Zugg Software :: View topic

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

ZMUD Style and Design ... it sucks.

For users accustomed to the Windows XP standards of color, style, and design in all our applications and interfaces (which are most ZMUD users), looking at ZMUD can be painful.

Recently, the web site has attempted to improve and modernize with the new forum-type organization and theme. Although it was successful in improving organization, much of the art looks embarassingly unprofessional, and severely misrepresents the genius inside Zugg Software.

Of all currently available MUD clients, ZMUD wins the award for features and support, by far and beyond. The developers have done the hard part, but neglected the easy part and fulfilled the bare minimum regarding the user interface and it's design.

I'm not looking to disappoint, I'm looking to help. I'm inquiring on any prospects the creators and developers of ZMUD have regarding the improvement of style and design within ZMUD's user interface. I would love to help design and improve the UI.

All comments welcome, from everyone. Smile

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:46 pm

Adept Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 268

Ya think THIS site looks bad? nahh...it's quick and simple, and no lag time in loading cause of it. And I think it looks very good.
Ya wanna see crappy?
www.sans.com
My jobs site. *shudder* They went for simple and took it to the extreme.

Apprentice Joined: 26 Oct 2004 Posts: 108

Yes quite, there are both sites and programs which are much worse in terms of layout and design. This homepage, zuggsoft.com, imo is quite adequate (and I work as a WebDesigner). It fullfills it's function and is not burning your eyes from plain horridness. And yes, that sans.com site that was shown is indeed horrid. Another horrid site would be the MSN.com sites and the likes. I personally would prefer it to keep both the site and client as clean as they are. I'm sure icons/buttons and the likes will evolve as time goes by..

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:05 pm

Also, I have no idea what you are talking about when you refer to the design of zMUD itself not looking like Windows XP. What version of zMUD are you using anyway? The 7.05 version *uses* the Windows XP theme engine, so zMUD looks just like any other Windows XP application on my system.

So, I echo the comments of the other posters. If you don't like something, you need to give specifics or show screen shots. It's easy to look at something as say "I don't like it" but it's a lot harder to post something actually constructive and give suggestions for improvements. Everyone is different and it's impossible to please everyone, but I *know* from the email that I've gotten that zMUD 7.05 is better and more pleasing for a larger majority of users than any other version.

As far as the web site itself, professional designers have been involved with this site and it has improved greatly over the past few months. As I said, everyone has their own opinion, but from comments I have received a *lot* more people like the new look of this site compared to it's old look.

And as some of the other posters have said, the purpose of this site is to help support zMUD and other Zugg Software products. I'm not running Flash or lots of animated graphics slowing down the web page in order to sell stuff. I'm not using ads and banners. I'm trying to produce a site that is fast and efficient while still looking pleasant so that customers can easily get the help they need with zMUD. And the current site fits that need extremely well in the opinion of *many* people.

So again, unless you have constructive examples or suggestions, nobody here is going to pay much attention to your post. If you think this site is unprofessional, show some examples with links of sites that you think *are* professional and tell us what about those sites makes them seem more professional to you.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

I was thinking along the lines of Microsoft. They're over-the-top gorgeous. And Macromedia. And Adobe. And more. Of course it COULD be much worse, but seeing as though the developers strive so hard to have the client functionality the best available, why not make a design that matches it? I know my first post was harsh, and I'm sorry to all who were offended, but I think the UI is what's holding zMUD back. GoS Client is the most beautiful mud client, plus it has an automapper, and it's free... I think it takes a lot of potential zMUD customers.

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:35 am

As I said, you need to be MORE SPECIFIC: What about the Microsoft, Macromedia, Adobe, etc sites make them "gorgeous". A bunch of color pictures of customers? I personally hate the Microsoft site myself...other than the Search function it's nearly impossible to find anything. And it is far from gorgeous in my opinion. Just lots of useless graphics that have nothing to do with the site and you have to go many levels just to find anything you are looking for. Also, their site is full of ActiveX controls, which I also refuse to use.

And the Macromedia site? A bunch of Flash graphics. I REFUSE to put Flash or other animated graphics on this site. It makes the site much slower to download for non-broadband users and requires a plugin that many people do not want to use (including myself).

Abode.com? More animated graphics, and in my opinion the colors and layout are *horrible*

As I said, unless you give specifics, people are just going to bash your posts.

And the GoS Client isn't even close to zMUD in terms of functionality. It is not taking lots of zMUD customers. zMUD has a huge percentage of the market if you actually check your MUD log files and keep track of the terminal type to determine what client people are actually using. The mapper in GoS is a joke compared to zMUD. In fact, I'd compare GoS more to zMUD 4.62, which was the first version to have a mapper in it. And that's a long way from the functionality of v7.05.

No offense, but you are beginning to sound more and more like a forum troll who is just here to put down zMUD and Zugg Software.

The UI of zMUD isn't meant to be "beautiful". It's meant to be very functional and has been developed over 8 years from PLAYER feedback. It uses Windows XP themes, which should be good enough. You complained in your first post that it didn't look like normal Windows XP applications, but have still never told us what about it looks wrong. It looks like a normal XP application on my system here and has an interface tuned for lightning-fast MUDding. Just because something uses fancy gradients doesn't make it a better client.

Sorry if this post is annoying, but a lot of people have put a lot of hard work into this site and trash-talking the site without specifics is pretty upsetting.

Apprentice Joined: 28 Sep 2001 Posts: 103 Location: USA

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

I kid you not.

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Oh yes, and how about capitalization of the name? ZMUD? zMUD? Zmud? ZMud? zMud? I think all of those have been used at some point or another. I don't think the name of the application should change, but maybe at least develop a standard and make sure it is used on everything... Again I don't want to go into it yet, because I'l keep branching off into other things that should be changed...

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:13 pm

GURU Joined: 24 Sep 2000 Posts: 1237 Location: USA

I almost posted way at the top of this thread that "I agree with you and would like to see some things changed, but that this site is purpose-oriented: You're here for info, purchase or support, and those are easy to find; appearance is secondary to functionality - not only to you the user, but to Zugg the maintainer. The website doesn't make him money, so it can't be a support-intensive operation itself."

But now that I've read what you're complaining about, I've changed my mind a bit (about agreeing with you). Sure, I see what you're mentioning: but you're arguing personal taste. You haven't addressed a single point about usability, accessibility, findability, credibility, usefulness, desirability or value (those are my personal concerns). Your listed complaints are purely aesthetic, and based on your own opinion. Without statistics, support or reason behind them: just your own sense of style. Now, there's nothing wrong with a personal sense of style... but style without reason is wasted breath. Good luck convincing someone else with wasted breath.

If you really want to prove the validity of your statements, create some mockups. You're a web designer so this isn't unfamiliar to you. Take a screenshot, open Photoshop, fix what you see wrong, post the screenshot as a suggestion. Explain your arguments with logic, analysis, and support (read: examples from elsewhere that also have reasoned explanations). Usability studies might be beyond your reach for this project, that's fine. Use elements of someone else's.

Oh, and while I'm on "establishing veracity", how about showing us a portfolio of your own work so we can get a sense of the continuity of design that you expect to see here?

Thanks

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:35 pm

thedesigner, I appreciate you taking the time to mention more specifics. But Darker is right...you are arguing aesthetics, and everyone has different ideas of what they like and don't like.

The logo and mountain design are a good example. The logo is pure blue and black with a very specific way in which the S in Software overlaps the Z in Zugg because that is the registered trademarked logo for Zugg Software. You don't just go changing company logos because you don't think they look fancy enough. Logos are brand recognition. I personally think that Microsoft has an incredibly boring logo, but no web designer is ever going to get them to change it.

One of my biggest complaints about "professional" web designers is that they want to mess with stuff like logos. You just can't do that. Web designers should be more worried about the overall style and layout of the site, making sure the color scheme is consistent (which it is) and compliments the logo (which it does), and that the navigation of the site works well.

As far as the mountains...sure, I could pay someone a lot of money to do some wiz-bang computer graphics. But why? Half the people still wouldn't like it. It wouldn't increase sales. The current picture of Pikes Peak represents the location of Zugg Software. It's the view out of our office window. Customers have also told me that it provides feelings of a solid company and that they like it a lot. It also fits around both the Logo and the text on the right nicely. I'm afraid I have little confidence in graphical designers to come up with something that people would uniformly like better.

Also realize that while Zugg Software made it's name with zMUD, we are currently branching out into the more mainstream market of eMail software. So the site cannot be directly tied with zMUD or MUDs and needs to be more general in style and design. The current graphics reflect this. A lot of time and energy and work has gone into this...we just didn't throw something up on the site without thinking about it.

I do agree with you about the other icons on the site, like the navigation icons. All of these come from the PHPBB and MX-Portal software that we are using for this site. I simply haven't had the time to design any new icons for these areas. Again, it's a time and money situation...improving these icons isn't going to bring in more zMUD sales, so it's hard to justify spending a lot of time or money on them. They serve their function just fine as they are. Over time they will probably be improved, but it's a very low priority.

Oh, and when writing about zMUD in text, the correct capitalization has always been "zMUD". This has been true for 8 years. The actual zMUD graphical icon deviates from that a bit and makes the "z" more prominent, but that was a graphical choice that was done many years ago.

Regarding zMUD, I still strongly disagree with you. The purpose of a MUD client is to play a text-base game. I want a MUD client where the "Windows interface" can be minimized as much as possible so that I can have as much text on the screen as possible. I don't know what you are talking about when you say that a MUD client should be "pretty". Even when I'm not running in full-screen mode, all I see (and should see) of the MUD client is the edges of the window, the title bar, and perhaps a toolbar. zMUD 7.05 uses professionally designed icons that I purchased from GlyFX. The menu, toolbar, title bar, and window edges all conform to whatever XP theme you are using. I don't like applications that "force" their own look and feel, like putting gradients on toolbars and such. Applications should use the XP Themes...that is what they are there for. So in that sense, I don't see anything that can be changed in zMUD. At least for serious MUD players that don't want the interface to get in the way.

The mapper in zMUD can be made as pretty as you want using the external zMapper program. Those functions were placed in a seperate program because not everyone wanted the ability to make their map prettier and there was no need to bloat zMUD with those features. The settings editor does an excellent job putting a huge amount of information together. More primitive clients like the one you mentioned don't have to deal with that kind of screen yet because they just are not as deep as zMUD...they don't have as many different types of settings, and don't have a folder organization, don't have syntax checking and debugging, etc. The settings editor follows the same design as the familiar Windows Explorer for file manipulation, and again, as a MUD player I want it to display as much of my settings as possible and don't want lots of screen space taken up by other graphics.

If you want to get fancy and create graphical compasses or graphical gauges for hp, mana, etc, you can do that. But this is MUD specific. Take a look at the default layout that comes with the Gemstone or Dragonrealms icons and you'll see that.

zMUD is designed so that you can make it look the way *you* want it to. From the XP Theme support that makes it work like your other XP applications, to the color schemes, window docking layouts, custom button bars with graphics, etc. None of the other clients have this kind of customization. They might look good for certain people, but they are not customizeable enough for the masses. That is where zMUD has always had the advantage.

So if you are just talking about redesigning the icons on the toolbar in zMUD, or putting a gradient background on the toolbar, or stuff like that, then forget it. You can't make icons that *everyone* will think are beautiful, especially when a large number of players just want to hide the toolbar in the first place so they can see more MUD text. The graphical picture of a castle in a sunset is a historical image that was created by an early zMUD adopter and I keep that image associated with zMUD for this historic reason. So that's not going to change either.

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:37 pm

Oh, I forgot to mention that you *are* correct about the "box" graphics. Those do need to be re-done and it's on my list. But again, it's a lower priority item. Changing these box graphics isn't going to have an impact on sales.

Also, if you'd like to see the kind of design that we are moving towards with our future products, go to the main zApp page at http://www.zuggsoft.com/zapp . You'll see a better use of graphics and our web tools on that page.

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Ok... we're getting closer.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

When I have had suggestions / artwork updates / etc to send to Zugg, I post a link to them here on the forum, his email filters can be a bit strict on accepting files, hehe.

Besides, after these sweeping claims that you've made, I think we're all rather curious about what you're doing to back them up.

Incidentally, I do agree with some of your points... zMUD is very 'plain' looking compared to todays applications, however I don't think that Zugg should worry about it at the moment because his new technology (zApp) supports skins etc, so I imagine next time zMUD gets upgraded, we'll be seeing skin support for it and therefore be a lot sexier looking. You only have to compare zMUD with IE6 to see how dated the interface looks, but when you load some of the zApp demo's up and start playing around with the skins, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

In my experience, good programmers can make ok web pages and acceptable logo's/icons, but a good web designer and a good artist will make something a lot nicer. Zugg probably should contract in an artist at some point in the not-too-distant future to brush everything up, but I don't think a facelift is his #1 concern at the moment.

If you are interested, Zugg, I can get you in touch with a contracting artist or two who've done user interface graphics/icons/etc professionally for my friend's company (eg look at mailwasher for an example of said art - http://www.firetrust.com/images/products/mw_sshot.gif ). Of course I imagine there's a whole lot of other artists out there too, if you could find one in your home town then it would probably be a lot more convenient than talking to someone in New Zealand ;) ... though the exchange rate works better that way.

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Oh nah, not "sweeping claims." I won't be adding that much colorful artwork, if I do (the main toolbar might see new icons... and the welcome screen... and the settings editor... I'll see). I'm more focussed on the standardization and consistency of style within zMUD.

I don't have a host for a file, if I was to do it your way, Rainchild.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

There's plenty of free hosting companies out there, and most ISP's bundle at least a 5-10 meg web page as part of your connection, but anyways.. you can always try your luck with the email hehe.

Adept Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 268

Was just wondering on the train of thought of making this or that look diff in zmud...any thoughts on making zMUD skinable?

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:21 pm

Wow, I was going to email thedesigner privately on some of these issues but then you went and posted answers to all of my questions already! Smile

OK, I'd normally do this more in private, but since this has already gotten people interested and already been pretty public, let's see where we are headed on this...

First: thedesigner: I'm not looking for free handouts (well, free stuff is nice, but I understand that people should be paid for their hard work, which is why I charge for zMUD in the first place). So, I can say publicly that if you design something that I end up using in zMUD or on the site, then you'll certainly be compensated. As for actual terms and prices, that is probably something we should talk about in private email.

To understand where I'm coming from on this, you need to understand that I've been burned bad in the past. Several years ago I paid a bunch of money to a designer for various new artwork and design, and what they came up with was total crap. I should have looked more closely at the contract, but basically I was screwed. So, my opinion of "designers" and "graphic artists" has always been a bit low because of this experience.

Since you mentioned the navigation icon graphics on this web site, as well as the "box" graphics, that is probably a good place to start. I know that your focus is more on zMUD, but to be really blunt, I'm not working on zMUD right now, I'm working on zApp and eMobius. So, you might put a lot of effort into redesigning the style of zMUD but I'll basically have to ignore it for at least 6 months, if not a year. I can't get distracted from eMobius right now. So while I might look at your stuff and say "cool" or "crap" I won't be able to do anything with it and probably won't be paying for anything until I actually use it, which could be many many months from now.

On the other hand, doing something to improve the web site is something I can use *now*, and something that I can pay for now. It would also give me a better feeling as to whether or not I like your style. As we have discussed in this thread, the aesthetics of the site can be much of personal opinion. It's very possible that you will come up with something you think is really cool that I just hate. One advantage of doing this more publicly is that I would get more opinions from other users and if a large majority thought it was really cool, that would have a great deal of influence on my decisions.

The downside of making it public is that some idiot might try to steal your designs and use them in some other MUD client. I know that there are some other MUD client designers that lurk in these forums and like to "borrow" zMUD ideas for their own clients. So, what I'd probably recommend is that you at least watermark your images in some way so that they are harder to steal, and if I like what I see and want to pay you for them then you can send me the un-marked images after you get paid or something like that.

Rainchild: I'm always interested in finding people who are good at design who want to help. As I've posted in one of the other forums, I *am* looking for a web designer to help with this site. The problem is that I'm so busy with eMobius that I don't have a lot of time to "interview" a bunch of designers and try to find one who is really good and isn't just going to design more crap that I end up paying for. So, I'm probably not going to find anyone in my local home town because that takes a lot of calling, interviews, etc. If you know someone that you think is good, have them email me with a link to their portfolio and I'll take a look.

A couple months ago I tried contacting various designers myself but couldn't find anyone that wasn't already booked and too busy. And since I don't have a lot of money to spend and tend to be skeptical of designers, that attitude doesn't help me much in negotiating I'm afraid. There aren't many designers that will create something and show it to be before getting paid, especially if they only get paid if I like it and use it.

Finally, regarding zMUD and skins/themes...Rainchild is right about zMUD and zApp. Take a look at zApp and you'll see the "future" of Zugg Software. Once eMobius is shipping and I start working on the next version of zMUD, it's most likely that I'll be taking technology and code from zApp to use in zMUD. This means you'll probably see skinning and better scripting, along with a more modern style. That's another reason why it doesn't make sense to put a lot of work into the zMUD style right now since it's going to get redone with zApp technology in the future anyway.

OK, to summarize: (1) Yes, I'd love to see a "preview" or mockup of what you are talking about to see if it's moving in a direction that I think is useful for zMUD. (2) Anything that improves the web site right now I can pay for, as long as it is something that I like or that lots of other users like. I'm even interested in "updates" to the Zugg Software logo as long as it doesn't change the fundamental design of the logo. (3) I'm still looking for a good designer to help with the site if we can figure out a way to arrange the work and payment so that I don't get screwed again paying for something that I hate. (4) Nothing in zMUD is going to change for at least six months, and perhaps as long as a year.

Magician Joined: 23 Nov 2004 Posts: 364

the only problem i've found with this website is the location of the search option. it has been on the forum screen for so long it took me forever to find out it's new location. my suggestion is to place it on the forums box or to place a button on the main forum screen.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 9:42 pm

Chris, do you see the new login status bar just under the main menu at the top of the page? There is a new search box there that will do a quick search of the entire site (forums, knowledge base, etc). I just added that a couple of days ago so you might not have noticed. It only appears when you are logged in to the site.

The full search option is still in the Site pulldown menu (Site/Search) which shows the full search page with all of the various options.

Because the Search function now searches more than just the forums, it didn't make sense for it to only show up on the forums pages anymore. Hopefully you'll find that the quick search box is even easier than before since it saves an entire step of going to another page first.

For most people, it's just a matter of learning where the new search box is. Whenever *anything* is changed, either on a web site or in a sofware program it always takes a bit of relearning to get used to the new change, even if it's an improvement.

Wanderer Joined: 06 Nov 2000 Posts: 80 Location: USA

zMUD is very fine as it stands now. People really don't need a big flashy client to play text games.

Beginner Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 15

Zugg, your posts delighted me... Very Happy

but then it pulled the ground out from under me, and I'm currently writhing in the noose (nice visual, eh?). Mad

But first, to Einar: