Interface Style Guide
We want to provide users with a great toolset for managing their traffic. These are some emergent guidelines for achieving that.
General
The user needs to know:
that the feature exists
what it does
how to enable and/or apply it
that their change was applied
how to revert mistakes
Discoverability
How does the user know the feature exists?
On-screen UI
Adviser text, tooltips
Screenshots/videos on workshop pages
We should always provide change notes, which should mention new features, but most users won't read them.
Comprehension
How does the user comprehend what the feature does?
?
Application
How does the user activate and/or apply the feature?
Do they need to enable it or configure it in mod options?
Do they need to click a button?
Do they need to use a modifier key?
Something else?
For all those things, how do they know what to do?
Feedback & Awareness
How does the user know their changes have been applied?
There should be direct visual feedback while using the feature
Where applicable, provide persistent overlays
If the user action will alter an existing state (whether global default or context specific), how do we make them aware of that?
Reverting
How does user revert changes, for example to recover from mistakes?
UI should make it easy to rapidly change a customization and reapply the correct action that will make the user happy
Undo tool might be useful in some cases
Bulk delete (eg. delete key can remove lane connections from an entire node)
Coherence & Consistency
Styling
Colors
Selectors
Show what will be selected / changed when editing networks on the map.
Node circle
Segment sausage
Half-segment sausage
Lane sausage
Half-lane sausage (does not exist yet)