Feedback after a year new design is ok but still less readable than the old one

after nearly a year using this new design I notice that it's worse for productivity in some instances and better in others.
where it's worse:
activation:

particularly noticeable on physics debugger, both in data density and contrast
popup menu: their contrast is the same as a field and is confused as such

vs

slightly lower data density: font is larger
the hierarchy isn't as clear due to icons polluting the visuals, uness one uses uContext



where it's better:
hover highlighting
fields contrast
font choice is more readable EDIT: after testing back and forth, nope. Verdana is far more readable so I switched back - I know you guys are option shy so thanks for that option.

overall it's not the best but not the worst, effort should be made to make popups and activation more obvious and we have a winner,

 

another big step back for the new design: object reference in fields.
They are near invisible in the new design due to the new icon design

in contrast, the old design was very easy to spot which one are filled

 

Regarding fonts, I noticed that Verdana is much more readable
I know you guys are option shy at unity so thanks for that option, unfortunately its implementation is mediocre as you can see because the vertical layout doesn't adapt. It might not be doable due to field height.

 

How about some colors, for one? The only gripe that I have with the new GUI is that it's too bland.

• Accent color option; "System setting" as the default option. Some places to apply it are checked checkbox backgrounds (solves the first issue highlighted in this thread) and everywhere that the Unity-4-default-skybox blue is used, such as the selected window and selected inspector property highlights.
• What happened to the custom title bar in the 2019.3 mockups? Unity still uses the system one.
• "System setting" Editor theme option as the default.

(Side note: Who's responsible for the forum's unbelievably S***ty bullet point list editor? It's best to just remove it and tell us to use indent and `Alt+7`.)

 

That's good to read.
A balance exists away from -isms that embraces the best aspect of each trend.
You guys have a couple people from Softimage, I'm sure they'll like to share a few story of how they made the GUI, this is Neumorphism at its best. But as compelling to artists as the GUI was, it also lacked information density and channel-box like ease of use.
Screen res is 1440p and it's on Windows 10.

 

another one I just noticed: the way selected items in an array is higlighted
squint:

easy:

 

I checked this in dark mode, and it looks ok. I guess it's because of the light-blue on dark back ground that makes it easier to set apart.

 

Well, that in itself sounds like a problem, from an engineering perspective. "Trend", almost by definition, means following just because. A lot of software jumped into those trends and delivered inferior UIs over the past.. 10 years?
By what you say, unity did exactly this, jump into the material train even if it wasn't bound to where you wanted to go.

The good way to do engineering is looking for "principles that exist for a clear purpose and can be applied (or not) or adapted to each solution".

Sorry for the rant, it's clear that you already realized all this and are working to make it better.
Thx to the OP for reporting so we can all enjoy the improvements.

 

I thought I was the only one not comfortable with the new UI design

But yeah these changes have led to a lot of human error in my projects and to more frustrating hours figuring out what I didn't set properly

 

This seems to be an ongoing effort which is great and I must say that I really appreciate you guys fixing the modal popups, I nearly ported the project over to 2020.3 just because of it.
(layout and account are still eating a mouse click, btw)

But...

If decluttering is an ongoing priority then why did you add clutter to the search bar?
Let's look at the regression:
2017=4.7 simple and to the point, love the X boundaries and purpose so clear

2020.1 new package filter eats up space. I never used it before and can see some cases where this can be useful but I don't think this is the right place because we're only interested in packages when we scroll down to the package group so I think the better place is right of the package group.

2021.1 added an expand button which takes up a lot of space, gets in the way of pressing the X, is inconsistent with the rest of the UI (they're always tucked in the ... menu) and is redundant with ctrl+k ... that's a lot of negatives

I think the focus got lost here. If you want to push a function on the user, making it an option would show better consistency with the decluttering goal ... and also caring for those who don't have a 30" screen or work on a laptop.

 

Yes I would love to disable the open in search button in preferences.
I tend to click it accidentally

 

So do we have to hope a readable and usable trend comes along because the Unity UI team is only able to chase trends instead of just making things look good and readable and usable?

Neumorphism looks a lot like XSI did decades ago, and I’m pretty sure the “trend” wasn’t around when they designed XSI, and yet they were able to make it look that way.