About user-oriented design for Chaos Group development team

[STEFAN_NYSTEN]

Hi.

I'm writing here to express my concern for Chaos Groups state of design/user friendliness/what ever you like to call it. I will try to be as frank, respectful and constructive in my writing as possible. My story follows:

About a year ago, after alot of research, I purchased a Vray for Rhino licence. Apparently this was supposed to be a good bang for you buck deal, as Vray is one of the more respected engines on the market. I had used Vray briefly and I found the UI a bit intimidating with all the options, sliders, checkboxes etc. but I did not find this to be a problem, since I was willing to put significant effort to learn to use this software.

At this point, I would like to mention that I am not particularly super-proficient with computers in general. When it comes down to it, I emphasize the end-result, and how efficiently I get there. As mentioned earlier, I am willing to learn. I know the basics, but I'm no engineer, I am an aspiring industrial designer. Thus I am critical about usability issues.

And this brings me to my point.

I feel confident enough to say that most people who use 3d-modelling- and rendering software fall in the same demographic as me. That being, people who "emphasize the end-result, and how efficiently they get there" and "[at least somewhat] critical about usability issues".

After updating to Vray version 1.5 to use with Rhino V5, I have spent way too many (valuable) hours, trying to figure out how to get this software even installed.
I'm sure, for someone who has worked with this software for years and after installing several versions of it, it must all be a walk in the park. But for me it has been a completely different experience.
I find it somewhat surprising[upsetting], that in this day and age, installing an application on a computer requires quite a few dozen phases/steps/processes/clicks/emails/dongles and what have you. Most of them, in addition, being stuff that I really don't understand, or care about. The process is unnecessarily complex from a user-perspective and I cannot help but feel that for the money maybe I should have received a more refined product.

So, only trying to install this software (so far, without success) has required, IMHO, an excessive amount of effort. I have not given up completely yet (in fact, just now I recieved a mail from Chaos Group with an "rtu"-file that I'm supposed to do something with). But I have needed several days in between attempts just to calm my nerves.

We are beginning to see a change for the better in the UI-design of modelling software. Dassault, Spaceclaim, Trimble(Google), CREO for instance, have succeeded in developing quite intuitive UI's in their products. And when it comes to rendering software, I highly recommend everyone to take a look at Keyshots UI-design.

On a final, constructive feedback note to Chaos Group developers:
I suggest hiring a few designers to the team to think about the WHOLE process, from purchase of your product to final rendering. You have a very good foundation for a great product, but your design has not been up to par in the last 10 years. Work on it, and I'm sure your employer will gain market share and give you a raise.

Sincerely...

[STEFAN_NYSTEN]

I would also like to add that though Chaos Groups email support works relatively well, these forums require no less than three (3) sign-ins/registrations for a customer to be able to post a thread.
Nitpicking? Yes, but regardless it adds to the frustration.

[Micha_cg]

In a first step no designer is needed, it would be good enough if user suggestions would taken in account and the UI fine tuned (placement, greyout, order, number increments ...). But since there are enough critical bugs, there is no time for it now. There are so many little enhancement needed ... for example the dozen clicks to update a 1.5 version ... . An UI refinement should need one day or two, but the time isn't ready for it.

[STEFAN_NYSTEN]

Hi Micha, thank you for your reply.
I agree with you regarding the UI. Any UI will eventually become familiar to the user, some sooner and some later. In this case, probably later.
The point I wanted to emphasize is that my experience as a customer/consumer/user begins with a purchase. If I feel good about a product, I am more likely to buy it. To master the product might take some time, but if I'm confident about the capabilities about the product, I'm willing to accept a few beauty spots here and there.
But if the introduction to the product results in frustration I am very likely to return my product to whomever I originally bought it from, because that will certainly not inspire confidence in using it.
I'm just saying, it's 2012. People are aware. And you should definetly not neglect the value of a well designed user experience in this day and age. Especially when you are producing something for a particularly critical crowd. They are willing to pay silly amounts money for whatever enables them to get the work done as efficiently as possible, because they know it saves them money in the long haul.
I'm sorry... actually no, I'm not, but the risk of making a user feel stupid, inadequate and thinking that he's doing something wrong is one you want to avoid to the bitter end. Otherwise you will lose that user and he will share his experiences with his acquaintances and, more importantly, his colleagues.
So for now, I'm returning my dongle. It's been "interesting" and educational for sure. I might return when CG has gained their 10 design-years.

[STEFAN_NYSTEN]

...make that 20 years.

[Micha_cg]

I think, Vray isn't Keyshot, like a car isn't an air plane with hundred buttons at the cockpit. Vray allow the user to control extreme many details to get full biased high speed. All this options are not nice to see in any case. Only I see a chance to arrange seldom used options at the end and often used options at the top. For example the texture mapping type is wrong placed at the 1.5 release, it should be on the top.
An other way could be add a "simple UI" button that switch the UI to a basic mode. Maybe Vray could be sold in two versions - advanced and basic. The basic version could be a beauty version like keyshot and the advanced is good for a the daily professional user. But I think the full Vray isn't good for sporadic users.

[anarchytecture]

I've always felt that a lot of the number entries like 0.45 and 3000 could just be replaced by a mini-slider that goes from 'very low' to 'very high' with 7 steps: v.low, low, med.low, med, med.high, high and v.high.
This would give enough control to tweak the quality/time equation, but make things SO much simpler for the end user.
Same with things like IOR - why not just go from textile to plastic to glass to diamond to metal...
Even material mapping and scaling should be interactive.
The fewer things users have to remember, the more they can focus on doing what they need to do - rendering.
Even for a pro user, there are way too many settings and numbers to deal with...

[renee81]

I am not sure about that.Like with photography some have a preference with point and shoot
and others like myself prefer a dslr where you have full control on every thing.

If some body find Vray to hard to master,or find that there is too much settings,may be
something simpler would be a much better investment.

[Micha_cg]

I like the camera example, that's the point.

I hope, if VfR 1.5 is more matured and the new developers are working on it, we found time to add intelligent UI tricks. For example I would like to click with the right mouse button to the "M" and the UI jumps to the lowest level, if possible to the texture path. It's so cumbersome to change a map.

[crazygreg]

Agree with you Micha, it's just painfull to simply de-activate a map, need to click on the M button, then click on the sliding menu, select none, select apply, and then even more painfull to re-assign it again... which is pretty usefull for getting proper mapping settings with feedback from the viewport. I had to create diffuse mapped duplicate of all my textured materials so I can properly adjust the mapping on my surfaces..
Rhino UI is really good to my point of view, but as Micha said, a basic and pro version would make so much sense.
Most of my colleagues didn't switch to the new version even though we bought licenses because of the UI problem, we run by the hour, and tend to work late in general as most passionate peoples, but do not feel like going home in the middle of the night because of all the lost time messing around in the over complicated menus.
The one using it are doing so because I created a pretty nice scene with most of the materials already included, textures linked to a network folder, and i'm willing to help them using it.... it would be just great if it would be simple enough for some of them who switched to competitor simpler level rendering engines.
(please help, i don't want to be the only one doing packaging renderings) :P

[Micha_cg]

Ctrl+RMB click on the "M" could disable the map by a red cross over the "M". A new Ctrl+RMB click could activate it again.