Join the Bars - idea for UI simplification

[lure23]

This has been on my mind for quite a long time. I hope you appreciate and give some comments.

Possibility for UI simplification #2 - Join the Bars!

Fusion 360 has three 'modes' or toolbars:

This is intended to help the user, so he can select what kind of work he'll be doing, and have the necessary tools available. 

In Sim 360 the same system is used for progressing through levels of simulation setup and execution (and actually suits that thinking spot on).

With Fusion 360, only the first 2-3 entries change whereas the rest remains the same. I believe this is an indication that the current division of features is not optimal. Patching aside, people may use Fusion 360 jumping effortlessly between solid bodies and T-spline bodies - that is the whole #1 selling argument for the program! Why have different toolbars, then?

Also, the order is arguable (and seems to have changed in the course of the program development). Is Sculpt or Model the primary (default) mode? Depends on the user, and the use case.

Let's see if a better grouping is possible.

Here we have all the current menus, reorganized on a single bar. There are basically five logical groups here:

Surface toolsfor handling T-Spline surfaces

Sketch & Constructused for both surface and solid formation

Solid toolsfor handling solids and their joints

Image & Patchfor tuning models for better afterlife

Inspect & Selectgeneric tools

Here's a sample of another order of these groups:

 

And here's a third:

 

( Notice that the words 'Sculpt' and 'Model' are no longer being used. Granted, working with T-Splines is a lot like sculpting but it's an otherwise unused term in Fusion 360, whereas "T-Spline surfaces" and "Solid bodies" are there all the time. Also, isn't a T-Spline model a model, so why would "Model" refer to solid models, only.

We're trying to make the differentiation here based on one being a bendable, "sculptable" surface without thickness and therefore without physical material nor mass. Solid bodies have thickness, material and mass. )

Also menus should be changed.

In the surface creation menu, making a plane is unlike the other members of the upper group (which make 3-dimensional surfaces. It's very similar to the free-form 'create face' (and this should show in their naming, maybe?). 

( btw, why would there be "Sculpt > Create > Create Face" in the current version?  Why the double 'Create'? )

Call them "Plane (rectangle)" and "Plane (free form)".

I haven't used the T-Splines side much, but a few observations on these menus:

'Modify' menu is very long, but many of its lower entries are not even needed here. 'Material', 'move' and 'delete' can naturally be done via right-clicking (has anyone actually used them from here?).

'Enable Better Performance' and 'Display Mode' should be in the display settings menu (separate widget on the screen). Granted, these may only have to do with T-Spline bodies, but so what?

In general, I feel initiation of user/computer interactions (s.a. creation of new objects) can be in the menus. Changing the properties of existing elements should not (right click menus are for that). This leads to a lean, but discoverable user interface.

The 'Symmetry' menu seems to me to be overvalued by having its own main location on the Bar. Bring it down into submenu level - can always be tagged for easy access by the user. This would be a welcome shortening to the Bar pictures above.

 

The Solids menus will be pretty much as earlier, only the unnecessary (imho, as before) tail entries trimmed out.

Unique features in the current 'Patch > Create' and 'Patch > Modify' menus will be merged into a single 'Patch' menu (with the nice stitch icon).

I may have overlooked something essential here. I haven't used the Patch mode, either, but am in the faith that the Box..Loft entries behave exactly the same as in the Model menu. Do they?

Taking Sketch, Construct and Assembly next (unlike in the above Bar pictures); shows that the pleasant order of the icons should be tried out in practice.

 

This one is interesting. 

Shouldn't 'Create Sketch' be the only thing one can do, when not being in Sketch mode? In such a case, there would be no submenu but the Bar icon would simply enter sketch mode.

Likewise, when being in Sketch mode, one can currently exit it easily (Ron wrote elsewhere that some functions exit the Sketch mode while others remain in it).

Here's the current Bar after pressing 'Create Sketch':

From a user's point of view, this raises questions. 

- when would I want to change between Sculpt/Model/Patch mode, while creating a sketch?

- why can I start another sketch from within a sketch? 

etc. 

I would go as far as this. Have only the functions actually needed in Sketch mode visible in it.

Oops. 

That means also the sketch tools themselves. Instead of making a lengthy mockup session I'll just turn the existing snipped-off-from-main-Bar menu on its side here (I also blurred to make sure no-one takes this literally). These would be made to look like real Bar items.

  

Wouldn't that be fun? And clear. A real Sketch Bar.

Construct menu can be as it is (there is at least one omissions in it I think - reported elsewhere).

 

'Image > Decal' should be part of the Surfaces / Solids editing features since it's not about fine adjustment but actually making the model.

( Patch menu is missing from here since it was already mentioned earlier. )

This would give us a new main bar s.a. this + a Sketch Bar when that feature is being used. More similar modes / bars can be introduced during the lifespan of Fusion 360.

 

The suggested change is visual only. No changes to any underlying features are suggested.

What do you others think of this? 

[kat.ingalls]

Hey Asko! This is incredibly well thought-out. Do you dabble in UI design, or is this just based on your own experiences?

I definitely am in the "less is more" camp of too many icons and menus. However, I've also had the not-so-fun experience of trying to find menu items hidden in layers and layers of menu items. It's definitely a balance.

I do agree in that having different "modes" of sketching seemed counterintuitive at first (as a CAD noobie, I come from a surfacing background) - when the "point" is to blend the two modes. I think that's a great observation, and one that I'd "forgotten."

Looking forward to hearing other users' thoughts on this-!

[lure23]

Here's a better rendering of the Sketch Bar (to replace that fuzzy hack above - too bad editing original entries is not possible).

New (or Draw) menu would contain:

Modify (or some better name) would contain:

Constraints contains:

The naming has been changed here since both of these are really constraints (not i.e. measuring dimensions as one may otherwise think).

'Inspect' remains on the Bar since it seems to work (and be useful) in Sketch mode.

p.s. Either the pulldown tick (next to 'Sketch' in the Bar name) or the 'Stop Sketch' icon can be removed. If the 'Stop Sketch' icon goes, the Bar pulldown can be used to jump between the Main and the Sketch modes. I don't think this would be a good way. Sketch mode is a submode of Main, so I'd rather keep the icon and remove the tick.

[schneik-adsk]

Nice ideas, let's see what others think.

[Oceanconcepts]

I'm in awe of how well Asko has thought this through from basic principles.  Working myself in UI and software design, I understand how features just get put in place in a project, and it's difficult to rethink them when you are in the middle of all the issues that come up.  This kind of input is like gold. These all seem like positive directions to me, well worth considering.

Ron

[lure23]

Thanks Ron. 

There's actually one more thing that I find worth changing in the menus. Currently, a feature s.a. 'Thicken' is under the 'Create' menu, not under 'Modify'. To me, this is illogical.

I know the commands too little in practice to suggest a good grouping, but the current one just does not seem right. 'Find features' under 'Create'. Likewise, 'Split Body' actually creates a new body, but is under 'Modify'.

My solution for this would be to remove modifying features completely from the Bar menus, and only have them in the right click menus (i.e. 'Press pull'). This makes sense for the discoverability of the UI: one looks for the Bar to see what one initially can do. When one has an element (both in the browser and on screen), one clicks right to see 'what can I do with this particular element'.

Maybe we can get rid of the two 'modify' Bar menus as well as 'patch' altogether.

This starts to look beautiful to me.

[Anonymous]

Hey Asko, these are awesome ideas. Yes you are absolutely right! These toolbars are sometimes hard to understand and some items or tools seems to be at the wrong places. You actually spent time redoing them. I think Autodesk should accept them or take your ideas to improve them. Great work!

[schneik-adsk]

Here is a random idea... Obviously we need to work on our organization, but imagine if we added a "My" toolbar where you could lay out your frequently used tools as you like.

Is that interesting to you?

[lure23]

Many OS X applications have such feature (attached a picture from my Mail client). Yes, I occasionally move things around or add icons that were not there by default. Naturally, this selection for Fusion 360 should come from the cloud (unlike it does for OS X Mail, I think) so that I don't need to sync it over multiple machines.

I wouldn't raise this to be a high priority need, though. If you have a ready-made software component that allows that (as OS X has) then fine. If you'd need first to make such component, there might be more urgent things?

I would prioritize the overall question on what should be in the menus. There's plenty of stuff that imho belongs under 'context menu' (right click) that now floods the main menu system. Get that right first - I can help.

In Finnish, but you've seen this anyways, right? (right click 'Configure Toolbar' on the toolbar and you'll get it in many - also third party - apps). Why it's so effective is that all the apps have it the same way.

[Anonymous]

I really like this idea as the current menu implementation is not ideal. I would really like to see all the items needed for sketch available without constantly having to go into menus and sub-menus to get to them. I would also love to be able to 'pin' certain items to the desktop as well so they don't vanish if I need to do a quick detour like constraints.