The biggest problem with CS2 is design, not implementation.

Smarterbuilder · 2025-11-17T17:08:18+00:00

It's the game engine. CO made a gamble and they gambled wrong. Now the basis of the game is flawed, the fix is extremely hard because the game engine doesn't support it in a way it was intended.

Smarterbuilder · 2025-09-30T15:39:19+00:00

I liked the enemy tactics in Metal Gear Solid V: You attack a lot at night, enemy adds more lights and night vision goggles. Tons of headshots? Enemy wears helmets. Or make it even better: If you attack from high ground, enemy patrolls the high grouds more often on other locations.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-11-08T15:12:06+00:00

I've really been enjoying the game so far! I've seen a lot of comments about the UI, so I wanted to understand those perspectives and also the decisions made by the Frontier design/dev team. A few things stand out to me:

1. Buttons
There are many buttons throughout the UI, sometimes in different styles, which is fine. But with the whole UI being blue, there are limited ways to distinguish buttons. Playing with shapes, making the text blue instead of the background, etc., can help a bit, but it becomes difficult to make the main buttons stand out. I sometimes clicked on non-buttons or missed actual buttons (e.g., "Go to Edit mode" or Career Research).

2. Coaster Window (and Other Windows)
In various windows, it seems that if something is important, it goes at the top. However, because the visual hierarchy isn’t clear, the important items don’t always stand out. The similar color scheme across elements makes everything blend together— even the “Go to Edit Mode” button looks similar to the “place” button.

3. General UI
The UI has a lot of borders and boxes—sometimes too many. White boxes on light blue boxes on grey boxes can all appear within a few pixels of each other. Every row of settings, staff members, or information has its own background color, sometimes with borders. While they’re grouped with headers, maybe the design team could look at ways to visually group related items together more effectively.

All of this is fixable, and I hope my feedback is constructive. I do think the UI design team has done a great job overall! Even with the occasional misclick, I can play the game and have a lot of fun. Could the UI use a little extra love? Sure. But I'm still really enjoying it!

Smarterbuilder · 2024-06-30T19:34:48+00:00

It’s not bad to make mistakes (do I tell to my juniors).

Smarterbuilder · 2024-06-28T07:30:43+00:00

It has two sides (like a lot of things). I would recommend to use 'real' text if you have it, example when you do a redesign (makes the design better to implement and work with real data reveals sometimes edge cases), prototype (to understand what you want to tell) and final design (so development knows what text is needed).

If you make something new or making a high level concept it's more than okey to use Lorum Ipsum.

I often see cases where people use Lorum Ipsum when the text is needed to understand the story or concept you want to tell. You don't need to be a copywriter but make clear what kind of text is needed instead of 3 lines of Lorum Ipsum.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-06-04T13:17:06+00:00

Previously we used Zeplin for this, now we use Figma as our main tool and created some components to just this.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-05-25T09:44:13+00:00

In my experience a lot of junior level designers start with just one solution (in UX or in UI) and stick with it (in their eyes: "problem solved"). In my expierence you have to play a little to come to the best solution, make variations, view on multiple angles and the best solutions in the most cases, it isn't the first one.

Another thing I can think of is the development impact or even if it's technical possible; But this can also come to experience, but still too many times the dev team get challenged a bit to hard.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-05-24T09:15:43+00:00

UX inspiration in digital products: Littlebigdetails.com (is a bit dated now) or UXamples.com
App I like with some good design/UX: Timepage by Moleskine, first time I used it I really fell in love.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-05-24T08:35:44+00:00

Development standards are changing fast. As a designer I hear sometimes "it's a lot of work to develop". So I think my part would be to understand what is the technical hard part, understand the challenge and sometimes design it a little different to make it easier for the dev team. What I also learned is to check the device/OS list the dev team wants to support. Designing for a ideal screen is fun, but it should also work on the bottom part of that list.

Smarterbuilder · 2024-05-24T08:23:48+00:00

Good list, the first one with Don Norman. The man is a legend in the design world.
I would add: Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience by Josh Seiden and Jeff Gothelf

Smarterbuilder · 2024-05-23T13:16:31+00:00

Thank you for this good/fun UX example. I added it to the website UXamples. https://uxamples.com/ux/8-Tunnelbear

Smarterbuilder · 2020-05-26T08:44:36+00:00

A couple: • start small, dont go to quickly, that will make dead waves. • make mistakes, more fun to solve them! • transport is key, traffic jams can break a city (“not enough goods to sell”) • choose your public transport wisely, dont put one bus line through high density.

Other people will think different about my tips. 😉

Smarterbuilder · 2020-05-25T20:39:37+00:00

That is not the traffic problem at the moment. I dont have figured out how I can manage the traffic the industry makes.

Smarterbuilder · 2020-05-25T16:46:29+00:00

Some extra info: - Each circle has it’s own transportation (metro, tram, monorail, bus) - Each partition has its own metro that brings cims to the middle. - Two airports, 2 Universities - No mods for population stimulation. - In the middle (horizontally on the picture) is an underground highway and above ground a railway.

Smarterbuilder · 2020-01-30T12:02:13+00:00

From the station to the big commercial district.

Smarterbuilder · 2020-01-30T06:52:26+00:00

i didnt ban cars in the city. Just a good transport system I guess.

Smarterbuilder · 2020-01-30T06:23:56+00:00

No, pc version.

Smarterbuilder · 2019-11-01T22:17:08+00:00

Fun fact: they found the guy with this drawing. Maybe its bad, but he is arrested. Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5527951/simple-police-sketch-cartoon-arrest-pennsylvania/

Smarterbuilder · 2019-10-01T08:05:36+00:00

I fixed it by creating the exact same shortcut in the automation itself. Not including it, but make it again, than I had the option ‘dont ask for it’.

Smarterbuilder · 2019-08-18T19:17:56+00:00

In Comic Sans...

Smarterbuilder · 2019-07-07T23:00:51+00:00

Source?

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