The Psychology behind your UI

[Sn00p]

It allows you to divide your attention effectively and simply switch between the focus of your eyes to aptly alter the UI element you're focused on. It makes a difference as shown in one of the pictures, the procedure that would be taken if information from the other half of the brain (thus other eye) is taken in.

>TL;DR Increased reaction time

[eSko]

I still don't get it... Both eyes see it exactly the same.. How does the position on the screen matter?

[Neer]

Interesting. +5 rep.

[GeorgeKo]

Sorry , but I got a problem in understanding this.

Seems that im right eyed / right brained and I play with my keyboard.

So where do I have to place the UI elements ? I cant figure it out from the pictures you have posted.

[shadowstepster]

I think this should be called "the Physiology behind your UI" since it's not really a psychological process going on...but interesting nonetheless.

[bt411]

I see two issues with this:
1.Keyboard is mechanic wise faster since it only needs to be pressed, while mouse needs to be aimed at the right place beforehand which takes extra time
especially older people will be worse trough having a slow aiming time
2. You need mouse for camera movement, even if you could click faster than press keys it would slow you down as you can't click& move the camera simultanious


Besides that i want to remind of eye movement, your read the screen by default left to right and up to down - this should be considered for arranging ui elements.
If you need infromation X to process Y , X should appear before Y
a simple example is that you would look first at the hp bar and then at your heal skill cds since you can't decide the appropriate healskill unless you know how much you need to heal, same for dps when it comes to deciding if you want to use cds to burst a target in pvp
the default ui has a wide gap between target hp and your skills which means eye movement over the whole screen
bringing them closer together like some packages do by placing player & target frames just above the skill bars minimizes that wandering time which means a speedup

The same optimization should be applied to skill bars in general, don't scatter your cds all over your skill bars, put them locally together to minimize reading time

Another line of tought is readability of your ui elements
lots of addons use skill icons that display duration either through numbers or by shadowing the icon as time progresses
both are slow to process. One needs reading the number and translating it into time, the other focusing on the shadow/unshadowed difference which is often low contrast
the faster choice here is a clean colored bar with high contrast filled / not filled. Big enough bars can even be processed from the eye corner compared to the former two.
Binary markers like graphics that show up for procs are also good as long as they are clearly visible.


this is partly also preached in usability / ui design, the thing is that unlike in office programms it really makes a difference for arena / hc raiding

[Kharnak]

This is what I've been doing my entire WoW life since 2005.

I've had everything centered around the middle, the unimportant stuff in the corners.

I have my action bars completely invisible since it's easy to remember your keybindings = more info of your surroundings (really nice for a tank)

I have Power Aura Classic to remind me of cooldowns PLADUNK in the middle of the screen, completely invisible when not ready.

Everything is so OCD precise that nothing catches my eye except the utmost important stuff like my health bars moving down too much or hostile NamePlates targetting someone that isn't me (tank).


I have the best UI I could possibly imagine, and yet there's almost nothing on my screen! Over 55 addons iirc, they do wonders.



:edit: Putting some love into your UI most certainly makes you a better player. I tend to not invite anyone without at least a hint of customization to my guild.. the reason being they most likely suck. I of course give them a chance, but usually this assumption is correct.

[ray1892]

I am really sure that this is a repost ... Was posted like 1-2 years ago on ownedcores'c main page and a lot of different sites. But well, thanks for sharing though

[Explisivia]

Lovely post man/woman

Really honestly haven't thought about this, but explains alot why I react faster if I bind my shield and stuff in LoL on a mouse button.

[Inexx]

I am really sure that this is a repost ... Was posted like 1-2 years ago on ownedcores'c main page and a lot of different sites. But well, thanks for sharing though

Look at the date thread was posted.

[UNREST]

Great post.

According to this, I am right-brain dominated.

I had always wondered why I was left-eye dominant. I was even told once that I was certainly wrong, and that I must be right-eye dominant because I was right-handed. The hand thing also points to right-side dominant. Still, on inventories, I get that I am middle or left dominant. Still, I do poorly at tests like that (there are a lot of confounding variables for me, and I can never pick the correct answer (is it talking about in reality or is it talking about ideally? Then there is reason to doubt speculative ideas, isn't there?). Anyway, I prefer to identify with right-brained (even though I do like science, but I guess it is not the same as left-brained science, since I prefer to think of the abstraction instead of the logical processes, but meh. It isn't a solid distinction, anyway).

Before finding this thread, a few weeks ago I had a theory kinda like this one, but not nearly as comprehensive. I figured, if I can localize all movement to the mouse (right hand), and all abilities to the keyboard, then theoretically, I would either be reducing the amount of communication between the hemispheres or the amount of task per hemisphere (if redundancy is favored over communication in some cases, I don't want both hemispheres to be having to keep track of both movement and abilities in order to do secondary tasks).

Well, it has been helpful (a lot). Previously, I would get confused when attempting to move and attack at the same time (and often end up hitting the wrong keys occasionally). Now I do it flawlessly.

I wonder if it would be beneficial to feed each hemisphere only one half of the image (one side the stats and abilities, one side the 3d world)

My question is:
The action bar processes seem to be very left-brain dominant. They are systematic, logical. So, are we right-brainers screwed?
Even though I am right-dominant, would it be better to force left-dominance for the sake of its function? it seems like I have it backwards. Shouldn't the left brain be dealing with the sequential logic of the attacks/abilities while the right brain deals with the 3d, non-sequential processing of the world?

Maybe there is something to be gained by viewing the abilities form a right-brain perspective. Still, I feel that they would be best dealt with from a sequential/ mathematical perspective since that is, in essence, their main mode of operation, right? There is not much room for creativity in abilities, more strict mathematical optimization.


As a side note, I would imagine that most of us interested in exploration/exploitation would be right-brained.

[SamurajS]

DAFUQ! Im right brained and right eyed (while also right handed). tested like 5000 times.

+ rep but sos dammit !

[failroad]

I'm right brained and left eyed and got a crick in my knee. I'm right testicled and have erectile dysfunction at times. I'm left footed and right legged.

How does this mean I should setup my wow UI?

[SamurajS]

I'm right brained and left eyed and got a crick in my knee. I'm right testicled and have erectile dysfunction at times. I'm left footed and right legged.

How does this mean I should setup my wow UI?

well if you use ur testicle for wow then ur doing it right =D