Feedback from completely new user

[adzling]

It would seem that some folks are mistaking "poor interface" for "not flashy enough".

It is a fairly common lack of knowledge about interfaces that all they provide is "flashy" graphics.

That is the least important part of an interface and demonstrates the commentators poor understanding of what a good interface actually does.

That's not the point, the point is that it is overly dense and does not function as well as it should.

This is borne out by other commenters (including the O.P.) in this thread.

You can shut your eyes and ears and go "nyah nyah you're wrong" but when folks are saying you have a problem with a critical user aspect of your product it's usually helpful to understand what the problem is and consider a fix.

This is reinforced when multiple unassociated parties make the same comment.

Conversely the inverse is not true (many users say "no problem" does not mean there is not a problem).

This is commonly understood by people who develop products for a living (that there are different types of people who use your product).

 

[AEIOU]

@adzling: You've stated and restated and restated your credentials and how the interface should be completely different but you haven't said anything useful or contributed any actionable commentary whatsoever in any of your posts. I've been waiting and fear I won't ever hear the specifics of what exactly you feel is not up to your standards and specifically how it could be corrected. Thank you for trolling.

 

[adzling]

that is not correct Aeiou, and I am most certainly not trolling.

I have pointed out (as did the O.P. and have others who have chimed in) that the interface need improvement.

I have offered a potential way to streamline the interface by sorting features according to usage.

I am not here to fix anything but to offer a viewpoint from a new user.

All I have heard from the community responses are (and I am paraphrasing here):
1). we agree, it's confusing for a noob.
2). we disagree, you just want flashy graphics which is not a feature.

I am advocating that the interface is a primary feature and as such should be as simple and streamlined as possible for the task at hand.

This is different from many responses which fail to grok the primary function of an interface.

The developer was kind enough to weigh in and his responses are well taken.

This does not resolve the issue of a clunky and cumbersome interface and that's fine, no one expects these things to get resolved overnight or just because someone asks on a forum.

I think if the developers took a survey of users who purchased the app and then stopped using they would find the primary barrier is the interface.

I could be wrong, but that's my guess.

I also think that many, many more people who see Realmworks will be put off by the interface.

Again, I could be wrong but that's my guess.

 

[MNBlockHead]

@adzling: You've stated and restated and restated your credentials and how the interface should be completely different but you haven't said anything useful or contributed any actionable commentary whatsoever in any of your posts. I've been waiting and fear I won't ever hear the specifics of what exactly you feel is not up to your standards and specifically how it could be corrected. Thank you for trolling.

AEIOU, that's unfair to Adzling. I find his posts to reasoned, fair, and cogent—especially his post of May 12th, 2015, 05:55 PM. I wish more posters would share their complaints with as much thoughtfulness as he's shown. I know I often don't.

Obviously, the most useful thing he could do would be to create some mock-ups of how the interface could be improved, but I don't expect that level of time commitment from a new user. Whether he is "correct" or "incorrect", his view as an a new user with experience in UI design is more constructive than not, I believe.

Many new users have expressed frustration at getting started with RW. I've generally read these complaints as an issue with its complexity and their wanting a different kind of product—like they were asking for a dumbed-down or "light" version. But Adzling makes some interesting points. Are there ways to keep the functionality, but make it more responsive—say get stuff we don't need at the moment our of the way and making it easier to get to functions and content we need. Also, pointing out that improving the experience for new users may be a higher priority than adding new features is valid. I don't want RW to take that approach but certainly there are people who don't buy or who end up not using the product because of the learning curve.

Lastly, even if Adzling was complaining at the level of "this program is terribly designed, I hate it and asked for my money back—I don't know how you people can even use it" (which he wasn't) that still would not be trolling. Inconsiderate venting of frustration (which, again, he wasn't, but others including my self have), but not trolling. I don't think we do the user community or RW any favors by throwing the "T" word around.

 

[adzling]

Coming at this from another angle It's probably good to state the primary function of an interface so folks don't continue to mistake "interface" for "flashy graphics".

The interface is the primary element users interact with when using ANY device.

The role of the interface is to streamline the choices presented to the user and offer them in a context sensitive manner that makes it easy to understand.

There are no easy ways to approach Realmworks as a beginner as all the options are always presented without any guidance or context sensitivity.

From the perspective of a noob realmworks user and expert product designer (20+ years) I would suggest that the interface for realmworks has essentially abdicated it's core responsibility.

Chunking the program into context sensitive modules is one possibility (content entry, game day, after action).
Another possibility is a simple entry-point for content creation (a "wizard" that guides you through entering a module or adventure).
There are many other approaches as well I am sure.

As an analogy it's worth considering the automobile imho:

You can purchase them as "manual" or "automatic".
In the U.S. more automatics are purchased then manuals, primarily because they are easier for the noob or casual driver to master.
I prefer a manual but that's because I am an "expert" user who cares about fine control.
The fact that I prefer a manual does not mean that the automatic is an inherently flawed choice or that it is invalid.
Rather it means that a sizeable portion (in the U.S. the majority) find an automatic easier and more pleasant to drive.
The car companies cater to this and sell way more cars than if they only made manuals.
The net effect is that cars are cheaper and more full featured for manual drivers because the car companies can afford to invest more development dollars into their development as the market is *much* broader.

In short, make the program more usable by noobs the developers will sell *WAY* more copies, be able to employ more developers and produce a *MUCH* better product for both the noob and power users *FAR* faster than just building a product for a small sub-set of power users.

This is is even *MORE* important given the product is aimed at a tiny market (PnP GMs) which is unimaginably small as compared to Word Processing users (see previous commenter's post about wordperfect).

In summation: if Realmworks does not get the interface right for noobs I doubt it will be able to recoup enough $$ to continue the rapid and continued development we all want.

Caveat: I could be totally wrong on the sales figures, it's a complete guess (but an educated one).

 

[Teresa]

I think everybody is right, up to a point.

First, my background: I like software but I know nothing of it - no programming, databasing or whatever.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with RW's GUI is the imensity of choices available. Regardless, that's also what I most love about it, because everything is there (and it's just too bad you can't put more, because I like to see everything at the same time).

On the other hand, RW is not a finished product. I'm anxious for the day when it will resemble a finished product, but I am aware it will take years. The skin it wears is a "work overall" and I am also waiting to see how LW will dress it later. I trust them to deal with it once the main goals are achieved (no noob will be happy with a nice friendly GUI if the software doesn't do what they want, if you can't live with that, then come back when things are all set - a good GUI seems to me to mean a finished polished product)

I have used/am using Gramps, Cartographer 3, Scriveneer, YGraphs. Honestly, they all have very different GUIs from each other and RW, yet they all seem the same to me. You get used to it and manage to work with it, or you don't and move on.

Hell, maybe I am the odd one as far as GUIs are concerned! As it is, I have put my work a bit on hold (I am creating a world, not using it for gaming) and am waiting for the Market so I can look at real examples and learn from them.

 

[Acenoid]

I see RW more like a specialized piece of "office" software. I don't want to be bugged with clunky wizards that ask only 50 % of the necessary questions (remember the winword helper who offered his help all the time?) --> Gone!

A good idea for beginners might be a "checklist/guide", that presents the user with basic tasks & categories & topics that are usually required. Of course over time, more "guides" could added and expanded with such a checklist view. I would envision it as a simple list (like most of those online sites show that your profile is like --- 50% complete) and then you add 5% if you add "all major npcs" .... each click creates a topic and contains it probably , do some parts of the manual linking / work automatic.

But these things will always be "inclomplete" and only usable up to a certain degree.

For me all options & tools should be available at a whim. Removing functionality is not a great choice for a programm that requires you to use it's tools.

Look at photoshop .... bazillion of options and stuff to choose from. Impossible to learn right away. For a free look check out paint.net. It also requires you (the user) to learn to work with the tools efficiently.

Since a lot of stuff is pregenerated ppl might get confused. It would be great if there would be different templates based on enviroment / gamesystem. This would take a lot of confusion away from new players. If this would be modular (like plugins) and shareable by users even better.

The menues itself are quite okay. I would even like it to be more flexible - choosing own icons like for the quick access bar and the like. Some parts of the UI are still completely unusable like the style selections / settings. But this is work in progress I asume.

 

[adzling]

There are ways to create visual hierarchies and introduce context sensitive options that make interfaces more useable.

I agree with you Acenoid, I personally hate wizards.

However they are very useful when you are a total noob and want to get going quickly.

There are also other things that can be done to improve noob experience without compromising functionality for experts.

Right now the interface is not doing much of anything intelligent or thoughtful in the way it presents options to users.

It just dumps all options onto the screen at once and lets the user sort it out.

This is plainly *NOT GOOD* for beginners.

Catering to beginners does not preclude catering to pros as long as the interface supports it.

Without beginners there will be very few pros.

 

[Viking2054]

Sounds to me like you would like a Ribbon interface hierarchy that maybe starts with 'What do you want to do' that would break down into areas like:

• Character Information - a one stop area to enter and maintain all your character information.
• Locations - a place to enter all your location information, I'm thinking mostly building or dungeon size or smaller.
• Regions - I'm thinking Countries, Counties, Cities, Towns, and Village information on this ribbon.
• Maps - a simple area for quickly adding and updating your maps.
• Relationships/Links - a place that would hopefully make it easy to quickly establish links and relationships between all the various parts
• Story - All the tools to quickly write the story of an adventure (think module) back-story, motivations, agendas, influences and the like that facilitate the story.

Of course the above list could be and probably should be expanded.

Anyway, my guess is that some people would like the ribbon broken down into more easily understood chunks that clearly define what your working on. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing to strive for.

Oh, a menu system to go along with it that lets you do absolutely everything to go with a sectioned ribbon would be necessary for those power users.

 

[Acenoid]

Right now the interface is not doing much of anything intelligent or thoughtful in the way it presents options to users.

Actually I think in the interface a lot of thought was being put into. And I asume that most GMs who actually buy such a program will accept that there is a learning curve.

A GM usually handles most rules in a game world, reads the most books and spends the most time from all players preparing the world and the adventures.

And if the the UI elements are hidden & limited and thus prevent a look under the hood, how to accomplish things more quickly? They will be stuck on the beginner level longer becuase maybe not all options can be accessed easily.

We should trust the new users to be able to learn. If they seek guidance they will find it in the forum in the help documents and surely if they contact LWD directly, they will also get help.

I think that those ppl who are put off by the interface, would stop using RW with an assistant/wizard as well, when they realize that all that data has still to be entered.

Maybe some ballon tips would help to explain some of the "more complicated & mysterious" buttons?

Anyway, my guess is that some people would like the ribbon broken down into more easily understood chunks that clearly define what your working on. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing to strive for.

Oh, a menu system to go along with it that lets you do absolutely everything to go with a sectioned ribbon would be necessary for those power users.

I agree, some people surely prefer such ways of accessing and if they are real "shortcuts" I would use them likely too. Also to see if something important is missing

By the way, to be able to make some educated guesses "test persons" would be needed, who get a task to enter some realm / story whatever and then describe their experience. Such a test is surely not very expensive. For example all the employees could ask around in their families to use the product. As story / campaign i would include something short maybe a story is best and it should be described in RW somehow. There could also be multiple groups, one with "trainer" one completely on their own and one which gets some tasks e.g. to include at leasts 5 relationships entries ... However you need to do some serious investigation to figure out the quality of the UI and specific feedback from the users.

I'm sure if things stick out, they will change / improve them. A lot has also been stated already in the feature request forums. These things just need to be prioritized.

 

[Vargr]

Having followed this discussion and having thought about it and having looked on the GUI with fresh eyes (probably not...), I must say, that I can't see any advantage in making the interface "simpler" or more "fragmented" (which is how I see a step-wise input method such as "first do this, then do that").

When I use RW I need to be able to see everything at one glance. All the connections, all the containers, all the topics, etc.

When I use RW I do everything at once. I start with a location, realize I need an individual, work a little on him, switch to inputting some long-forgotten language, back to the location to add a detail then jump to a seemingly completely unrelated company in a far off geographical location.

And sometimes this happens while playing.

I would feel constrained by anything but a fully open GUI - and I am pretty sure, that I would never have grasped the power and options and the customisation if the GUI had not been fully open.

In order to make RW really help the creative process (everything I enter is my own stuff), it should be a blank canvas, not taking my hand and guide me or simplify (= not showing options). If that was the case I would end up making everything based on the same template. It would be dull and unimaginative.

So please don't simplify, "guide" or wizardy RW - and please don't spend time doing so - we need other features before that (I am talking to you, Calendar System).

I understand the argument about newbies being put off by the interface such as it is - I simply don't agree with it; at all.

Apart from this - it is already possible to adjust the complexity to a certain degree:
Navigation under preferences: Topic Grouping (I know, probably not what some people are wanting).

 

[Pollution]

I'm with Vargr.

I don't want a "Put in the Contenent, then the nation, then the cities, then the...."

I like being able to say, "I'm sick of putting in the town, I'm moving on to Magic Items for a while, then maybe do some house rules, then go back and finish up the town."

you get bored doing only one kind of thing over and over again. Lemme just do what I want, when I want.

I'll figure out the structure as I go along.

BTW, THANK YOU DEVS for letting me drag/drop topics, I JUST noticed this was added. it's huge!

 

[adzling]

You are all conveniently ignoring the fact that one does not preclude the other.

Training wheels for beginners are a common feature of most complicated software.

You're also completely ignoring the struggle of learning realmworks that exists for beginners.

This is typical and to be expected but that does not make it correct.

That is the problem of offering potential fixes to problems, the readers react to the potential solution rather than first recognizing the deficit.

It's why I try to avoid suggesting solutions without spending the time to fully consider them.

Unfortunately I fell into that trap in responding to some of the other more insistent members of the community.

So in summation: from the responses here and anecdotal evidence available in the community realmworks is very hard to approach / use for beginners and this is primarily due to the interface abdicating it's responsibility of actually helping the user.

If Realmworks doesn't find a way to cater to the beginner it risks irrelevance/ slow development cycles.

I will stop replying to this thread now as the respondents are completely talking past myself and the other noobs who have posted here.

thanks and good night

 

[davidp]

I am curious how much it helps for the dialogs that Realm Works presents when you enter a new area for the first time that has the option to not show again. Is it that the text is totally unhelpful? Is it that you, as a new user, see the text there and figure you don't need to read it so dismiss it right away, clicking the "Don't show again" option? Are users aware they can bring up the text again by clicking on the ? icon in the various areas?

I would say if it is that the text is unhelpful, then maybe the text needs to be changed. If it is a case of users clicking through without reading it, would they have the patience to follow through a wizard for setting things up?

 

[monsterfurby]

TL;DR: The discussion is derailing a bit, so here's a suggestion: could we have the ability to start a blank Realm without predefined snippet types etc. or at least the ability to safely delete the predefined ones from a single realm?

___________


Since the reply was partly to some points I raised (and I just now dropped by to read it), I'd like to thank Joe for the detailed response on page 4.

As for the overall discussion, I feel like the past few pages of this thread saw some frustration over entirely different points getting mixed up. There are several things at work here:

- Design: Look and feel.

- Usability: Ease of use, as in "how easy or difficult is it for a user to put a certain intention to use the software into practice"

- Functionality: Spectrum of core functions

- Content: Additional content created using the core functionality

- Accessibility: Learning curve and motivation for new users to learn using the tool. Most importantly: compared to alternatives, e.g. putting the information into a Wiki or Roll20 notes

Of course all of these are interconnected, but the discussion is not as simple as "functionality vs pretty interface", there's more to it than that. The decisive point is the one where a user has to decide whether the added functionality of the software is worth using it over something else, and I for example currently find Roll20 far more usable than RealmWorks. It's inherently online, so my players can see the stuff I show them, it doesn't require me to "predict" what kinds of article templates I will use, and being HTML5-based, it generally operates a lot more swiftly than most offline applications do as a general rule.

I'm rambling a bit, but that's also because I am trying to sort out myself what RealmWorks is actually good at. That would be:

- Presentation and sharing of pre-structured information (e.g. published adventures)
- Guideline for structuring information
- Record-keeping on sessions, characters, developments (the timeline is a beautiful tool...)

While I wouldn't use it, I think the content marketplace would probably play to the software's greatest strength, so I definitely see why it's high up on the priority list.

For completely custom campaigns and settings, I feel that quite a bit more of customization is necessary however, which brings me to an earlier point and also to basically the one petty gripe that keeps me from using Realm Works properly.

In order to make RW really help the creative process (everything I enter is my own stuff), it should be a blank canvas, not taking my hand and guide me or simplify (= not showing options). If that was the case I would end up making everything based on the same template. It would be dull and unimaginative.

Again, this is only my perspective, but while I agree that it should be a blank canvas, I also feel that it currently is not. I still cannot simply start a realm without predefined snippets and tags, and deleting those that have been built in deletes them for good, also from the template. *That* is actually one of the things that irritates me most from a usability standpoint and could feasibly be fixed - let users build their own structures instead of always starting them out with a predefined way of doing things!

Now, Disclaimer: I haven't used the software a lot within the past few patches, so this may have been changed in which case please feel free to correct me, but I'd really appreciate being able to have completely blank realms.

Sorry for the long rambling response. I'm done now. Promised.

 

[adzling]

They are mostly walls of text that I click through.
Occasionally I will stop and read them if I am totally lost.

IMHO this is another indication of abdication of the interface.

The value of this pop-up context sensitive information is directly related to how easy it is to digest.

Walls of text are not suitable for this type of use.

Much better would be a *very* short descriptor (one sentence or less) with a link to *more info*.

Walls of text do little to encourage their consumption, especially by beginners and are often a worse U.I. choice for beginners than nothing at all.

I am curious how much it helps for the dialogs that Realm Works presents when you enter a new area for the first time that has the option to not show again. Is it that the text is totally unhelpful? Is it that you, as a new user, see the text there and figure you don't need to read it so dismiss it right away, clicking the "Don't show again" option? Are users aware they can bring up the text again by clicking on the ? icon in the various areas?

I would say if it is that the text is unhelpful, then maybe the text needs to be changed. If it is a case of users clicking through without reading it, would they have the patience to follow through a wizard for setting things up?

 

[Vargr]

@Adzling​

​

1:​

Because I happen to have a different opinion does not automatically mean I am wrong, ignorant or blatantly stupid. That is the feeling I get when I read your posts. If that is not what you mean, then try to rephrase what you are saying.​

​

When commenting on those not agreeing with you, you sometimes use phrases as those below:​

- common lack of knowledge​

- demonstrates the commentators poor understanding​

- You are all conveniently ignoring​

- You're also completely ignoring​

It doesn't make people more receptive of your views.​

​

2:​

The beginners you talk so much about actually happen to include me as well. Yes, I have owned RW for some time now, but have only recently had the time to work seriously with it. Just now I consider myself to have moved from beginner to the next step.​

​

3:​

You have argued for a simpler interface and a sort of step-by-step input-system and not until now have you - as far as I remember - mentioned, that you were indeed thinking of a dual system with both approaches available (reading through the thread again, I see that you hinted at it at one point).​

More concrete suggestions as to how you envision what needs to be done would be helpful in stead of “The interface sucks, you will loose all your customers and all revenue because of it” (grossly paraphrasing, I know, sorry for that).​

​

​

I might have completely mis-read you and it is possible that the above in no way reflects what you are trying to say – but that is how it came across to me.​

 

[Vargr]

Again, this is only my perspective, but while I agree that it should be a blank canvas, I also feel that it currently is not. I still cannot simply start a realm without predefined snippets and tags, and deleting those that have been built in deletes them for good, also from the template. *That* is actually one of the things that irritates me most from a usability standpoint and could feasibly be fixed - let users build their own structures instead of always starting them out with a predefined way of doing things!

I can see your point.

I see the predefined structure as one way of organising things and I use it - it has improved some of the descriptions I enter.

On the other hand I also completely ignore some of the predefined snippets and tags (quiet a few of them, actually). The moment I decide they are not for me, they no longer bother me; I guess people are different in that aspect

It is interesting, that the approach taken by LWD actually helps the beginner coming to terms with RW, its philosophy and possibilities.

 

[Parody]

I am curious how much it helps for the dialogs that Realm Works presents when you enter a new area for the first time that has the option to not show again. Is it that the text is totally unhelpful?

I completely ignored them. They were annoying popup windows that did nothing but tell me what I just clicked on.

It didn't help that these windows used to be presented as an unmovable modal "dialog" with custom window borders that were the same color as the main window background.

I'm not sure that helps vs. seeing the experience of a much more recent new user, but perhaps it does.

(C)ould we have the ability to start a blank Realm without predefined snippet types etc. or at least the ability to safely delete the predefined ones from a single realm?

This would be nice, especially once we can reuse and share our own realm templates. You can hide the Globals, but that's not quite the same.

 

[Vargr]

This would be nice, especially once we can reuse and share our own realm templates. You can hide the Globals, but that's not quite the same.

The problem with removing the pre-designed topics, tags, etc. will probably be that the market place content would not work in your realm.

The market place content needs to have a known framework on which to "hang" its information, at least as far as I understand.

Not arguing one way or the other here