So, Funcom had the idea that having button functions that moved around was not a good thing. This is generally true. Dynamic buttons and menus that change order lead to mistakes and unpleasant user hunt and click. It’s a smart QOL change.
In Conan Exiles Chatper 4, we have buttons that have the same text and function in the same place all the time. Except for two or three oversights where a button changes after an a action, this was a smooth transtion.
However, in all the history of text buttons since the text buttons was invented, there has not existed a properly working static text button that just went blank when it was disabled.
NEVER. Such a thing is either a bug or an abysmally incomplete implementation.
Yet that is exactly what we got in Conan Exiles Chapter 4.
Static buttons done per best practice have four required states.
- Ready to be pressed
- Pressed
- Disabled (the text/icon appears but is dim or otherwise marked unusable)
- Hidden. (No button is there)
Button pressing animations are helpful, but they are a stylistic choice. Lots of fine app frameworks and games get along with buttons that just instantly switch states.
You will notice that a certain thing in the inventory UX of Conan Exiles is not in this list. The disabled blank button.
Buttons are not new knowledge. Inquiring minds want to know: Was it a time crunch that made Funcom hack the blank text in? Was it a matter of 30 languages worth of ‘Disabled’ not making it back from the translator on time? Were the interns who made Age of War Chapter 4 just unable to get a proper disabled state working? Could they not figure out the Unreal blueprint function for SetVisibility? Did somebody in Bad Decision Land just choose to deliberately ignore 45 years of UX research for this chapter?
Lack of polish is one thing. Deviating wildly from basic interface norms is shameful.
Somebody needed to say something about it, so here I am. I know it is a nit in the larger world of Chapter 4 problems. Yet every time I look at an inventory screen now I think ‘Why isn’t this application finished?’
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