Why are they building the web version without pro designers?
blob
Member Posts: 229
@ForumNinja @adent42 @etc.....
Allow me to be completely unfiltered and honest with you guys at GS:
The web version is a great tool for teaching UI and graphic design...:
It's a glaring prime example of everything not to do!
The design is absolutely atrocious.
I stared at the web version in disbelief, frozen, paralyzed for about 8 minutes.
I don't even know where to begin, I'm contemplating writing a giant post with explanation, photos and fixes for every missteps, but I'm afraid this is going to take more time than I have and may fall into deaf ears or may be heard but unexecutable by the GS team.
YOU NEED TO SPARE FEW THOUSANDS FOR A GRAPHIC/UI DESIGNER, IN 2018 THIS LEVEL OF NON-DESIGN IS INADMISSIBLE. NONE OF YOU ARE DESIGNERS, OBVIOUSLY, SO YOU MAY NOT REALIZE THE IMPORTANCE AND EFFECT IT HAS ON YOUR CUSTOMER CONSCIOUSLY AND UNCONSCIOUSLY AND THEREFORE YOUR BOTTOMLINE.
IT MAKES YOUR SOFTWARE LOOK WEAK, OLD. UNWELCOMING, BORING.
It's counterintuitive to the highest degree, difficult to use, no ergonomic intelligence, illogical, inconsistent.
I may sound too harsh and rude but I really mean it, I believe sometime true unfiltered expression is needed for full effect.
I'm not trying to create drama here, you know i love you guys, I just want to shake your bones. Wake up! This can't be!!!
Even with the best marketing and coding team and unlimited funds this interface design will make GS drown in quicksand faster than even your backwards resource management skills, do not underestimate the visual and ergonomic power on customers.
There are at least 150 no-nos.
however, I'm not one to criticize strongly without proposing a way out or a fix so:
Like I said, I don't have the time to go thru all of them, especially the ergonomic issues like extra useless clicking, positioning consistency etc.
So I'll go over the basic "must change" ones, (some of you have already mentioned some of these..)
IF you guys hired someone to do all of these, I believe GS entire fate will change.
First, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, especially with limited design knowledge. Just ask a designer to copy illustrator or some other adobe software .. this would be a huge step up, not ideal but still a ground breaking improvement.
light color interfaces require much more design skills, to look modern and fresh, than darker ones. It's not just a trend, darker is easier on the eyes, white screen desensitize the retina long term and tires the eyes faster.
Lose the purple! it make everything looks old. I know you guys probably think it's part of your branding by now, but it's not. It's just ugly and unpopular and just does not work, at least for this dull hue of purple. GAME SALAD you are not Prince thank you.
You can not reconcile touch interface with desktop design all-in-one. Touch needs more rounded fat, non-rectangle buttons. and completely different window arrangements. A desktop interface with a lot of useless space does not constitute a touch friendly interface. It only makes it a crappy touch interface and a crappy desktop interface. Just go for desktop for now, no school or student is expecting iPad at this point anyway. Later, hire a designer to modify the CSS for Ipad. There's no winning in the in-between
Each "action, behavior or group" do not need their respective logo next to them. only menus : "action, behavior or group" do. The content of these menus only need subtle tints or outlines of their respective menu color. This is very important in design, only do what's needed, if it's not needed don't do it. Always search your design for unnecessary things, when found, erase.
The overall font should be a tad bit heavier, this will create a more lush and friendly feeling. It's subtle but it all adds up.
On the very bottom left. " < compact" is the same font size and holds the same real estate than menus directly above it. "compact" is not a menu option, it is a interface option, therefore it should be smaller and closer to the interface color.
"Add rule" "add group " "add timer" short cuts on the top are too small and too none descriptive. These should have a element or an outline in blue to recall their group color. The + sign in the "add timer shortcut" is green but it should be blue since it belongs to a blue group ( the behavior group). Again, the sum of these small things add up to an overall intuitive design in the end.
Add "change attribute" and "change table value"e to the short cut on the top ( whenever you guys got it working) Again, these should be orange to reflect their group color. Always use color logic and consistency, this is a big part of intuitive design too. (It's worth repeating) There is valuable wasted space on the left of these short cut.. Wasted space and breathing design are not the same thing.
The "turn off button" on rules should change the rule or action heading color when off, for the sake of clarity. (The button itself does not really need the debug logo in it.) Design conventions taught us that bright colors means on and dark is off, this button is dark when rule is on and bright white when the rule is off. this is backward.
The gap underneath "< Compact" on bottom left and the gaps between "groups" to the right and the "sort" tab underneath are all inconsistent this looks super cheap.
There is so much more to fix but I would need to take pictures and show examples etc for you to understand.. I just don't have the time, I apologize for this post if it's messy, this was a stream of consciousness, from someone who really knows this stuff and just wants to help.
IN SHORT YOU GUYS ARE TOO FAR GONE.
YOU MUST HIRE A GRAPHIC/UI/CSS DESIGNER NOW OR MORE THAN HALF OF YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS WILL NOT EVEN GIVE YOU CHANCE AT FIRST GLANCE.
I'm not trying to demoralize anyone, like many others here, I'm only trying to save you, dear GS.
EDIT: @adent42 added some bullet point markers, hope you don't mind.
Comments
@blob
We'll just have to disagree on a few things... but I'll address some of your points.
We're updating our branding soon from purple to something else, but if you notice, most of our site is has the purple and has been for years, and we're just keeping consistent. And I personally like purple
We do have a dark interface coming, the light interface happened first because it's close the interface the existing UI framework is using and was faster to implement.
Mobile vs Desktop, again it's back to the widget toolset. We started from a UI toolkit build for mobile and we're trying to keep a lot of it consistent, because we intend to get touch working soon after feature completion. At that time we're going to start working towards customizing the interfaces per platform (touch vs desktop), but for now it's a hybrid. We do have an update coming soon with a tighter interface (i.e. less white space, stuff smaller).
The icons on the action/behavior/group will make sense in the next update. We have new ways of sorting the icons that won't group them that way, so the icons will become an indicator of what type of behavior it is.
Agree on the font, I'll look into that!
Agree on the compact button!
The shortcut icons are interesting. Yes, they should be bigger I usually agree with trying to be consistent with other parts of the UI for color, but since they're all in the blue group, it would make them a bit confusing. Now with your suggestion to add the Change Attribute and Change Table Attribute, that makes more sense. Maybe keep the same icons and flatten them and apply the correct color. I'm not sure about Change Table Attribute, because that might make too many buttons, but Change Attribute is definitely used enough.
In the new update the behavior off button looks a lot better. I was thinking of actually changing the opacity of the whole behavior rather than just the header.
Agree on those bottom interface, those should be adjusted.
@blob and thanks for your passion. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna agree on all design points, but we'll take any input we can get to help make the product better! If you're interested, PM me and I can link you to our QA/Beta build with UI tweaks. It's still not perfect, but it's a bit better.
We have a design for a "dark" UI, but we'll be rolling that out after we get all the behaviors implemented. If you search the forums, you can find it.
Haven't had a chance to read and digest all of this yet but my initial reaction is that I've been having conversations with veterans of the forums and it's universal that the web tool needs a ton of work around UI and graphic design. It's quite frustrating and discouraging to use it the way it is. I also keep hearing from these same users that their suggestions fall on deaf ears. That bug reports are the ONLY thing that GameSalad staff respond to or seem to find important. That could be incorrect but the impression users are getting is just that.
New to GameSalad? (FAQs) | Tutorials | Templates | Greenleaf Games | Educator & Certified GameSalad User
Seems like we agree on almost everything here:)
I don't mind purple in itself and I know it's part of your branding, but this particular purple is dull and if you poll the color purple in UI design generally it ranks very low with customers these days. I'm so glad you guys letting it go.
Thank you for that!!! this would be the biggest " feel" improvement.
Amen
I think I know what you mean. then icons will makes sense if their menus disappear.
There are many ways to skin that cat:
The back box of these buttons should be blue then the little box on the top should have the differentiating colors.
Or you can simply have an blue outline. I prefer the first option as it will look simpler especially with smaller icons.
If it still does not look right afterward, it does not mean this is the wrong idea, it means it's the wrong color or hue combinations etc...
Ultimately this bar should be user modifiable in the preference so one can put whatever one wishes in it, within limits. A bigger gap is need between different classes of short cuts as well.
that's even better
I sent the Pm request.
Thank you @adent42 for taking the time, you are on fire these days!!
I agreed with every part of your post
@tatiang it's a resource thing. we're trying to kill bugs first, address design issues second. We do have a few improvements coming down the pipeline, but we haven't released them yet (we intended to before Thanksgiving), but the whole iOS 11 / iPhone X world ending bug came along. Now that I'm mostly out of that hole, I can get back to the tool!
Oh, also, if you're looking at it on Firefox, there's some horrible stuff going on with SVGs we need to fix (the shortcut icons are especially tiny).
Are you actually using a UI designer (rather than just a general graphic designer) ? Or are you not using a designer / design company at all . . . or are the coders designing the UI themselves ? That's an honest question, I'm not trying to be sarcastic ?
I can't help but agree with everything @blob says, I think the UI is really really poor, from both a use and design point of view, and like @blob says GameSalad 2.0 is going to look woefully out of place in 2018. I have a first class degree in design and another in typography, that doesn't mean my opinion is worth any more than the next GS user, but I can tell you that in the design jobs I've had I simply wouldn't have been able to submit GS 2.0 and keep my job - seriously, not joking - I've said this before - and mean it - I would have been taken aside by the design director and asked if 'everything is ok at home'.
When - as part of the beta group - I did a mock up of a more cleaner UI, the first thing I did was the jettison the purple, you simply cannot have a coloured interface with a design / layout application - it effects the way other colours are perceived. There's a good reason that Logic Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Motion, Cinema4D, Garageband, Premier (etc etc . . . ) all use a neutral grey rather than a subtle shade of green or orange or purple for their UI.
@Socks, not to beat a dead horse, but again, we'll be working out the darker design after we get all the functionality in.
It’s pleasntly looking until you try and use it and have to concentrate on the elements. It fights you estheticaly and functionally.
I kept asking myself. “Is it because it’s an online tool they made it this way??”
Completing a game with it was difficult. It should be fun and easy. Like creator.
I realize it’s all subjective.
Looking forward to seeing the feedback get inside the tool. That might help win over some of the devs.
You are a busy bunch at the moment.
Edit. Something not on my list. Keyboard shortcuts. “T”. Places timer in current actor. Etc etc.
Thanks
@adent42 @ForumNinja
@Socks this is really the heart of the problem. We all have fantasies to be someone we're not.
From the outside everything looks simpler than it is.
This age-old trap is based of the fact that the ignorant does not know what he does not know, hence he has no way to gauge is lack of knowledge and therefore minimizes his deficiency and so, feels able!
An unconscious delusion.
Moreover, a coder thinking he can get away passing for a designer is actually an unintended insult to designers.
Would anyone feel ok winging it as a brain surgeon?
NO! So why winging it as a designer would be ok?
Artistic fields tend to be misunderstood and minimized by mostly non-artistic types. But I assure you dear GS, these fields are not any easier than brain surgery to succeed in, often harder as they requires one to understand oneself and control tendencies beyond books and teaching to achieve mastery.
Designing requires skills just like anything else it goes way beyond the hobbyist skills.
These are very deep multi faceted fields.
Especially UI design, big part of it's human psychology. logic, conventions, masterful simplicity which bear no resemblance to a beginner's simplicity and much more
There's at least more than half a decade of lack of knowledge and experience in UI design to gap with the current web version.
@adent42 for example, you wrote: "you like purple".. In commercial design, not matter what field, no-one cares what you like.
It's about choosing the right option for the right demographic, product and intent.
"I like purple" is an invalid statement to put it in coder terms..
I second that, I'll even add that the boss would not even get to the bottom of the page before exploding into rage or asking if this was a joke....
This is the whole purpose of my original post Not to minimize or ridicule the effort but to help you realize that you guys are way too deep in the abyss to get back to the surface on your own and it's normal, nothing to be ashamed about, I can't do what you do.
You guys are great in so many ways but design and UI wise, you need more than help you need someone qualified to take over. Not just a designer or someone with good taste this is all too subjective, GS need a UI designer
One picture worth 2000 words.....
I can't even begin to euh........The mac version was not amazing, unoptimized spacing and arrangement etc. (2006 look ) but useable, the web version is like 1991, 15 years before and to be honest i can not work with this, especially on a big project, I just can not, it clogs my brain, other users told me the exact same thing in PM...It's not just the look, it's 57% a workflow, positioning clicking problem too
And no, this is not an habit problem, in fact a new user will be even more frustrated, at least, we know what this is, they'll have no idea.
Let me add that a 12 years old has never ever seen anything designed like this.
It will be an even bigger shock to them.
Just want to add my support for everything pointed out by @blob and @Socks, thanks guys!
I feels a bit ashamed as I was thinking about posting something about this but couldn't summon the effort required...sorry!
Having said that please know that we are all sitting here with fingers crossed hoping for GameSalad to have a prosperous future, yet compared to the competition, your UI Design is seriously lacking.
Would be great to see your design.
Thanks @strag, we need it, or else, they may think these are just isolated opinions,
which is really not the case.
OHHHHH I LIKE THIS GUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You didnt answer the heart of the question there. Pro/Semi Pro UI Designer? Or someone who thinks they who thinks they can who thinks they...choooo chooooo.
@adent42 @ForumNinja @Socks @Toque @Braydon_SFX @everyone...
Here is the design I came up with for the Web version.
(I chose the display module as an example due to the higher number of different elements it comprises.)
(the real image is much sharper especially the fonts.
Double click this link:
It is the exactitude in design that create the quality, an approximation of this, not respecting exact placements, gaps, color scheme, fonts, kerning etc will not work.
Fonts are the same size than the web version yet the module is much smaller and breathes more.
There are also more details, options and instruction within, to go with the education centric push,
I gathered that @adent42 wanted to create a text flow to the logic, however the last line of the current web version:
“using font” “with size” “and color” is not necessary. Sometime more instruction = more confusion.
Moreover, this last line is cosmetic and not part of the logic. Hence I left it out of the text flow for the sake of simplicity, clarity and logic.
To increase text flow I added caps the “Place text at” and added the word “text” for a more natural text flow ( this also allow for alignment with line bellow.
“Same with Warp inside actor” is now “Warp text inside actor” for the same reasons.
The check Box is now after the description as the entire flow should be and is: description then activation, this keeps the interface logic consistent and helpful especially for education
The main window is slightly rounded , not because apple does it but simply because it’s more friendly and a game engine should not look like an accounting software, this create more fun and higher esthetics.
All the tabs are also rounded a tiny bit for harmony and consistency
Static text is grey, editable text is a bit whiter
The instruction in the main text box are intentionally faded, as soon as you type in the box the actual text is the same brightness than the tabs below.
Hello world! has been removed, 12 years old have no idea about this 40 years old reference, i rather use the empty space for instructions
The expression editor is represented with parenthesis because it’s their visual chraracteristic and have been moved back to the right of their tabs in order to not break the text flow with too many symbols.
Gaps everywhere follow a certain logic and consistency.
i like your design more , hope they look into it , i agree with everything said ,it doesnt slow me down in development but it does look weird and outdated . Hope they consider changing it to a better design
Really nice.
Maybe the font a tiny less faded for us old guys to see better. Then perfect.
Will be interesting to see GS dark version.
The font inside the main text box? right now this is just the instruction, when you type in it it becomes white
it's also crisper therefore brighter when not compressed as anti aliasing fades colors
@blob An instant improvement! Hopefully they will offer you a job!
It suddenly transforms from a child's toy to software I want to use!
We are all aware of the push in the educational direction but this doesn't mean it has to look childish. A more professional UI does nothing to diminish GameSalad's ease of use for students and developers alike.
Like “font”. But really blob would have to see on my monitor at actual size in the Work environment to really see. It might be fine as is.
I think kids are so tech savvy and used to using software you can have both professional and student friendly working together.
I was curious what most engines look like. I only know a couple others. grabbed a few pics. I can't verify the accuracy but I thought it might be interesting to share. Not the best quality but you can search for yourself and have a closer look.
@adent42 @ForumNinja we haven’t hear back from you regarding this question…
It may not seem so important to you.
Yet, some of us would like to understand the logic at stake.
Maybe you’re just too busy or taking a needed and well deserved break,
For what it’s worth, I’m sure everyone noticed and is thankful for @adent42 being on the forum doing damage control and working like crazy to update the creator this past 2 weeks..
However, you guys could have prevented that situation...
We never know what’s really going on, so, in the event the aforementioned question is misinterpreted as being nosey customer who should mind their own businesses.
Please, remember, for some of us., our businesses are tied to yours!
@adent42 I’ve heard your argument before about GameSalad being what it is, that we pay for what it can do within its limits, more like a prototyping tool, that if we’re no longer happy with the state affairs, we can go elsewhere and find more robust solutions..
This always been the most invalid, insensitive. one-sided invalid argument one can make…
I would like to throw this argument (that often comes up when the community touches taboo subjects, as opposed to remaining sheepish and praising), straight in the newly activated Voyager 1 legacy reactor.
GS marketed their product as an all-in-one, codeless engine capable of providing, professional competitive result for monetary benefit…
We, hopeful, gullible developers followed and invested money , but most importantly, time, ideas, sweat and more time on these promises,
The “GameSalad is a niche product good for few particular things like prototyping but not quite "it" for serious developpement” argument was not part of the sales pitch, nor was the # “will stop improving the creator in 2015” banner.
# We can not just go elsewhere….we have huge projects stuck in GS unexportable proprietary engine, these would take years to redo and this is morally and financially virtually impossible to do.
Please understand some of us are very invested, GS baited us and sold us a bit of a pipe dream on developing competitive mobile games then switched the script to ”bye bye developers and updates”.
Our efforts, time and projects are real investment that requires informations, extrapolations, planning, risk analysis and management, especially in the climate GS fosters.
Hence the need to understand why GS refuse to listen to all its smart, most valuable, knowledgeable and faithful users.
GS invested on a polished website to bait customers but refuses to hire a single designer for its sole product.
How can we not interpret this type of behavior negatively as:
“Let’s make the box shiny then once they bought who cares what they find in it”
# Short term money prospect can only terrify long term invested, customers like us.
This can’t be a money issue, something else is going on, ego, politics,, delusion, stubbornness, secret auto destruction plan…
I don’t know and i don’t really want to know unless we, the community can help,
i just want to understand GS seemingly counterproductive business decisions which are intrinsically tied to mine.
We want to see results, improvements not implosion or a 10 times worse product than we had before. this is only normal.
I'm trying to put my head around it:
From Gamesalad.com
Launched in 2010, GameSalad has been used by over one million aspiring game
Let’s pretend that 0.8% of these are still paying customers, at $240 yearly (rounding down to account for cheaper memberships).
= $1 920 000 yearly.
Wikipedia”
GameSalad is used in over 223 schools for teaching computer science concepts….
$1699 (for 1 teacher and a class of 30) x 200 = $339 800
Additionally, we all know GS is rather small staff to compensate.
GS does have debts, BancVentures, Mercury Fund, Greycroft Partners , but I’m talking about a basic primary operating expense here..
Based on the little info i have, I’m guessing GS revenue around $500 000 monthly, 1 UI designer for few month to make their only product functional and attractive is too much of an expenditure??
I’m only trying to extrapolate and guess,as many here find most of your business decision counterintuitive and really scary.
Especially for those who where serious and ambitious about developing competitive games with GS.
So why such a bad interface for the web version? everyone is complaining about it in PM., they may not tell it to your face for the sake of patience and convinient positivity but it’s similar to naive people. last year excepting Trump to stop using Twitter and become presidential once inaugurated, This is not positivity, it’s a lack of character observation and psychological understanding. I was very obvious them that nothing was going to change.
The web version is not going to be fix without real professional help, at best it will be the same in dark UI.
You let our beloved creator down for the sake of this new shiny web version and it's 10 times less intuitive for a 10 time less knowledgable user base, who needs ergonomic UI even more than we do. No one likes it and people only saying it PM that's not productive.
(I digress slightly for the next 10 lines ahaha)
For those who have very basic, binary understanding of positivity and negativity, these are positive words because i say this things to spark a change as unlikely as it may be…. for something better, look how much time i waste trying to write this, I’m not on vacation and actually have no time at all, that’s true positivity, trying to move things back up, no matter how many times we've been let down and how unpleasant the subject is.
To my fellow GSSERS, it’s ok to speak your mind, it’s not judgmental if you really thought about our opinion and if it’s true. It’s caring and it helps in the end.
Too many people rather mindlessly congratulate a dear friend who's about to wed a bad gal, “I’m so happy for you blah blah blah”
Instead of telling their friend what they know and think about her;
Your friend won't listen and may be mad at you if you do tell,, but when the time comes, it will help, your friend will remember what you said when it’s time to leave, it might spark a change,
Imagine if everyone told him about his crazy future wife then it might have saved him a wedding and 2 years of drama...
That’s true friendship, that’s honesty, that’s going beyond the insecurities that makes people afraid to be disliked if they say an unpleasant truth, that’s the moral choice too, that’s what i’m doing.
getting back on subject... how will the web version ever be able to handle big projects?? what step are being taken towards this goal???
Like others here, I’m genuinely trying to help GS with their shortcomings even though they never act on anything we suggest and probably think I’m just a nuisance…Blob Mr pamphlet post. ahahah
I just dread the moment when we’ll say, “we told so dear GS!…( about the resource management, hiring a professional UI designer, refusing to go hybrid open source to keep growing, letting the marketplace drown, being uncommunicative. …)
I don’t want the regrets of not expressing or trying everything i could .
And the punishment won’t be on GS staff, they’ll find jobs elsewhere, no, the punishment will be ours, our game,s sweat and tears left in limbo in a box we can no longer open or use.
(Such much drama ahahah but i mean it)
It’s this kinda of stress + instinct (which has never failed me) that compels me to say something.
I smell a big lack a vision, direction and passion so i try to compensate but all I can do it type, And so I type.
So would you excuse for being worried about the Web tool ergonomic and design, as well as the missed deadlines for the updates and what these signifies in term of organization, common sense and focus at GS.
That’s what happens when one sells an idea then slowly turn it into a lesser idea.
Some took the originial idea seriously..
GS should’ve presented itself as a little cool engine, for fun, fiddle with it, nothing to serious , if you need something beyond prototyping go elsewhere, to this day, this is not the language on the website that potential customer land on.
No, GS was selling us promises, Graphene…
So it should not be so out place to ask why the web tool looks like a complete amateur job!
We were left in limbo and the only prospect we now have post creator is not being develop like a pro software.
And no. dark UI won’t suddenly, miraculously make the web version ergonomic and user friendly
for the same reason that the presidency did not change Trump’s ways.
Which is: an environmental change does not improve and modify deep characteristics, hard work, willingness and realization do.
GS is entirely responsible for these type of post. it comes with the territory of a let down.
Blob. .
Once again, sorry if the intensity bothers anyone , I mean well and I like everyone here and at GS.
I made the module below to help them realize and illustrate some of the problems with the web version
(double click to open)
Link to the design post
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/95810/new-design-prototype-for-the-web-version-ui#latest
Thanks for the feedback. I know the UI is a big frustration point. I'm hoping you can keep it to this thread and/or previous thread since they are similar lines of conversation?
To some of your points (because I can't speak to revenue, etc):
We haven't placed the web tool in general release because it's incomplete. We just had to get the tool out there by August of this year for the start of the school year. We did some user testing, and it worked out as "good enough", but it was definitely not ready for prime time. Hence why we're slowly putting it out there into the community, we wanted to gather exactly this kind of feedback to make improvements.
I'll personally take the hit for the "sentence" based UI. It was an experiment that didn't pan out as well as I would have liked. A more traditional UI like you've outlined is in the schedule (it was always planned for a "pro" view, and will happen after we finish features, before general release). There's still a lot of design work to do on the "pro" UI (which unless I can figure out how to save the sentence UI, will be the only UI going forward). So these kinds of comments and suggestions are super valuable.
While there will be some more smaller UI tweaks going into the "creator-beta" site, don't expect to see your suggestions in there before next year. We're trying to finish up all the behaviors to get to "feature complete". This is going to entail getting some features from
the native engine into the HTML5 engine which will, of course, delay UI improvements. After that, we'll begin the updated UI.
Basically:
I'd like to add that keeping all the suggestions in one post would make it a lot easier to find them in the future once we've started on improving the UI.
Looking forward to the updates. I was worried that this build was a near finished product.
. Thanks for the comment.
@adent42 @ForumNinja
Can anyone spot the problem here?
and:
It's seems more logical to me to go straight to the point when one has limited resources,
and not to spread yourself too thin with 2 design branches, sentence UI and pro UI should be one, called GOOD UI. Kids and pro both want clarity and ease of use..
My first example respected your sentence UI scheme yet was streamlined and just as pro as anything, in fact i even increased sentence UI elements.
I don't know if you guys saw the second example. which looses the sentence UI for better ergonomic placements.
This one could have arrows icon instead of X and Y for the sake of the education sector but beside that, both of my example work for pro and education.
Please don't waste your limited resources developing 2 UI, if you had a pro doing it, they would 've saved you that trouble already.
You're not the first one trying a text flow UI, while I understand your logic and it comes from a smart place, it always ends up making it harder to use. You don't have to discover the rosetta stone, it has already been discovered.
Let explain you why:
A text flow UI is like a game tutorial that is constantly turning on while you try to play the game, even after you mastered the game.
It may be good for the first day then it turns into a year of nightmares and wasted time very quickly
What you really want to do is a very streamline interface with a interactive tutorial highlighting the UI with circles and pop up text for the first run thru.
And long mouse over giving you a description.
This is how the problem has been solved universally.
This step should be implemented after the UI is completely finished.
Please I hope you guys can lose this concept of pro and eduction UI distinction.
A good UI work for both especially this generation of kids who were born with UI in front of them.
Streamlined. losing the unnecessary text flow...