The mess in the Learn section

Do you guys really expect people to find their way in that new display you're imposing on us?

Learn

 

Ouch. It now looks like most of the pages that go from https://unity.com/learn are selling paid content. I'm not sure I like this.

One of Unity's biggest strength's has always been the free learning material. Wrapping it up in a pay wall isn't going to end well.

The good stuff is still there, if you bookmarked the URL. https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/ But its not as easy to find anymore.

 

It features an EC video. Doesn't get any worse.

 

I though I got Zoom 200% set in my browser. But no, is actually 100%



And then scales, when resizing window



Very weird experiance.
Someone works and designs on mobile, forgetting about PC users?

Edit:
What a waste and ignorance for wide screen users! :/

 

50% zoom

 

Whoever is in charge of the UI of teh website is not good, and they are deprecating the asset store, I used to impulse buy stuff I don't need, would never used and would be deprecated lol, now I'm not buying a thing because it's such a visual mess I don't care anymore I just can't scan rapidly through it. Thanks unity for keeping me sending you money my wallet is doing better!

 

I used to link a lot of beginners to the Learn section, after looking at it recently I'm actually super reluctant to send anyone there. It's a complete train wreck and I was barely able to find anything useful to give them a specific link.

I doubt anyone with pull will read this, but it's terrible, and someone has some really convoluted ideas about what is good UI/UX.

 

Another serious complaint about the UI of the Learn section is the attempt to hide the vertical scroll bar. That is a terrible UI choice that impacts users on laptop trackpads. Unity needs to revert to a normal full width vertical scroll bar in the Learn section and the Asset Store.

Stop hiding vertical scroll bars. It is stupid.

 

Im confused, why do so many sections of the unity website that no-one has asked for changes to get completely revamped or removed with no prior warning, but many requests for things on the website that would actually help the community (like bringing back the job posting forum so you dont gut peoples earnings when so many have complained about the direct causal link between that forums closure and lack of available / accessible unity freelance work etc) get completely ignored?

I am curious, is the person in charge of these sorts of final decisions actually a user of unity? Because in no way does it seem like it.

Whoever said "lets take the learn section which is what most users will use to get to grips with unity, and make it far less easy to navigate, and far harder to work out where to start and where to end whilst making it display far less content on any given screen so that scrolling needlessly becomes a thing" needs to be put in a different position, and the actual decision maker needs to start using unity as a user.

TLDR: Unity, consult with your actual users first before destroying your website?

Cant do that, as that would make the website more usable and clearly the current mandate is to stamp out any usability that is left as fast as possible.

 

Thanks for the link; I'm afraid it won't be there for long.

 

Who must we tag about that?

The scripting tutorials:

• before, on YT since the page is no longer available: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX2vGYjWbI0RmYmP19OimzWSy2PpLxMk7
• now, the contents are not the same at all: https://learn.unity.com/search/?k=["tag:5814655a090915001868ebec","lang:en","t:tutorial","sl:beginner"]

​

Edit:

Okay, I found them; they are under "Projects" in the "Type" tab: https://learn.unity.com/learn/search/?k=["tag:5814655a090915001868ebec","lang:en","sl:beginner","troject"]

Edit 2:

Could the web designers make it so that the short cuts for the emoticons do not work in links???

Edit 3:

The old scripting page is here: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/scripting

 

When we last time had some useful changes to web based interface?

So far all recent directions are super incompetent for the web interface usability. Sorry Unity, but did you hired high Schooler who fancy M$ large icons interfaces like? Superb none ergonomic and unprofessional.

Completely ignoring what actually is important in this department.

I wait when forum font size change to 50 by default. That will be me out from here. Because that is ridiculous, where is going.

Seams like making reddit, or git as default tutorial page, will be much more suitable.

 

My first thought is to tag the people (@Adam-Buckner, @Matthew-Schell, and @willgoldstone) who the most active in the Community Tutorials & Learning section. If they're not the appropriate ones I would think one of them would know who is responsible for this colossal mess.

I just checked the Wayback Machine for when the link no longer works and unfortunately while it loads the pages and the text on them the videos themselves don't work. If we want a mirror we're going to have to create one manually.

 

You don't need the way back machine; click on the link then on each page and the videos are there. Some of the pages are different but not all of them yet.

Example:

1. https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/
2. then clicking on "scripting" gets you to the old page: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/scripting
3. then clicking on "Scripts as behaviour components" gets you to the new page: https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/sc...ectId=5c8920b4edbc2a113b6bc26a&playlist=17117. Scroll down to find the video.
4. and clicking on "Properties" gets you to the old page: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/scripting/properties?playlist=17117.

@Adam-Buckner no longer works for Unity Technologies.

 

We don't need it now. I checked it for when that link is no longer valid.

 

Well, the important thing being the videos and if they don't display in the way back machine, you'll have to get used to the new pages.

These pages are better than the home page of the learn section; they are clearer and get the job done. The worst is that you have to find them...

 

Feel free to beat me if you want, but I like the new page, it is easier on the eyes and shows the offerings to the beginners better and at the same time it does not block users to go to the good old tutorials.
I think it's less confusing for the beginner users, but at the same time allows Unity to promote their extra tutorials and specialized courses. One stone, two birds.
And we shouldn't forget that Unity is maturing into a proper and seriously competing tool in the industry, they need to start to offer specialized offerings when it comes to courses and tutorials, not just the generalist beginner old ones.
I also sent the feedback through the official channel (popup came to ask for feedback, I encourage you to submit it as well, no matter if you agree with me or not).

ps: please don't call it "premium" it's a really overused word already, I like the Plus and Pro since it corresponding with the License offering names.

 

Uhh


This looks to me like it's implying that Unity Technologies made that video.

 

It was paid by Unity, sponsored content. It does not imply they made it, especially when you click into it.

 

Keep in mind we still have people who can't find the link at the top of the screen that says "Learn".

 

emphasis on the word LESS

 

Okay, so a logo underneath a tutorial means the tutorial was sponsored by whomever's logo is below.

 

Yes, I guess that is the producer or the uploader, or essentially who paid for it.
And the giant Extra Credits: means that Extra Credits created it.

 

Why exactly? ExtraCredits is a great source of information.

The only I ssue I have with the learning page is that when I click on a topic on top the results are all filtered by language, and it seems that there are no or maybe only a few videos in another language. Especially as the frontpage is in english still.

Despite that, I like this one more than the old one which was a big list of partially outdated tutorials. In the sense of beginners at least, there is a sort of achievement system that keeps people hooked.
I mean still the old site is there: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials Maybe they port more tutorials over soon. This is better for more advanced users but not for newbies which I believe this site targets.
Everyone posting above has at least 1k posts, I doubt that you have to learn Unity from scratch

 

Hi everyone long time user first time caller,

While I can't speak for wider website decisions and changes, I can speak for Unity Learn so I thought I'd jump in and provide a little more context to the why and how.

The first page you land on when clicking on the Learn tab unity3d.com/learn has been a page where we shared all of our Education products and programs, this includes our free material on Unity Learn (previously unity3d.com/learn/tutorials), custom in person training, courseware, certification, education grants and a lot more.

We've recently redesigned that portion to better highlight what we offer as it reaches beyond what we have as free learning on the website. I want to stress that there will always be free learning available from us.

For Unity Learn - over the years we've had lots of feedback from educators, students, professionals and hobbyists on numerous aspects of the site - the lack of progress tracking, guidance, search and visibility of new material, to name a few.

The process to develop the site involved many redesigns as we slowly made improvements from users and groups we tested with along the way. We're still iterating on the site based on user feedback, so threads like these are great for us, there is also a tab on the right side when you land on the page that goes directly to us too.

I hope this makes things a little clearer, there will be a blog post soon which talks about the site in more detail.

 

Unity is ridiculously bad at web development, its astonishing.

As bad as Learn is i doubt it will ever top Connect. Thats one of the worst web app experience I've ever had, after several tries I gave up. These days I just hire local people or take the risk on freelancer.com.

 

Thank you for the response, its always good to hear from unity staff surrounding when issues arise

I must say I am a little bit less skeptical of the learn section as today on reddit I was helping a newer user navigate unity for the first time and actually found the new course groupings to be very useful in giving a direct path from zero to hero.

I definitely still think it has some pretty clear usability issues (too many clicks to get from A to B now compared to before, not clear who the tutorials are actually by) but overall I think its a good first attempt at a revamp.

 

Also thank you for a response.

From my perspective, is not the content the issue, but how is presented.
For me, doesn't look professional, but more like year 2000 web page, with cobbled few tech on one pile.
I am a bit exaggerating, but may see my point.

Surly Unity has resources to test different designs, before they go even online.
On one side trying so much making mobile friendly, with all scalability etc., yet seams forgetting completely about ergonomics / proficiency for other platform users.

My apology for my rambling.

 

Thank you for popping up; it's actually that first page you mention that is a problem, I do think that the free content should not be on the same page as the non-free.

Quoting you:

People arriving on that page, especially people who are entirely new to this place, will think every tutorial must be bought.

There is also the problem with USC Games Unlocked; it's still unclear if 79$ is for the entire course (8 weeks or more) or for one week.

 

Price of course is $79. Pay once, own forever.
No problem.

 

I want the same thing said by an official from Unity Technologies, if it's true.

 

???

It's in the link you posted. Right above the purchase button.

 

I tested the learning section, it feels so much more like a marketing push, everything is soooo spread out that finding one thing in particular is hard, probably better for absolute entry level people, but it makes way harder to browse when you actually want to deepen a particular subject, and the old interface was better than the new for rapid scanning of topic you want to deepen.

And that's the main thing, it's hard to deepen a particular subject specifically, and selectively choose what you want to do. Everything is in broad package with a lot of noise when you want a specific information. As such it's gear toward people who are uncertain what they want to learn and will latch on the first thing that vaguely fit their vision (2d game, 3d game, xr, movie, etc ...) and have zero knowledge how to proceed. Intermediate to power user are left in the dust if they want to get to the core of the subject they want to deepen.

 

The Learn section was always only for beginners. Unity didn't have or need it at first, and became popular without it. The excellent Scripting Reference/Manual were all it needed. Plus some demo projects. Beginners could read a list of the tech Unity used and go off-site to learn (my comment on that: https://answers.unity.com/questions/1252826/is-unity-for-beginners-if-not-what-else-should-i-k.html).

Learn was added much later as an "OMG, what will it take to make people stop asking how to change color?". On UnityAnswers we were thinking maybe next to every "Download Now" button could be a list of web resources, with a back-up link to a very, very simple walkthrough. It would be at a level for small children - it's purpose would be to occupy users who are going to get bored after a week no matter what. That's how Learn was born.

I thought I read this on gamasutra - the new CEO realized people enjoy watching Unity-use videos just for fun. Sort of like how Bob Ross is popular again. They figured they may as well sell them to non-game-designers as edu-tainment. Since they already had this Learn section, but it was basically a forever half-done Wiki, they may as well re-purpose it.

 

You realize unity isn't just about programming right?
I still some subject to deepen OUTSIDE of programation.
It's my backburner for a while and they kinda shift the carpet right under my feet!

 

That's backwards. UnityCo. had to write the Scripting Reference and Manual because standard programming isn't quite enough to use Unity. But they didn't need to write anything for particle systems, models, textures ... it all works the same. That's what the link explained. I know 20 people who used Torque's particles, saw Unity's pre-Shuruken system for 5 minutes, and were great with it. The best Learn section for most stuff is a list of terms to google.

Say you want to get better with particle systems. Do a general search. The good stuff is for lots of different engines, but it transfers to Unity.

But the thing is, and this is fine with me, you didn't mention anything specific. I'm getting the idea you're a tourist - my Bob Ross comment. It's fun to do whatever the next thing on Learn is. Or maybe it just never clicked how Unity is so generic (again, that what I was trying to explain in that link).

 

Unity way passed that point by now. I'm a volunteer, who tries to help people on the support forums. Well, man... most people can't find a menu point, let alone google something. Reading the excellent manual is a sport apparently only for advanced users, who need it less often, but for beginners, it's a magic book or something.

 

That's pretty stupid isn't it? because you are basically saying unity need no references, that also works for c# since I learn it with a reference sheet outisde of unity.
I can research on my own thank you, but if i don't want to waste my time translating I can just use the tuts, which are also great for all unity quirk, like mecanim, subtility, etc ...
It's a QOL feature, it save time, show you around the quirks that are different, even if you know the general abstract behavior common to all language, and show you a reference way of doing stuff so you don't fiddle and stumble in inefficient way, it shows you where are the hidden and obscure options.

I already tried some, and that's why I was satisfied, I can also complete that with outside reference thank you, but' it's needed.

 

Good to hear. These landing pages are simply uncomfortable and not well-designed. We're looking at a tremendous amount of wasted space, iconography that's is wastefully too large, banners that are too large. It makes the experience uncomfortable from a modern web experience expectation. This is about conveying information, not the "wow" factor of the visual design and it feels like the ball has been dropped in that regard. We're seeing a reflection of outdated web design practices that just shouldn't be in play here for the Learn site. I've been a Unity user for over 10 years now and accessed resources from Unity's learning resources during that time. When I first landed on these updated pages my first impression was in one word, uncomfortable.

Some actionable points:
The main landing page banner is far too large.It consumes almost the entire page above the fold without conveying very much information at all. It would be understandable if the amount of information to express in that area was very large. In this banner is left-justified title text that creates excessive height for this banner. If you click through one of these carousel banner items you get a much more appropriate banner size on the resulting page.

The "Dive into something new" button icons are far too large for the amount of information they need to convey. These are about 10 button links that consume nearly a 3rd of the visible page. Not much more needs to be said on that. This creates more scrolling than needed to get to meaningful content.

As you scroll the landing page the Bootstrap-style cards are a nice touch, they are modern and responsive. However they are inconsistent in sizing and some of them are large and others are smaller. This presents an inconsistent experience and visual layout and to put it plainly doesn't look professional. The responsiveness is also inconsistent. As you decrease the page width to a tablet or mobile size these cards would expectedly collapse to a single column, but all of them do not. Most of them do, but some of the force themselves into smaller cards vs. collapsing to a comfortable single-column mobile view. So some become less readable for smaller devices.

As for responsiveness... as you scale the page down to a tablet size screen, all page elements lose their left and right margins against the sides of the browser window. All content will now ride directly up against the edges of your browser window. This results in a website that appears broken and uncomfortable to read. These margins do seem to reappear once the resolution is dropped down low to hit the single-column mobile break-point. This is a novice mistake and makes it look like some of the QA was not thorough enough. * I've discovered another serious issue with the cards and their responsiveness. At the same time the page elements drop their left and right margins, the content cards overflow into one another and the first cards in a row go underneath of the cards next to them, obscuring the content from the cards before them. This is broken responsive web design, another very basic mistake and would be hard to miss.

There is a bit more to discuss about the new site. One last observation that was the first thing that stood out to me were the sub pages that lead to tutorial content. You'll click through to a step in the tutorial and get a very tall page with each of the steps flowing down the page vertically. This is where the waste of white space on page really becomes uncomfortable to follow and read. The horizontal width of the content on these pages is simply too narrow. It forces the text instructions and content you'd like to follow into a very narrow column that becomes hard to backtrack on or follow. You end up with very little information visible on the page at any given time. I understand the need to pack these sections into bite-sized chunks so a user can follow along at their own pace, but it's simply too little information given on page at any time. It creates an excessive amount of scrolling to get to new content or to backtrack to content you need to reference.The title text for each section is just too large. Almost every single one has to text-wrap and it doesn't need to be nearly that large to indicate it's a title and that it's important. It just needs to be there to convey what that section is about and to be readable. Each one of these is consuming a double row on the page and decreasing the amount of visible space for meaningful content to the user.

These are just my opinions and observations. My day job is as a web developer for NASA Office of STEM Engagement so I get nit picky about these things. User experience is going to be the key thing here and as it stands it's a poor experience for the new Learn site. I know Unity can pivot and iterate and get the site looking and feeling great.

 

You're jumbling a bunch of stuff together. Take mechanim. The Reference section explains how it works - lots of links to every part. Then they (UnityCo) wrote a demo project (in the Asset store, which I don't think is the best place, but I can see the logic, since it's where anyone else would have to put there's). That's all you need. Many game designers have seen a graphical state machine, and can pick it up quickly. Meanwhile, the Learn section has a video tutorial. I don't doubt that you enjoyed it, but it's not needed.

Likewise you're jumbling programming. You don't learn programming with a "reference sheet". You read a book and try examples. And it's not "the general abstract behavior common to all language". Most language are 95% the same, and regular C# is exactly the same as Unity C#. For years we've been trying to get people to see that searching a list of enemies is the same as searching any other list, which means StackExchange has your solution.

My point here is that the Learn section is primarily edu-tainment. That's the audience - not people who actually want to learn something. And that's how the re-org should be organized.

 

The reference explain how it works, it doesn't show you how it works in a concrete example, and that's my point. That's not the same thing. I can read the reference about scriptable objects, seeing scriptable object integrated in a small project as inventory and AI brain is another thing, one is abstract, the other is a concrete applications.

The thing is you are right in the absolute, but you miss that the point is about QOL (Quality Of Life).

In the absolute I can make a computer even with water due to equivalence of hydrodynamics and computer electronics, in practice I'll just buy a computer at the closest shop. That I can doesn't mean I want the pain, I reserved that to stuff where there is no QOL offering, it's call prioritization.

 

The manual that came with my car tells me where the headlights are, but doesn't show me how to use them. It's fine.

This is a great example. If you know how to program, you don't need any of those examples. They're for people who don't understand how pointers work, and aren't comfortable creating normal classes to store data. If you teach yourself programming from a book, the SO examples will seem like explaining when to use headlights.

 

What garbage-ass car manuals have you been getting?

 

To be fair you're arguing with the sole person who has been promoting the use of Unity Answers long past the point where it not only ceased to be practical but likewise ceased to be a good experience. If he cared about QOL he wouldn't have been pushing people to that broken spamfest for as long as he did (has he even stopped at this point?).

 

That reminds me of the single biggest problem with the Learn section - the people who recommend it don't know what's in it.

I assume Ryiah is referring to a forums post about shutting down Unity Answers, where I was the only person who had been to Unity Answers in years. I could not get anyone to click 2 buttons and see for themselves what was actually in it. They just knew it was X and Y because of rumors. Learn is the same way - too many people know it's great without taking 5 minutes to check it out.

Why it matters is this: people ask a Q about, for example, using if-statements. They get sent to "Learn" (which does look pretty whacky, now). Unlike the person who sent them, they read it. After seeing the only 2 weird unhelpful IF examples - the same from years ago - they decide Unity is a bunch of idiots. What should happen is what Unity did from the early days: here's a list of books and resources. You don't like reading and studying, which we said is the best way? Well, here's the Learn section. Now serious people will become Unity customers, and tourists can have fun in Learn.

 

We (at least all of us in the last thread that took place) knew exactly what was in it as a good portion of the people who asked for it to be shutdown had used it at one point in time and the remainder of us watched it for a number of months to decide if it was worthwhile.

Yes, this happens from time to time. That said the majority of us who help people on a regular basis have long since moved beyond simply linking that section of the site unless their question has a very generic focus to it (eg how do I get started with Unity), but even then we tend to link alternative resources along with that section.

Basically what you're saying happens doesn't really happen now with any real regularity, but the only way you would know that is if you were regularly active in the appropriate sections of the forums.

 

My experience with Connect, the learn section, and engine UI does not leave me impressed with Unity. I understand the reasons why it is the number one game engine, but I don't think it's a reason to rest on any laurels. I use it only because other people do, but if I have any choice at all I go with Unreal.

It is very much a matter of opinion as I don't have much experience in game dev, but I see consistently from Unreal is professional, user friendly, refined, polished products. Fantastic learning content on youtube. In all the common creation apps I use -- Maya, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Unreal -- I can work as fast as I can think. Unity is the oddball. It is dramatically less efficient to work in. It's partly due to the fact that I have used it least, but is also due to inferior design and lack of refinement. Doing anything in Unity is slower. Always requires more clicking, more hunting and pecking, and in general you have to do much more outside of the engine, which makes organization and workflow more of a bear to contend with. I wouldn't want to make a full-scale desktop game in Unity. No way.

It's not dreadful -- I mean you can use it and learn it's idiosyncrasies and get work done, but I think from the top down there needs to be a campaign for professionalism because the image they are putting out could be improved a lot.

 

I can see this.

When I recommend the learn section, I'm thinking of the learn section as it was five years ago when I was learning. I haven't actually used the learn section much since then. At that point to find a tutorial on "if" you clicked on learn, then clicked on scripting, then clicked on "if". Then you got a nice neat video on how "if" worked. This is literally the process I followed to learn C#.

Now it takes me about ten minutes to navigate from the learn page to a tutorial on "if".

 

We just need a tutorial series on using Google.

Spoiler

Interestingly enough the projectid section of the URL is completely unnecessary. Both of these links are valid.

https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/if-statements
https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/if-statements?projectId=5c8920b4edbc2a113b6bc26a