Improving UX
While kitten-integrating, a full Lord of The Rings marathon was showing, and we had Return of the King in the background (not pictured here). We were watching the scene where Sam fights Shelob the giant spider and afterwards notices Frodo's elvish sword glowing blue, which means that Orcs are nearby. I thought about how impractical that whole glowing blue thing is because it means you have to be looking at your sword in order to know that Orcs are around. The whole point of the glowing is so that Orcs can't surprise you, but if they were going to surprise you, then you probably aren't looking at your sword.
I thought that maybe the sword should make a sound to alert you instead of just glowing, but worried that the sound might alert the Orcs, but then realized that if the Orcs are sneaking up on you, then they already KNOW where you are. Still, the sound would let them know that you know where they are, and that wouldn't be good. I nice compromise would be if the sword had a vibrate setting (good idea, M) that could alert you without giving too much away. I like the flashiness of the the blue glow, but a vibrate would be a much better user experience.
Hopefully the elven smiths built in Linux and a USB port for quick and easy firmware updates, because this really seems like it was rushed to market. Look, I completely understand the need to deploy before thorough testing. There could have been a big media buy that had a hard date, or really antsy upper management that was looking to see quick results, but they would have benefitted from some more time in beta.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trolling here, but the Orcs definitely are, so don't skimp on the QA. No need for heads to roll, let's just rescope, get the change order done, and deliver to the requirements this time, ok?
3 comments:
But if you are in Mordor or exploring a cave in the dark maybe you should have your sword out and ready to keep someone from chopping your head off.
I agree. My issue isn't that the functionality is bad, just that it could be more useful than it is.
Having the sword glow means that any orcs sneaking up on you KNOW that you know they're there. It's like the Highlander effect where they can't sneak up on each other. It would be better if the sword could let you know that orcs were near without THEM knowing that you know. Then the element of surprise turns in your favor. They think they're sneaking up on you, meanwhile your elf buddy can go grab some high ground and rain down some arrow-borne hell.
Also, the glow could be useful if it actually casts light in the dark, so that you can see when you're fighting. However, it doesn't seem like that's how it works.
Hah "trolling" :)
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