This video rings so true for me. I honestly had to jump into a party to get some help figuring out how to navigate parties, since I didn't know how to manage the party that I was already in. And even Xbone vets were having a hard time getting to Deep Rock Galactic.
Mal, who has recently gotten into PS4, seems to be having the same issues from a different angle on that console (and the fact that Shadow of the Colossus was not featured anywhere on PSN on its launch day is a travesty). What ever happened to friendly UIs?

Which reminds me. Does anyone know what the parameters are for the Xbone to upload your saved clips? Some are ready in five minutes, some take days, some never leave the internal memory, and some (like Sea of Thieves clips) just flat-out disappear forever.

What gives?

This video rings so true for me. I honestly had to jump into a party to get some help figuring out how to navigate parties, since I didn't know how to manage the party that I was already in. And even Xbone vets were having a hard time getting to Deep Rock Galactic.
Mal, who has recently gotten into PS4, seems to be having the same issues from a different angle on that console (and the fact that Shadow of the Colossus was not featured anywhere on PSN on its launch day is a travesty). What ever happened to friendly UIs?

Though I may be a MSFT employee (and my thoughts any opinions don't reflect the company yadda yadda yadda), I personally feel that the Dashboard is the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date. I have 0 problems navigating the party system at all.

This video rings so true for me. I honestly had to jump into a party to get some help figuring out how to navigate parties, since I didn't know how to manage the party that I was already in. And even Xbone vets were having a hard time getting to Deep Rock Galactic.
Mal, who has recently gotten into PS4, seems to be having the same issues from a different angle on that console (and the fact that Shadow of the Colossus was not featured anywhere on PSN on its launch day is a travesty). What ever happened to friendly UIs?

Though I may be a MSFT employee (and my thoughts any opinions don't reflect the company yadda yadda yadda), I personally feel that the Dashboard is the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date. I have 0 problems navigating the party system at all.

I mean, now that I've figured it out, it's pretty good (except for the part where it doesn't go to the party itself once you've joined it, so you have to manually back out and go to the Multiplayer tab, then click on the Party slide to see if you've successfully joined, or if you're still stuck on Connecting). The fact that it was a submenu on the Multiplayer tab instead of the People tab (like it used to be) was what threw me off, and made it difficult for me to find, since there is no access to it from the home page, or any of its tabs, and since I was already in a Party, the Multiplayer tab read as more of an Invite page...

But like I said, now that I know, it's easy.
And yeah, I totally agree with your carefully worded statement that it's "the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date".
Still pretty lousy UI, especially that one time this week that it wasn't letting me go to the Refresh button on the Activity feed, because it's not part of the grid, and videos weren't loading properly, so I couldn't drop down to them to head right then up...

And yeah, I totally agree with your carefully worded statement that it's "the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date".

Hah! Yea, I mainly worded it that way because my recollection of the 360 era is a bit foggy and I wouldn't be able to honestly compare them at this moment in time, so I excluded it.

That vid was so true. I feel like there's been a big move in the last (10? 15?) years of software design to just throw out the "design" portion of the job title and start changing shit just to make it "feel new." Remember when iTunes changed it's logo from blue to red? Now it's BOTH because fuck being able to quickly recognize and identify the icons for the apps you use. But that's minor. At the same time they changed the color, they also moved the browser bar from the right side of the screen to the left and removed the ability to easily create and nest folders. They made "purchased" a category, which is a weird way to browse your music library

"Gee, honey, hip hop is nice and all, but I only listen to music from the genre 'purchased digitally from the itunes store' - do you have any of that?"

What the fuck?

All of which leads me to the clusterfuck of nonsense that is Avid Media Composer (get ready for a very inside-baseball rant that won't make any sense to most of you). That's the editing software that I use every day of my sad, godforsaken life. It was also apparently created in the same way as Freddy Krueger, except instead of being raped by 1000 maniacs, Avid's mom was turned into ransomware by 1000 engineers. This is a terrible metaphor. Whatever. My point is, when you have a nearly completely customizable UI, HOW THE FUCK IS IT STILL IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND THINGS? Like, I can put almost every instruction wherever I want it on the screen or bound to my keyboard, but - for reasons beyond my ken - certain settings are locked behind bizzare sub-menus and can't be moved. You want to find Offline items in your bin? No, no, you can't keybind that. You have to go to Bin > Select > Offline Items. At least the bin menu makes sense, because you're doing something in your bin. But what if you want to export an EDL of that same bin? DON'T GO TO THE DAMN BIN MENU, THAT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE. Now you have to go to Tools > List Tool and then generate the EDL from there. Last gen of Avid you actually had a thing called "EDL Manager" which was its own application. Too bad, bucko, now we call it the "list tool" - no one knows why! And god forbid you might want to change the default 4k conversion settings of your project from "Stretch" to "Center Punch" BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE DEFAULT BEHAVIOR. So if you're importing, say, 3,600 hours of source footage from the field for what would be a moderately sized month-long shoot, you need to remember to change each and every clip manually. And of course you can't keybind that!

Software engineers of the world, Please, PLEASE, for the love of God, make sure there's a professional UI designer on your team and that he has read and LOVED The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. That's the UI bible right there. And then do whatever the UI designer says.

I did some UI work once upon a time, and it is hard work that is grossly under-appreciated.

And yeah, I totally agree with your carefully worded statement that it's "the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date".

Hah! Yea, I mainly worded it that way because my recollection of the 360 era is a bit foggy and I wouldn't be able to honestly compare them at this moment in time, so I excluded it.

The 360 UI was magic. It worked quickly and was fairly intuitive. Easy to navigate. Want to make a party? press START, select "Party" from the drop down menu (which only has like 5 items in it). Bam, you're instantly in the party window and ready to invite to your party or join someone else's.

Xbone UI was a goddamn mess when it first came out and while much better, it's still not nearly as fluid as the XB360 was (is? I use my 360 all the time).

Bungie vault UI qualifies too.

Though I may be a MSFT employee (and my thoughts any opinions don't reflect the company yadda yadda yadda), I personally feel that the Dashboard is the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date. I have 0 problems navigating the party system at all.

I doubt I am the norm, but I want my interface to do just a few things:

-Let me launch the game I want to play as quickly as possible.
-Join a chat party as quickly as possible.
-Change console settings as quickly as possible.

That's it. There's so much bullshit and superfluous stuff on modern consoles, PS4 included. At least there are no ads, but prepare to be horrified if you ever press down on the d-pad.

All of which leads me to the clusterfuck of nonsense that is Avid Media Composer (get ready for a very inside-baseball rant that won't make any sense to most of you). That's the editing software that I use every day of my sad, godforsaken life. It was also apparently created in the same way as Freddy Krueger, except instead of being raped by 1000 maniacs, Avid's mom was turned into ransomware by 1000 engineers.

Migrate to premiere. Type "offline" on the search bar and voila. All your offline clips.

I agree the Avid interface is so bad. You are in effect mode and want to change a clip's effect later in the timeline. So you click to move the playhead… and it takes you out of effect mode. WHY?!

Though I may be a MSFT employee (and my thoughts any opinions don't reflect the company yadda yadda yadda), I personally feel that the Dashboard is the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date. I have 0 problems navigating the party system at all.

I doubt I am the norm, but I want my interface to do just a few things:

-Let me launch the game I want to play as quickly as possible.
-Join a chat party as quickly as possible.
-Change console settings as quickly as possible.

That's it. There's so much bullshit and superfluous stuff on modern consoles, PS4 included. At least there are no ads, but prepare to be horrified if you ever press down on the d-pad.

I like the way PS4 handles it, actually. The base level UI is fast and easy to navigate, but seeing the game page is as easy as pressing down while a game is selected. I can easily see clips from the game, the trophies my friends have earned, whether it has add-on content I can get, etc. It's much more intuitive than finding the similar info on Xbox.

I don't hate the Xbox UI--it certainly is better than it was at launch. Some things are in weird places, still. It took me ages to find where I adjust my microphone volume.

I laughed at that video several times. I think the Xbox interface is better than the PS4's, but then again, I use the Kinect for most navigation.

On the other hand, the PS4's quick menu is much improved. Xbox's quick menu would be so much better if they made it a vertical list instead of a horizontal list.

I hope it supports Atmos, so I don't have to buy the Platinum headset just to play one game.

Which reminds me. Does anyone know what the parameters are for the Xbone to upload your saved clips? Some are ready in five minutes, some take days, some never leave the internal memory, and some (like Sea of Thieves clips) just flat-out disappear forever.

I'm pretty sure they did something so that Sea of Thieves clips can't be uploaded to XboxDVR for the beta, so don't try it.

- No text -

I laughed at that video several times. I think the Xbox interface is better than the PS4's, but then again, I use the Kinect for most navigation.

On the other hand, the PS4's quick menu is much improved. Xbox's quick menu would be so much better if they made it a vertical list instead of a horizontal list.

Oh man, right???

Like, how do people type lists?

1. Item 2. Item 3. Item 4. Item

or

1. Item
2. Item
3. Item
4. Item

IT'S OBVIOUS THAT VERTICAL IS CORRECT.

Though I may be a MSFT employee (and my thoughts any opinions don't reflect the company yadda yadda yadda), I personally feel that the Dashboard is the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date. I have 0 problems navigating the party system at all.

I doubt I am the norm, but I want my interface to do just a few things:

-Let me launch the game I want to play as quickly as possible.
-Join a chat party as quickly as possible.
-Change console settings as quickly as possible.

That's it. There's so much bullshit and superfluous stuff on modern consoles, PS4 included. At least there are no ads, but prepare to be horrified if you ever press down on the d-pad.

Pretty much this, yeah.

For the bonus stuff like movies, just give me a tab and then make the interface essentially the same:

- resume whatever I was watching last (or the next in the series if the last one ended)
- search function
- settings

I cannot stand that when you tab over to the store, it's just a mess of tiles and doesn't seem organized at all.

your carefully worded statement that it's "the most user friendly its been in the Xbox One era to date".

That's definitely the key phrase. It's so much better than it originally was, it'd take me all day to list the improvements. And yet, I still think Microsoft's obsession with putting everything on those biq square-ish tiles that look like they belong on a touchscreen* is ill-advised. Things take up more space than they need to, I don't think it actually looks that attractive, and the only way to make things readable is to put huge gaps between the different item groups.

*They do belong on a touchscreen. This whole design language started with Windows 8's Metro interface, which was an unbelievable farce. The tablet craze was well into its stride, and MS apparently believed that if they made a touchscreen interface, ALL computing would immediately shift to tablets. So they made a touchscreen interface, and just sort of ignored the fact that keyboards and mice still existed.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/stabbim/video/45636523

They might have changed that for the "final beta" this past weekend?

Yeah, I just bought it on sale. I'll buy it again.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/stabbim/video/45636523

They might have changed that for the "final beta" this past weekend?

Seeing as I can see your video, then yes :D