THIS^ (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Friday, March 27, 2015, 18:32 (3318 days ago) @ dogcow

Our challenge was to provide an increase in storage that fit within the memory constraints that limit how many items can be displayed on one screen.

Why are they even trying to fit it on one screen? If that's where the memory problems are manifesting, they should just HAVE MORE THAN ONE SCREEN.

I agree in that it seems like breaking it up into multiple screens certainly could solve the problem, but they didn't put it on mutliple screens, and I'm sure they did so for what they believed was a very good reason. My guesses are:

1- they can't add new tabs (I doubt this, but maybe, the new faction rep ... popup(?) feels very 'tacked on' to me)
2- it wouldn't really save any RAM (perhaps they can't load/unload content between tabs)
3- perhaps loading/unloading content between tabs is really really slow
4- They're concerned people won't understand where their gear went when it's been moved to a different screen

I guess my point is, that solution seems obvious, so there must be a good reason they didn't do it, we just don't know what that reason is.

You've nailed it. I've worked at a software company since 1998. I've been involved in a lot of designs. I'm an editor, so I get asked to evaluate UIs from a language perspective quite often, and I end up asking tons of questions, and there's many times when I'll suggest a solution or a different control that seems obviously better to me. The answer is almost always, "we thought of that but ..." and then I hear about ten factors or constraints that I was completely unaware of but that needed to be considered. When I get led through the thought process that led to the current design, I often end up exactly where the UI analysts did. Fortunately for my career, from that place of understanding, I can usually come up with ways to improve it still, but my point is that it's easy to come up with obvious solutions looking at something from the outside. On rare occasions, that suggestion will be fresh, and you'll come off looking like a genius, but usually, when dealing with other experienced people, the "obvious" solution had already been considered and rejected for good reasons you just don't know about.