I'll start this thread, hoping to add more to it in the future.

I'm really curious about the thinking behind these UI decisions...

1) In Stage, could someone please explain the rationale for super thick color borders around nodes. This is especially visible when zooming in on the graph. I'm really, really struggling to understand why... Why couldn't this be a nice and neat border around the nodes? I've attached a screenshot. I mean this is professional software looking as if some UI developer prototyped some ugly icons with weird borders. I will keep saying that Houdini is an amazing software, superb development cycle, but with a massive User Experience (although getting better), ugly UI, really bad documentation, and abysmal parameter naming problems.

2) In the new animation context in Houdini - the floating transparent windows - great. Step in the right direction. What I'm not understanding is the ugly fonts and in-particular the shadows behind controls. I mean that's like basics of neat and simple UI design, no? What value is drop shadows adding? Name one modern software that uses drop shadows.

3) The x,y,z gizmo in the viewport (lower left). It's so small that it's barely visible. Why have it at all?

I'll keep this list going, but I'm really curious about how some of these 'design' decisions are made.

LukeP
In Stage, could someone please explain the rationale for super thick color borders around nodes.

The colours denote layers, and are pretty important to see at a glance.

LukeP
Why couldn't this be a nice and neat border?

Maybe they could. RFE?

eikonoklastes
etty important to see at a glance.

I understand the purpose... what I don't understand is why is the border half the size of the node.

LukeP
2) In the new animation context in Houdini - the floating transparent windows - great. Step in the right direction. What I'm not understanding is the ugly fonts and in-particular the shadows behind controls. I mean that's like basics of neat and simple UI design, no? What value is drop shadows adding? Name one modern software that uses drop shadows.

The font is the same as the rest of Houdini right? Drop shadows is a tricky one as it depends on whether the foreground element has enough contrast with what's in the background of it. If you have a background that matches the colour of your text, then your text becomes very hard to see.

edward

LukeP
2) In the new animation context in Houdini - the floating transparent windows - great. Step in the right direction. What I'm not understanding is the ugly fonts and in-particular the shadows behind controls. I mean that's like basics of neat and simple UI design, no? What value is drop shadows adding? Name one modern software that uses drop shadows.

The font is the same as the rest of Houdini right? Drop shadows is a tricky one as it depends on whether the foreground element has enough contrast with what's in the background of it. If you have a background that matches the colour of your text, then your text becomes very hard to see.

In most cases yes. But they just look weird on the sliders