Dirt's pretty cool

Hello! I made this post on my FR account (find me as Samdeer or 324024) but i figured people here may be interested as well!

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Morning! I want to preference that while this is more of a ramble post, I am a graphic designer! While i do have experience in UI/UX, it isn't my specialty. So please keep in mind most of this is coming from a more broad POV on the topic. Also because I am using the slate theme, most of my critiques will be from using that specific theme.

PRAISES

I first want to say thank you to staff for releasing this unfinished. I do mean that genuinely as it helps us as users/players pick out what we don't like without so much effort being put forth. It's a lot easier to go back and fix things that users have issues with! I also do appreciate the dark mode, especially slate, as someone with very sensitive eyes.

The new icons for buttons are ADORABLE!!! I literally love them so much <3

Despite what I've seen (both here and tumblr) I actually really like the energy bar's general look and feel now.

THANK YOU FOR NEW SKIN PREVIEW!!!!

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CRITIQUES/FEEDBACK

I feel bad that this section is probably going to be A LOT longer and I'm sure staff are more than aware of most things I mention here. However, I still feel it's important to talk about. Most of these things are small so I will try to keep them in sections.

CONTRAST While the slate theme is good, personally a couple things still feel VERY bright. The energy on dragons being an example. Blue and yellow being nearly exact opposite colors can have effects such as appearing way more bright than intended. Here is what it looks like atm

Here is a contrast that feels more relaxing to my eyes!

FONTS & VISUAL HIERARCHY This is probably my biggest gripe with the update and why I think so many users are being quick to point out the site feels "corporate". Sans-serif fonts are the quickest way to being labelled as this. As someone who really likes sans-serif… that sucks! LOL

Jokes aside, the use of sans-serif everywhere feels a bit much. My eyes don't know where to go or land. Here is a quick map I made of where my eyes go when viewing my lair. Here is my lair

Here is a map of my visual path, or at least an attempt.

Due to that ONE button being so bright (idk why, unsure if it's on my end or FR's! I did clear my cache as well) my eyes start there. The lack of serifs on titles, or at least more visual difference compared to all other fonts or colors within the playing space, is what makes a user's eyes confused.

This is most likely why people are reporting headaches when experiencing the new UI.

Well, that with spacing issues regarding the top icons.

It kind of feels as though they're sitting more at the bottom when they're supposed to be in the middle? Paired with the spacing between these icons and the top bar makes it feel uneven.

However this post negated the issue! And I think staff should consider adding some type of outline or color such as this user ( @/Hazeledpoppy ) did.

Also looking at my lair it feels more left-heavy than before? Not sure if that's because it did actually change or due to the new visual hierarchy it feels different.

As kind of a misc. thing, I like having commas on numbers now but having "k" after it gets too long makes that improvement dead in the dirt. Many users, myself included, have a hard time with numbers visualized in both ways (no commas or using letter abbreviations) and I think finding something different would be beneficial. Though, at the time of writing, the only thing I can think of is making sure the UI for those elements scale with the number, or, make the commas a little smaller. -----

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall, this is an improvement above all else. So much of the old site was VERY hard to look at due to how small many important elements were. Most of the changes here are relatively small in comparison to if they completely wiped out the old site and had to go back. What we're seeing here is the usual padding and contrast edits that need to be done. The most difficult (or what I feel would be, as I don't know the code of FR) would be font changes. I saw a couple posts that even the more decorative font isn't very serif. I'm unsure why the team went this way but I'm asking them to PLEASE use serif fonts to help with the visual discrepancies and to have displays feel more grounded.

I know there is probably stuff I didn't mention here but I felt focusing on the more main issues of what I have knowledge in personally was important. And also because I'm unsure of what's visual glitches or leftovers from the old site (like the quote bar still being red and beige on the slate theme?)