at quickly, easily press the view buttons, etc.
- New farm view 1, New farm view 2: The view is so stretched out, each pasture takes up so much room, the view buttons are so small, it's both hard for me to efficiently use and it burns out my brain and eyes quickly. I also can't look at and compare them all to each other quickly.

- Old horse view: Again, nice and compact, centralized, balanced. I can quickly see my information, I can scroll down a little bit to get the other information I need, especially when mass editing horse descriptions etc.
- New horse view 1, New horse view 2: Very stretched out, unbalanced visually with the information centered and aligned all the way over to the left, but the horse and its banner over on the right. I theoretically like the fact that some of the information is hidden on the left bar, but some of it I would like to always be visible. Don't remember if there's a setting for that already or not.

- Old pasture view: There are things I definitely don't love about the old view, but I can still easily see the notes I've written about my horses, so I can sort and understand what I'm looking at from this view instead of needing to click/hover each one. Also, the bars are nice and small and the "View" buttons are nice and big.
- New pasture view: I like the fact that the thumbnails of the horses are bigger, and their breed/age/etc. is easier to see all listed together like that. But otherwise, this screen is also overwhelming and cumbersome to me. Like other places on the site, it's spread all the way across the screen, the gauge bars are huge, and the view buttons are not easy to quickly click.


So, ultimately, I don't know exactly what it is about the new layout that burns me out so fast and makes doing any of my normal work extremely slow, but I tried to hone in on a few things. Generally, I think the way that things are no longer centrally located on the screen, buttons harder to efficiently click, and some information is either crowded together, disparately conveyed, or spread way out, are what's doing it. Either way, the fact that the new layout literally gives me a headache to navigate was confirmed when pulling these screenshots together, haha. Thanks, migraine-brain.

I hope this helps at least a little bit!

[Argent]

Sorry it took me so long to reply back to this! It was hard to get my thoughts in order and get examples of things that bothered me the most. I feel like there are other things that interrupt my "workflow" in the game, like actually trying to maneuver around horse profiles etc. but I haven't been able to describe exactly what about it is making things difficult. I feel like others would be better at putting those things into words.

Here are some screenshots of how things look on my laptop, and I'll try to point out what about it bothers me. Sorry in advance if this isn't actually helpful!

- Old view of the AC: Everything is together in easy-viewable and clickable range. The bars are no bigger than they need to be, and the "Show me the horses" and "Scatter" buttons are easily clickable and close together, so I can quickly cycle through the AC, looking for the horse I want.
- New view of the AC: The bars are huge and spread across the whole screen, the buttons I need to click are tiny and on opposite sides of the screen.

- Old view of training: Easy to process what I'm looking at, easy to click, things are all arranged similarly to one another.
- New view of training: Very hard for my brain to process everything that's happening here. There is just so much in my field of view, everything is arranged in different orientations, everything is all clustered into the same panel.

- Old farm view: This one is really important. I need to click through my pastures quickly, see everything at a glance, especially when I have so many. This view is nice and tidy, I can process what I'm looking at quickly, easily press the view buttons, etc.
- New farm view 1, New farm view 2: The view is so stretched out, each pasture takes up so much room, the view buttons are so small, it's both hard for me to efficiently use and it burns out my brain and eyes quickly. I also can't look at and compare them all to each other quickly.

- Old horse view: Again, nice and compact, centralized, balanced. I can quickly see my information, I can scroll down a little bit to get the other information I need, especially when mass editing horse descriptions etc.
- New horse view 1, New horse view 2: Very stretched out, unbalanced visually with the information centered and aligned all the way over to the left, but the horse and its banner over on the right. I theoretically like the fact that some of the information is hidden on the left bar, but some of it I would like to always be visible. Don't remember if there's a setting for that already or not.

- Old pasture view: There are things I definitely don't love about the old view, but I can still easily see the notes I've written about my horses, so I can sort and understand what I'm looking at from this view instead of needing to click/hover each one. Also, the bars are nice and small and the "View" buttons are nice and big.
- New pasture view: I like the fact that the thumbnails of the horses are bigger, and their breed/age/etc. is easier to see all listed together like that. But otherwise, this screen is also overwhelming and cumbersome to me. Like other places on the site, it's spread all the way across the screen, the gauge bars are huge, and the view buttons are not easy to quickly click.


So, ultimately, I don't know exactly what it is about the new layout that burns me out so fast and makes doing any of my normal work extremely slow, but I tried to hone in on a few things. Generally, I think the way that things are no longer centrally located on the screen, buttons harder to efficiently click, and some information is either crowded together, disparately conveyed, or spread way out, are what's doing it. Either way, the fact that the new layout literally gives me a headache to navigate was confirmed when pulling these screenshots together, haha. Thanks, migraine-brain.

I hope this helps at least a little bit!

Agreed on everything looking wide/stretched out in the new layout. I also prefer more compact displays

[Meanwhile]

With the old layout going to be deprecated to make way for the new horse art... did this ever get looked at? Didn't know if I should ping somebody or just assume that everything in the Suggestion board gets looked at.

The updated layout is still super fatiguing to look at and navigate for me, so I'm still holding out hope that changes might be made before we're all forced off of the old layout, haha.

[Tom]

We look at the suggestions.

We did make some adjustments to the layout, but the art update is the focus at the moment. I don't think the layout will ever be 100% done and set in stone. We will always be open to improving it.