2 hours ago, EGLD said:

I still think it's an appalling UI

No argument there, I totally agree with you, it does need to be polished as I clearly stated in my post.

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

I'm no trying to defend UI! But it took me few days to get to use to it. In contrast when switched from DOS to Windows 3.1 it took me forever ! LOL

Getting used to the UI doesn't mean it's good. It's still bad. Like @CO2Neutral here i'm also a software engineer, i'm used to dealing with UI/UX experts. I did show them MSFS and MSFS2024 in one occasion and there is consensus. Both aren't good, but MSFS2024's is way more counter-intuitive and still very VERY slow (also console-oriented).

I got used to it as well but, again, it's still a pain when i use it.

I'm finally in the process of moving forward from MSFS now that i managed to have more control over it, but it doesn't feel like an upgrade, more like a necessity as devs will probably abandon it sometime soon.

Edited May 21, 20251 yr by Nuno Pinto

25 minutes ago, Nuno Pinto said:

Getting used to the UI doesn't mean it's good. It's still bad. Like @CO2Neutral here i'm also a software engineer, i'm used to dealing with UI/UX experts. I did show them MSFS and MSFS2024 in one occasion and there is consensus. Both aren't good, but MSFS2024's is way more counter-intuitive and still very VERY slow (also console-oriented).

I got used to it as well but, again, it's still a pain when i use it.

I'm finally in the process of moving forward from MSFS now that i managed to have more control over it, but it doesn't feel like an upgrade, more like a necessity as devs will probably abandon it sometime soon.

Well, if you are software engineer you probably know that users most of the time not easy adopt to changes, especially when they got accustom to older designs.  Intuitive design is very subjective term. It may be intuitive to a software engineer and absolutely not intuitive for the user.

25 years ago I worked in company that transitioned their software from dos to windows. Because of majority users  didn't like windows , most of the GUI written in windows to resemble  DOS! For example, because people didn't like to use mouse for data entry, we had to write custom controls to input and navigate data "mouse free"!

What I see in FS2024 GUI design that would be no problem for a new sim user to adopt to . However, for seasoned simmer intuitive design is what they are familiar using other sims or previous sim version over the years.

By the way same apply to aviation. In early days when training fleet was adopting G1000 many older CFIs despised new avionics and deliberately choose more "intuitive" steam gauge 6 pack!

3 hours ago, CO2Neutral said:

You seem to be in the minority, so regardless of how you responded to the interface, many others responded differently and found it a bad experience.  Falling back on RTFM, well good luck with that, in my experience with my users, that < 2% … good or bad, it’s a reality I have to accept and code for or else suffer the support consequences.

I’m critical because I’m both a flight simmer and a long time software engineer and manager and company owner.  But I agree older aircraft FMCs have horrible interfaces (heck the entire ATC system is archaic and has caused many deaths, a topic for another day) … but that doesn’t justify one should continue the trend of creating a bad UI for a game/sim.  Like I said before these < slider > are most likely implemented for the XBOX crowd with XBOX controllers (perhaps majority customer base?).  

There should be two designs as the PC and console are VERY different environments and this compromise seems to exist simply to save time/money and not to service both customer types.  Feedback is provided and one hopes the development team listen and respond to their customers.  What may seem “trivial” to some users is a source of frustration for other users … a good UI can alleviate this issue.

Doesn’t mean Asobo will do anything as the PM usually assigns developer task queues. 

I might be in the minority HERE in the rarefied air of Serious Simmers, but since we don't have access to metrics like that, we'll have to set it aside.

And believe it or not, Microsoft and Asobo have each been around for awhile. I.e., this ain't their first rodeo, in terms of mass market software, games or business.

And from what I know of them (which includes working directly with their biz unit folks), they are incredibly sharp people.

As well as being highly metrics driven.

See, that's a big part of the issue here. We are, essentially, an isolated echo chamber.

WE don't see the overall metrics, the 15,000,000 users and usage, and spending and such.

So for anything beyond trying to piece together the nuggets of info they occasionally share with us, it's all just our personal/collective opinions.

Doesn't mean MS/Asobo don't make mistakes or bad biz decisions. It DOES mean that we're operating without adequate information.

The general UI obviously caters to the Xbox platform, and seems like it'd be rather easy to navigate using a controller.

For us, it works just fine and I can't see any reasonable justification to create a separate "PC Optimized" UI.

Right now, the Xbox people "we" seem to enjoy disdaining are paying for about half the costs of the sim, and since this new platform is SO much BETTER than the previous iterations, I certainly am not going to complain about certain things being tilted towards their UX.

And like I said, P3D and FSX before it were certainly far worse, and somehow, we survived...

And while XP's is more visually appealing & effective ( being able to see a picture of the actual peripheral), it's also more limited in terms of default views, and certainly in terms of cascading settings across multiple add-ons.

Constructive criticism is always healthy, but let's also be honest and give props where they're due.

And again, again, the irony of having such raging criticism here, amongst the highly expert virtual Boeing and Airbus Captains, will forever be highly ironic.

 

Edited May 21, 20251 yr by UrgentSiesta

I think the UI is very appealing also.

dd

5 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

And you know this, how?

because he has msfs 2024 installed 🙂
 

Edited May 21, 20251 yr by pete_auau

9 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

... beyond ridiculous. 

many things beyond ridiculous. Not least of all, SU16.

2 hours ago, pete_auau said:

because he has msfs 2024 installed 🙂
 

You sure about that, lol.

If you think this is difficult, try Digital Combat World control setup...!!!!  

18 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Well, if you are software engineer you probably know that users most of the time not easy adopt to changes, especially when they got accustom to older designs.  Intuitive design is very subjective term. It may be intuitive to a software engineer and absolutely not intuitive for the user.

 

Changes that serve no purpose other than to make things less intuitive and more difficult to manipulate are worthless. 

Microsoft of course gave us Windows 8 😆

25 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Changes that serve no purpose other than to make things less intuitive and more difficult to manipulate are worthless. 

Like I stated before "intuitive" is very subjective term. Whatever user is accustom to is intuitive , but anything new is not. Think about a person who uses horse all his life bought a car. Car would be not intuitive at all! LOL

43 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Like I stated before "intuitive" is very subjective term. Whatever user is accustom to is intuitive , but anything new is not. Think about a person who uses horse all his life bought a car. Car would be not intuitive at all! LOL

For VR users a perfect example of "counter-intuitive" is the VR graphics menu;

• MSFS2020 = Quit to Menu and click VR Graphics
• MSFS2024 = Quit to Menu, Click VR, Click VR Graphics

(it may not be exactly like that from memory but it's something like the above!) Essentially they've added an extra step to get somewhere quickly which works against the flow and ease for VR users, they've gone backwards and this is just 1 example in a list of potentially hundreds where this UI feels like a more of a counter-intuitive mess than what 2020 was.

Hmm - we resist change?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.emersonhc.com/change-management/people-hard-wired-resist-change%23:~:text%3Drest%20of%20us.-,We%20are%20hardwired%20to%20resist%20change.,fear%2C%20fight%2C%20or%20flight.&ved=2ahUKEwisofmKzreNAxXcLkQIHXEtGv4Q9cILegQIHBAA&usg=AOvVaw1ZsWaf-VwoKiiMXC9qi2MK

I attended many of these in my career.

dd

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Changes that serve no purpose other than to make things less intuitive and more difficult to manipulate are worthless. 

The changes were made to improve the UX of setting controls across many add-ons.

Admittedly, it does take awhile for it to mentally click, but once you see it, it's great and I'd not trade it back for the old way.

Even if we didn't have the ability to customize defaults, or set multiple Cascades for new defaults and aircraft types, just the convenience of not having to change control profiles every time I fly a helo, GA, or jet would be worth the very slight initial set up inconvenience.