Yes it is pildanovak, perhaps we could gather a few people to make a new branch: UI branch, so we can apply all these proposals and make something fresh and better. What do you think? I’m a graphic designer.
it could be a playground for the upcoming Blender 2.8 series: things that are good in that branch might be adopted, who knows?
Look how good it looks and functional.
The issue is that dev’s doesn’t know how to make a good usable design.
The other way, artists doesn’t kow how to code these mockups.
Besides, it is way faster to draw. (openGL)
I think this looks bad. The contrast is even worse than with the default theme, which is already bad. The layout is clearer, but it also takes up more space with less functionality.
Welcome to the world of subjective perception.
The issue is that dev’s doesn’t know how to make a good usable design.
How do you know that you can do that?
Besides, it is way faster to draw. (openGL)
Why do you believe that and why do you believe it matters?
So good usable design is one that wastes space? No thanks…
There’s not a lack of good designs (there are many great proposals out there), there’s a lack of manpower to evaluate and realize them. That’s why we have a UI team, but it’s seemingly failing to deliver due to it being volunteer based. There’s not much we can do about that other than throwing money on it, but then again it’s a question of carefully distributing priorities for the small amount of money we have available (the 2.8 project seems promising in that regard though).
UI is a dangerous field with different biases and opinions coming from all sides. It is not simple. It needs a lot of attention to progress. This especially applies to Blender, which requires a huuuge interface. (I’ve tried to find a user interface that’s larger than Blender’s - in respect to its requirements - but never found one… Seriously, it’s possible that Blender needs one of the hugest user interfaces on this planet.)
I’m currently the only developer focusing on UI and there’s only so much I can do. At the moment that’s namely the layer manager and the custom manipulators project which are both quite complex. Add to it the usual development work (bug fixing, reviewing, documentation writing, organizing, answering on BA 
) and you probably see why I didn’t manage to conjure a UI revolution yet. And the only time I have for this is my spare time, which isn’t endless either.
As for visual updates, I did some experiments for a more modern GUI style some time ago but had to go back to other work.
(More info here)
It’s a project that I’d like to work on towards the end of 2.8, as it’s something many people don’t see as such a big priority. I wouldn’t go with such a contrast-less approach as the one on the mockup you posted, more something like this.
Also, it would be cool if you’d credit the creators of mockups if you post them or if you’d link to where you found it. In this case the mockup was created by William Reynish for T38037.
So, what about making a plug in - that is a temporary solution to ui…
basically, have planes in the 3d viewport that the blender windows render onto
the planes could be placed traditionally (like the current UI) however the important thing would also be that anyone could replace them,
pointing your mouse at a UI element, would then check that position against a table and then interact with that system using the mapping,
basically the first step though is rendering a tool panel onto a plane, and having it only render changes to each panel somehow.
It would be useful to note for those unaware that as far as I’m aware he was also involved with the current interface principles http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2008/evolution_of_blenders_ui.pdf
When it comes to interface design ask 1000 people and you’ll have 1000 different opinions, each one believing they have the ‘best’ solution because of their narrow thinking
I might be not up to date. Is there any hotkey to close all panels in a region?
A - closes the panel under the mouse cursor
Ctrl + Left Mouse - opens the Panel under the mouse cursor and closes all other panels
If i want to quickly switch to another panel i find collapsing all panels and choosing from their list of headers easier than scrolling.
In the current versions of blender this can be achieved with Ctrl + Left Mouse on a panel and A afterwards. However i would like to do this with one button press because this is needed rather often and you have to position the cursor on the header of the panel.
But designing a good UI is still not a subjective thing. Paweł Łyczkowski (UI Team Designer) have made a good summary about this in his ‘Blender UI and Functionality Proposals’ document. A interesting read.
That’s bullshit. It is subjective. Is it entirely subjective? No. Can you test if a design works better, on a population of users? Yes, but the result is likely different for every individual (i.e. subjective), that’s why you end up with “majority wins” scenarios and those pesky individuals end up on the forums complaining.
The argument that design isn’t subjective contradicts itself in the second paragraph already:
“You can make the interface easier to use by exploiting how our memory, perceiving of the world, and learning works. For instance by respecting the already learned reflexes, providing discoverability, and exploiting our intuitive perceiving of objects and their relations”
These things are all subjective.
Then, there’s a citation of the guy who writes a blog post called Design is Not Subjective. In that blog post, he literally writes that design is, in fact, subjective:
“There must be some subjectivity, right? You bet. If our designs are meant to shape user experience, there’s a lot out of our control. The user’s expectations, goals, and past experiences all influence their perception.”
Instead, the argument is actually that we should treat design as if it was objective:
“That said, we’re better off approaching design as if it were entirely objective. When we focus design on specific problems, and test for effectiveness with user scenarios we can predict, we have a reasonable approach to creating better experiences.”
Ergo, the point is that you should test your designs, to approximate objectivity. I see nothing in the design proposals that talk about how to organize actual users testing, even though this is a huge topic in “real-world” UI design. Instead, it’s all about how things “should be” with made-up (i.e. untested) claims and arguments (good and bad) by whoever wrote up the piece. That’s fine, really, except that it is entirely subjective.
Yap, it is not. It is extensively studied in the human computer interaction branch of the IT field. It is not my field of expertise but it has very fascinating topics - like how a user interface can actually kill people.
@ BeerBaron
Are you a designer ?
Because it dosen’t sound like you have any idea what you talk about.
(I am - it’s my education & profession).
Do you have an actual argument?
You’re a “designer”, what does that even mean? Do you have a degree in Industrial Design or Decorative Painting? Communication Design, Game Design, Fashion Design? None of these things would make you an authority on UI design.
For the record, most computer science curricula contain courses on “Human Computer Interaction”, so don’t assume that just because someone is a “programmer” instead of a “designer” that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
That doesn’t make it non-subjective. Subjectivity is one of the core issues, which is why testing is so important.
@JulianSeverin, Thank you for your work on this!
1001 opinion here 
Blender UI / GUI is fantastic, really I love it.
You do Pie Menus and SpaceBar Search more powerful, and people will be happy.
Obviously I think many things could be improved. Mainly the organization, view and tabs in the Tool Shelf panel, especially if you have many installed/enabled addons.
Edit:
Campbell had recently added good functionality in SpaceBar Search, which allows smart searches only with pieces of words. For example “ad cu” for “Add Cube”. I could not find that this has been added to the Wiki, and I’m not sure that all users are aware about this.
what really would make me happy is the possibility to customize Tabs and save them as presets for each editor, so that every time i open a new window I’ll have the same tabs visible and in the same order, which is not possible at the moment; it would be great if such preset could be applied to old scenes also, with an option somewhere to “Apply Tab Presets”, my muscle memory would be very grateful.
At the moment you can just arrange Tabs, not ‘customize’ them.
paolo
@ BeerBaron
I’m a industrial/product designer. And design fields are intersected, because they all centers around interaction with humans. (And yes testing is important - there are objective insight to learn).
But what are you ? - you didn’t really answer my question.
And no, I won’t go into a deeper argument with you. You have shown here on BA that you lack even the most basic skills in the art of having a civilized and constructive discussion. Sorry to put it so bluntly.
…So this will therefore be my last words on the subject for now. I have communicated what I wanted.
In other words, you have even less education on Human-Computer-Interaction than the average programmer? I’m not saying all design is 100% subjective, but all the evidence in the world points toward it being highly subjective. Anyone who claims “Design is not subjective” is talking bogus. That’s the point.
But what are you ? - you didn’t really answer my question.
I’m a programmer
And no, I won’t go into a deeper argument with you. You have shown here on BA that you lack even the most basic skills in the art of having a civilized and constructive discussion. Sorry to put it so bluntly.
Oh, that’s very rich. I’ve written a post with citations and, you know, arguments against the the proposition that “Design is not subjective”. Your entire reply was “Are you a designer? You don’t sound like you know what you are talking about”. You didn’t actually provide any arguments (besides a spurious argument from authority), not then and not in your followup reply.
As far as I’m concerned, you have shown that you’re a clown. Sorry to put it so bluntly.
I have to say (really have to, it’s important for the world to know it) that I find the “what are you” argument unfruitful. Let’s say that my job is training walruses to peel bananas (which btw would be an awesome job), would that make my statement that the moon is not made of cheese false, because I’m no astrophysicist?
It’s the good old authority principle, also known as “winning a nobel tells us you did great, not that you’re immune to saying very stupid things”.
Not that what beerbaron says makes much sense, but it is not because what he is, it’s because what he wrote.
Now the world is safe.
Under normal circumstances - with a BA member with a proper track-record in having a civilized and constructive discussion*. I would enter into a more deep argumentation.
(Though the summary that Paweł Łyczkowski wrote that I linked to, is a pretty thorough overview & argument).
But you reap what you sow BeerBaron, with your behaviour here on BA.
Anyway - on a final note. And not directed at BeerBaron but generally - here are a interessting TED talk about design thinking. Just to get a bit of insight into what this ‘thinking as a designer’ is.
*Someone for instance who dosen’t start their post with ‘That’s bullshit’, or end another with ‘you’re a clown’. Just to give some simple examples.