@ Greggerm:Pretty much nailed it. I actually purchased XP9 at a Bestbuy, where it was proudly displayed next to FSX on the shelf. I knew from some reading that it was considered a more "serious" simulator, but I was still unprepared for what greeted me after installation. At first I was just perplexed, as it seemed that there was zero attempt to welcome users. How could that be? An hour or so later, I felt as if I had been guided to the edge of a deep canyon...... and thrown off.The first sign of a culture clash was the frankly bewildering interface, which was utterly idiosyncratic, and at the time felt like a grey wall of unknown hieroglyphics. (weather screen was horrifying!) After an hour or so of general confusion, frustration was already rearing its head; not because it was hard; I had encountered at least as much difficulty learning the weapons and flight systems in earlier Sims, and expected that. What I did not expect was that it would be so unnecessarily hard.Who was this thing aimed at, I remember thinking. The whole experience presented the new user with an almost aggressively minimalist/utilitarian disdain for accessibility. The learning curve was not steep; It was a sheer cliff with no handholds. "Why would they do it this way?" I thought.I many ways, the interface is just a symptom. The real question might be does Xplane and its community really have its heart in the consumer retail market? Perhaps its more of a Pilot/Flight school thing?Edit: shortened post! (And cavemen only lived about 16 years) :( :(

Edited February 19, 201214 yr by HiFlyer'

snipped I knew from some reading that it was considered a more "serious" simulator, snippedPerhaps its more of a Pilot/Flight school thing? :( :(

Some facts......It's only a more serious simulator, if you read all the hype...In reality, if you take a pilot poll.......................you'll find that the majority, don't even use desk top sims regularly. Not that anything is wrong with them, it's just that many never got intohome computer simulations. Happily, more instructors are finding them useful, than in the past. Some instructors just aren't really familiar with them.As to pilots & schools that do use simulations, doesn't matter if it's MSFS, a form of MSFS, or X-Plane..............it's a mixed bunch. FAA approved simulations (with additional hardware) are available for both.L.Adamson

Some facts......It's only a more serious simulator, if you read all the hype...In reality, if you take a pilot poll.......................you'll find that the majority, don't even use desk top sims regularly. Not that anything is wrong with them, it's just that many never got intohome computer simulations. Happily, more instructors are finding them useful, than in the past. Some instructors just aren't really familiar with them.As to pilots & schools that do use simulations, doesn't matter if it's MSFS, a form of MSFS, or X-Plane..............it's a mixed bunch. FAA approved simulations (with additional hardware) are available for both.L.Adamson

Doing some research, I actually answered my own question. The Xplane9 manual was still online, and the intro seems to suggest the series is mostly targeted at pilots and such with a little left over. Still something to keep an eye on, I guess. With the third parties arriving in force, maybe things will mellow a bit in some of the ways I was hoping.

Edited February 19, 201214 yr by HiFlyer'

Still something to keep an eye on, I guess. With the third parties arriving in force, maybe things will mellow a bit in some of the ways I was hoping.

Well, they will have to do something, and I am certain LR knows this. The main problem is: they develop on multiple plattforms. These simple interfaces are integrated in the basic programming environment, but for better User Interfaces you will have to program the whole UI for each plattform or you need something like Java/Swing, which would mean that every computer that wants to X-Plane 10 might have to install additional software.

I don't think a better UI for X-Plane is a technical issue. It's a matter of user experience design.X-Plane was started by Austin because he wanted a better IFR trainer for himself. And XP's user interface is just a reflection of that: it works for Austin.But now that XP has a real chance of dethroning FSX, he will have to make some changes to it in order to embrace the "mass market" (if you can use that term with respect to flight sim at all). Otherwise, all those first-time simmers will pick FSX or even FLIGHT as their sim and I bet many of them will be stuck there.I mean MSFS didn't become the most popular sim platform just because of Microsoft's marketing muscles. They did some things better than LR and the experience when you run the sim for the first time is certainly one of it. Not perfect, but good enough.

So first time simmers are going to base their purchase on the UI? I hardly think so.First time simmers don't have to re-learn the UI or have anything to compare to.

No Jim, I didn't mean that. First time simmers are not basing their purchase on that.But if they purchase it, fire it up for the first time and find themselves in a 747 with no kind of instruction what to do there--that's intimidating and many will give up right after that.

I'm getting used to it now. I must concur I did find it daunting to begin with. One of the things I don't like is the terminology in the rendering options screen; tons, mega tons, totally insane, 'stuff' to draw, hardcore.. I don't know it just doesn't seem very professional.

But if they purchase it, fire it up for the first time and find themselves in a 747 with no kind of instruction what to do there--that's intimidating and many will give up right after that.

No UI teaches a user how to fly a plane, but if you READ THE FUDGE N MANUAL you will learn a lot.The FS UI doesn't teach a new user how to fly a 747 either.A new user should be starting with a smaller, easier plane also.

IMHO, using words to qualify scales is not necessarily a bad choice. A numeric scale doesn't have a meaning. You don't know if its kinda linear, logarythmic,...On the contrary words have a meaning: maybe "totally insane" is too much for my machine, I have to think twice.Now, some choices of words could be better.I think there is one particular point where the UI is lacking: to open an aircraft, you have to select the acf file. I like that you can organise your aircrafts in folders, but the UI should recognise the acf files immediately, without the need to select them. And the folders navigation is a bit tedious.Other than that, there's room for improvement, but nothing really bad ;)And please keep in mind that "aesthetic" doesn't mean "usable". Usability is more about organising information in a compact yet readable and accessible way.

No UI teaches a user how to fly a plane, but if you READ THE FUDGE N MANUAL you will learn a lot.The FS UI doesn't teach a new user how to fly a 747 either.A new user should be starting with a smaller, easier plane also.

Jim, I think you missed my post earlier in this thread:

I think Austin needs to make XP a little more user-friendly for FS newbies. And that doesn't just include a new UI, but also things like tutorial flights similar to the MSFS flying school.

Think: "Welcome Screen"

Edited February 20, 201214 yr by tom79

So first time simmers are going to base their purchase on the UI? I hardly think so.First time simmers don't have to re-learn the UI or have anything to compare to.

First time simmers live in the age of the IPad and Windows7. How can they not have a very good idea what a user friendly UI looks like when they live surrounded every day by competing UI's of constantly increasing sophistication? But its more than that. Its the whole attitude. Right now, Xplane is the plain brown wrapper of flight Sims at the same moment an all singing, all dancing marketing juggernaut is lurching into motion over at the FLIGHT pavilion.And Xplane can't even be bothered to change out of its work clothes for the ball? :smile:Ouch.

I suppose in all fariness perhaps a minor UI revamp might be in order to appease new users.But the question that bears asking is:What exactly about the UI needs improving? And bear in mind (as mentioned earlier in the thread) the support is across multiple OS's which I imagine makes a UI change a major headache. In addition the file structure is quite efficient as it stands, there are no attacks on the registry (lol), and installation of most items is a simple unzip to appropriate folder rather then seperate .exe's.

I can think of a couple improvements right off the top of my head.1) Selecting aircraft by going to a file requester and finding an acf file is needlessly complicated, as is changing a livery which is found in a completely seperate menu2) For the over 50 crowd-the menus are too small!...which brings me to3) the little arrow buttons to change numbers are very awkward-why not just click in the box and type the number you want on the keyboardJust for starters....

1) Selecting aircraft by going to a file requester and finding an acf file is needlessly complicated, as is changing a livery which is found in a completely seperate menu

How is this complicated? Once the .acf file is selected and loaded returning to the "Aircraft" menu provides direct access to the liveries associated. And of course a preferred default livery can be selected and saved via planemaker.This may be needlessly pedantic of me but I just performed a time comparison of the time to find and load a specific aircraft and livery between XP and FSX....haha....not very busy today am I? Anyway....once FSX loaded I went to Free Flight and spent some time scrolling through the aircraft pages until I cam across the exact version of the Beaver I wanted to load. Close that up....then set up a quick flight. Close that and set up weather. Close that and set up time of day/season. Close that and finally "Fly Now". Whew.Compared with....Launch XP .exe....File-Aiplanes-GA-Beaver-Beaver.acf.....loaded. Aircraft-Livery-select....loaded. Location....pick airport....done. All done within the sim too.To be fair it took longer to find the Beaver in FSX thanks to 9 zillion paints for Aerosoft's Beaver X :( .I will agree the menu fonts could be larger though!