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[beau_beaumont]

So it's the Dark Souls of UI?

Git gud (at navigating the menus)

 

[Head.spawn]

Git gud (at navigating the menus)

Maybe MS should hire Prima Games to make a strategy guide, lol.

 

[dancrane212]

I don't mind the design of the UI, especially with the added pop-up guide and game sorting, but it's sporadic responsiveness issues that hurts it more than anything. Having a random second or two delay while navigating the UI can make it much more annoying than it could be.

 

[accolade]

No, you're not crazy. I hate Xbox One's menu layout. I was very surprised to find how worse Microsoft got with this craft when I picked up one last year.
I preferred the 360's easy layout. Xbox One's complicated layout is a kin to the Xbox 360's original blade, although that was easy to learn.

 

[accolade]

When the 360 came out, that interface was the shit.

Nowadays? Yeah. It's pretty bad.

That interface was good for its time but once the New Xbox Live Experience layout rolled out it was quickly forgotten.

 

[Kwansu Dudes]

You turn on your Xbox, the very first screen there is a decent sized box that says 'My games and Apps'. You press the directional pad 'Right' once, to access it.

The second way is to press the Guide Button, notice 'My games and Apps' there. Click oon it.

You can also use voice commands.

None of this is obtuse.

Maybe they should force a interactive demo on initial boot? I see a lot of people missing this.

They should for users used to the older UI interations.

"Hey, we moved this here. You no longer have Home Pins front and center and we also made the icon a lot smaller."

Does it make sense to search for things where you're used to seeing them for a while or is that an ancient and outdated philosophy too?

 

[Bits N Pieces]

The Xbox One UI isn't great. It has some counter-intuitive elements, like being able to launch apps with the back button, having entire screens that scroll instead of using a distinct list element, and the use of buttons that do things you wouldn't expect like using LT and RT as scroll to to the top and bottom of a page.

That being said it's much better than when it launched. Holding the Home button to bring up the power down menu works exactly like I would expect it to now as opposed to "hold it for one second but not for two".

Now, guys, I know you love your Xbox One, and you see another thread like this and your first reaction is to get a little defensive, but calling people stupid because they don't find a UI intuitive is not going to help your cause.











This last one is especially bad. Your girlfriend and your child figured out how to use the Xbox One UI, but GAF couldn't. It's obvious why you chose those particular people to compare to GAF, and it's not very flattering to them.



So, people that have some issues with the Xbox One UI are like senior citizens with dementia. Got it.

No, but we're on a gaming enthusiasts forum and people in this thread don't know how to find there games on the home screen.

That to me is like struggling to use an ATM.

 

[RowdyReverb]

It's not an easy UI to navigate, but I do appreciate how feature-rich it is. It's gotten better since they abandoned "snapping" though

 

[Calm Killer]

I might as well talk to the wall, but I enjoy it more than the PS4 menus. /opinions and all.

It has been improved since it launched, but I always feel the discussion on how bad it is, is mostly hyperbole with an ounce of truth.

 

[gamz]

No, but we're on a gaming enthusiasts forum and people in this thread don't know how to find there games on the home screen.

That to me is like struggling to use an ATM.

LOLOLOL

So true.

 

[modsbox]

Since we're using anecdotal evidence, I use a PS4 once in a blue moon, and every time I do it feels slow, cumbersome, and incredibly idiotic how everything is in one fucking row, and how sign in/out options are hidden in the power menu.

As a non-daily user of the PS4, I find its OS to be lacking.

Fair enough on the user sign in/out being hidden in Power, that's basically the stupidest thing about the OS. It's not like the PS4 UI is perfect. But picking a user isn't as important to an occasional user as core tasks like launching games and apps, browsing the library etc. ps4 does that better. Most people just have one primary user that's used for everything.

I have no idea why you think the PS4 menu is slow, maybe it is if (like I used to do with my Xbox) if you don't use it much? I could see if you were talking about PS3, because that one was laggy as shit. But on PS4 it's snappy to just whip around that really long row and find what I need because I can actually see what I'm looking for rather than having to try to discover where it's buried. To me it's kind of like Xbox tries to hide everything in a special place, whereas PS4 it's kind of a loosely organized mess of everything right in front of you. I can see how that would rub people the wrong way, but it does make it simpler for the infrequent user to work with.

 

[EdgeXL]

I have a question for people who think one button click is too difficult for finding their games...

How did you play through Final Fantasy XV?

Or The Witcher 3?

Or Fallout 4?

Or Battlefield 1?

Or Rocket League?

 

[LukasTaves]

Yeah, they're hidden in an app called My Library.

This shit's getting ridiculous.

And are also so unaccessible that only takes one press to right to go to it. Outrageous.

Considering the 2d navigation, pins and how complete the guide is I doubt there's anything you can do on this OS that won't be faster and easier to access than on a PS4. All while looking at much prettier interfaces.

 

[WillyFive]

I have a question for people who think one button click is too difficult for finding their games...

How did you play through Final Fantasy XV?

Or The Witcher 3?

Or Fallout 4?

Or Battlefield 1?

Or Rocket League?

All of those games use established and internally consistent UX designs to allow the player to navigate and do what they'd like to do. They can tell by its basic design what part of the screen they can interact with and what parts are not part of the UX (buttons look like buttons, the menus look like menus and are placed in a part of the screen that demands importance and presence, and tend to be responsive).

 

[Gamezone]

I've used the UI a lot, and it's still a pain in the ass to navigate. It's also slow and sluggish.

 

[ethomaz]

It is way better than what it was at launch...

 

[Christocolus]

Seems like Xbox needs to give users options on what UI to use. Apparently they need a I can't keep up with technology and get confused easily, basic interface. You know kinda like some smart phones have the "for the elderly" set up

No, but we're on a gaming enthusiasts forum and people in this thread don't know how to find there games on the home screen.

That to me is like struggling to use an ATM.

Lol.

 

[Gamezone]

You shoulda seen it at launch

The launch UI was absolutely laughable. How did that thing get trough beta testing?

 

[gamz]

The launch UI was absolutely laughable. How did that thing get trough beta testing?

It wasn't terrible but it's worlds better now. Easily the best Xbox UI. Keeps getting better and richer.

 

[LukasTaves]

The Xbox One UI isn't great. It has some counter-intuitive elements, like being able to launch apps with the back button, having entire screens that scroll instead of using a distinct list element, and the use of buttons that do things you wouldn't expect like using LT and RT as scroll to to the top and bottom of a page.

But doesn't launch apps, it navigates to previously opened apps. It makes sense for anyone who ever used a cell phone (android or winphone) and press back to get to an app after sharing something for example. If anything it should be made more like a phone and not removing some pages from the navigation list when you move away from them.

Having entire screens scrolling isn't also nothing new for mobile, and there are visual cues that they do scroll with bottom content being slightly cut off.

As for RT/LT and RB/LB I can't see someone complaining about than. First because they are not required to use the interface, but once you start using them it makes way quicker, specially how well and consistent they behave (for example LT and RT just locks to the next anchor instead of moving X units vertically.

 

[Gamezone]

It wasn't terrible but it's worlds better now. Easily the best Xbox UI. Keeps getting better and richer.

It was rushed. It didn't even have features like recent players or a battery indicator.

 

[Albino_Yeti]

That interface was good for its time but once the New Xbox Live Experience layout rolled out it was quickly forgotten.

This was definitely the best Xbox layout imo.

The One is just wayyyy too cluttered. So many ads and random things getting in the way of the essentials.

 

[Camwi]

It really is awful. I can't comprehend the people who actually praise it and say it's better than the PS4 or 360 dashboards.

 

[gamz]

It was rushed. It didn't even have features like recent players or a battery indicator.

Yeah, I agree. But that was 4 years ago. It's great now.

 

[gamz]

It really is awful. I can't comprehend the people who actually praise it and say it's better than the PS4 or 360 dashboards.

Because it is. Opinions and all of that.

Same way I think people are insane that Android is the best.

 

[Figments]

The Xbox One UI isn't great. It has some counter-intuitive elements, like being able to launch apps with the back button, having entire screens that scroll instead of using a distinct list element, and the use of buttons that do things you wouldn't expect like using LT and RT as scroll to to the top and bottom of a page.

That being said it's much better than when it launched. Holding the Home button to bring up the power down menu works exactly like I would expect it to now as opposed to "hold it for one second but not for two".

Now, guys, I know you love your Xbox One, and you see another thread like this and your first reaction is to get a little defensive, but calling people stupid because they don't find a UI intuitive is not going to help your cause.

This last one is especially bad. Your girlfriend and your child figured out how to use the Xbox One UI, but GAF couldn't. It's obvious why you chose those particular people to compare to GAF, and it's not very flattering to them.

So, people that have some issues with the Xbox One UI are like senior citizens with dementia. Got it.

You're trying to make a hyperbolic argument seem less hyperbolic. OP (and various other people in this thread) said "worst menu layout ever", and you're saying "what they really mean is it isn't intuitive!"

It's people getting upset over what amounts to the standard 5 minutes it takes to get used to any OS. The whole premise of this thread is based on pointless frustration over an issue made out to be much worse than it actually is. Are there actual arguments to be made about some behaviors of the OS? Sure. As with anything. But they're by and large not in this thread.

Fair enough on the user sign in/out being hidden in Power, that's basically the stupidest thing about the OS. It's not like the PS4 UI is perfect. But picking a user isn't as important to an occasional user as core tasks like launching games and apps, browsing the library etc. ps4 does that better. Most people just have one primary user that's used for everything.

I have no idea why you think the PS4 menu is slow, maybe it is if (like I used to do with my Xbox) if you don't use it much? I could see if you were talking about PS3, because that one was laggy as shit. But on PS4 it's snappy to just whip around that really long row and find what I need because I can actually see what I'm looking for rather than having to try to discover where it's buried. To me it's kind of like Xbox tries to hide everything in a special place, whereas PS4 it's kind of a loosely organized mess of everything right in front of you. I can see how that would rub people the wrong way, but it does make it simpler for the infrequent user to work with.

It's funny, because I generally think the PS3 is faster than the PS4.

And a loosely organized mess isn't good UX design. It's lazy, half-assed, and beyond unnecessary.

 

[Kwansu Dudes]

Seems like Xbox needs to give users options on what UI to use. Apparently they need a I can't keep up with technology and get confused easily, basic interface. You know kinda like some smart phones have the "for the elderly" set up

I would gladly don a white bearded prune avatar with a Cane if that means having a clean, uncluttered and compact UI that doesn't make any unnecessary changes to the layout.

I'd also do it for the ability to view all videos within a YouTube playlist instead of endlessly scrolling.

Edit: this reminds me of when people said Windows 8 had the best layout ever. I will disagree and continue to disagree until the end of time.

Call me an idiot/technologically deficient, that's cool. I look forward to another UI change once I boot it up for State of Decay 2.

Edit 2: Upon further reflection, I will take my L as an idiot. Tag me as one too if you wish.

 

[Keinning]

It really is awful. I can't comprehend the people who actually praise it and say it's better than the PS4 or 360 dashboards.

There's a whole world of distance between praising it and not finding it the worst UI ever designed

And yeah i find it better than the 360 after the patches. I have both consoles plugged and i use them almost daily, i'm fairly sure i have some sort of idea when i prefer one over the other. Maybe most people remember the 360 UI with nostalgia googles because it's nowhere as easy to use or responsive as some people are remembering it to be, at least not on my console.

 

[LukasTaves]

This was definitely the best Xbox layout imo.

The One is just wayyyy too cluttered. So many ads and random things getting in the way of the essentials.

Like what?

The interface is literally the last game you played taking most of the screen, with a list with other recent activities at the bottom. A link to your whole library a single movement away, and a list of all your pinned applications with another single movement.

Say what's essential to you is watch your friends, open the guide and they are accessible faster than any other console. Same for groups, same for clubs, same for posting looking for groups. Same for reading messages and so on.

So you are wrong. There's literally nothing getting into the way of the essentials.

 

[anothertech]

It wasn't terrible but it's worlds better now. Easily the best Xbox UI. Keeps getting better and richer.

Launch ui was arguably terrible. What we have now is a clusterfck of a mess.

 

[gamz]

Launch ui was arguably terrible. What we have now is a clusterfck of a mess.

I disagree. It's basic as basic gets. Dunno.

 

[anothertech]

I disagree. It's basic as basic gets. Dunno.

The main reason it's not basic as it gets is because of the direction misleads. For example turning my Xbone on I immediately see large ads on the right and smaller icons I want to use on the left. My cursor is on home.

I press to the left to select my Netflix app and a whole other menus pops up with shit all over the place. I press to the right to get out of that menu and I'm navigating the new menu and perplexed. I have to press right twice to get back to where I was, and that's just obtuse. Press right three times on accident cause I button mash and suddenly I'm in mixer menu which who the hell knows what that is and it's officially a clusterfck of a shitshow menu at this point.

Once I'm back to my home screen, I press to the right to get to 'my games and apps' and a whole different section of the menu is up, myganes and apps is gone.

I press the guide button and I'm at a different menu again from all three directions.

There's one simple way to get where I want to go but that's the ONLY way to get there. Down, right, A. There's only one way to get back from the left side menu. Right right. You can't just press right, can't press right right right. Just right right. Not to mention, just to search for games that you want to buy or might already own, you have to hit right right right right down down to get to the search bar. What the hell ms.

Some places if you press b it takes you back to the main screen. Most places, pressing b does fuck all to go back where you were.

It's fine if you like to memorize direction presses for everything you do in sequence, as gamers we do that, but for most ppl this ui is a clusterfuck of side menus and jarring screen replacements that uses 89% blank space on the main menu for some ungodly reason. That is not good ui design fellas.

 

[Gamezone]

Yeah, I agree. But that was 4 years ago. It's great now.

It's better, far from great.

 

[The Albatross]

It's atrocious.

I honestly believe that the only people who defend/support its shitness are the same subset of people who defended Microsoft when they attempted their always on DRM bullshit. Take from that what you will.

I don't defend the menu, but I was kind of interested in the game sharing DRM stuff just to see how it could be implemented. honestly was a little disappointed when they dropped it all because it was an interesting model, and if I didn't like it, I'd just buy a PS4.

 

[modsbox]

It's funny, because I generally think the PS3 is faster than the PS4.

And a loosely organized mess isn't good UX design. It's lazy, half-assed, and beyond unnecessary.

PS4 is faster than PS3. You can whip around the menu about as fast on PS3 as PS4 but most of the icons won't be loaded and when you tap them they won't launch right away. The PS3 store is brutally slow by comparison as well.

Not that we are agreeing on anything, lol, but we are definitely not going to agree that putting all the stuff you need right in front of you instead of burying it in menus is 'beyond unnecessary.' It's why Mac OS has a dock, windows the windows menu, OS' have a desktop... sure those menus and desktops can look cluttered but it's easy to find what you're looking for.

Discoverability is objectively a significant issue with the XB1 UI, that's why these threads keep happening. You shouldn't have to spend time learning how to use it or get good at it to be able to use it effectively.

Clearly once you spend some time with it you can do what you need, that doesn't mean it's a good UI. That just mean that it technically works.

 

[The Albatross]

That interface was good for its time but once the New Xbox Live Experience layout rolled out it was quickly forgotten.

This is the worst UI Microsoft has ever had in a console, or the iteration that came right after it. Very confusing menus, you couldn't see all of the menus in the tree, and I'd often flip through a full time before finding what I wanted because I'd forget that "My Xbox" is in between "Xbox Today" and important panels were buried several layers deep.

It was just terrible.

 

[Goalus]

No, but we're on a gaming enthusiasts forum and people in this thread don't know how to find there games on the home screen.

That to me is like struggling to use an ATM.

To be fair, it is entirely possible that those people complaining about the XBO dashboard in this thread depend on a caregiver for the usual things like buying stuff in the supermarket, putting on clothes, or using an ATM. However, they shouldn't use a game console on their own in this case.

 

[chronic_archaic]

PS4 is faster than PS3. You can whip around the menu about as fast on PS3 as PS4 but most of the icons won't be loaded and when you tap them they won't launch right away. The PS3 store is brutally slow by comparison as well.

Not that we are agreeing on anything, lol, but we are definitely not going to agree that putting all the stuff you need right in front of you instead of burying it in menus is 'beyond unnecessary.' It's why Mac OS has a dock, windows the windows menu, OS' have a desktop... sure those menus and desktops can look cluttered but it's easy to find what you're looking for.

Discoverability is objectively a significant issue with the XB1 UI, that's why these threads keep happening. You shouldn't have to spend time learning how to use it or get good at it to be able to use it effectively.

Clearly once you spend some time with it you can do what you need, that doesn't mean it's a good UI. That just mean that it technically works.

How is it any different from the PlayStation 4 if we break it down to the essentials - icons representing functions that do stuff. The Xbox One has that, but it's all in a button press instead of being on the home screen - how is that not intuitive? I don't get it.

 

[anothertech]

How is it any different from the PlayStation 4 if we break it down to the essentials - icons representing functions that do stuff. The Xbox One has that, but it's all in a button press instead of being on the home screen - how is that not intuitive? I don't get it.

Cause it's not? Pressing one wrong direction and you could be in 3 separate menus, that's not a 'simple button press'

 

[giancarlo123x]

The worst of modern consoles imo.

 

[Montresor]

The main reason it's not basic as it gets is because of the direction misleads. For example turning my Xbone on I immediately see large ads on the right and smaller icons I want to use on the left. My cursor is on home.

I press to the left to select my Netflix app and a whole other menus pops up with shit all over the place. I press to the right to get out of that menu and I'm navigating the new menu and perplexed. I have to press right twice to get back to where I was, and that's just obtuse. Press right three times on accident cause I button mash and suddenly I'm in mixer menu which who the hell knows what that is and it's officially a clusterfck of a shitshow menu at this point.

Once I'm back to my home screen, I press to the right to get to 'my games and apps' and a whole different section of the menu is up, myganes and apps is gone.

I press the guide button and I'm at a different menu again from all three directions.

There's one simple way to get where I want to go but that's the ONLY way to get there. Down, right, A. There's only one way to get back from the left side menu. Right right. You can't just press right, can't press right right right. Just right right. Not to mention, just to search for games that you want to buy or might already own, you have to hit right right right right down down to get to the search bar. What the hell ms.

Some places if you press b it takes you back to the main screen. Most places, pressing b does fuck all to go back where you were.

It's fine if you like to memorize direction presses for everything you do in sequence, as gamers we do that, but for most ppl this ui is a clusterfuck of side menus and jarring screen replacements that uses 89% blank space on the main menu for some ungodly reason. That is not good ui design fellas.

I'm absolutely floored and mesmerized by this post.

What is going on with you and others that the actual required button presses are so difficult. You aren't describing something that's actually a problem to me.

*shrug* Honestly all I can do is just shrug the two times (or more) a month that these threads come up. I absolutely don't get the confusion.

It's like there's a huge language gap or something between us two - maybe I need a detailed youtube video to get what you're saying but I've never, EVER encountered what you're talking about.

 

[Montresor]

I press the guide button and I'm at a different menu again from all three directions.

anothertech this sentence in particular has me really confused. When you say "press the guide button" do you mean the Xbox button?

Because the Xbox button brings up the Xbox guide... Not "a different menu again from all three direction". I'm not sure what you're talking about.

The Xbox guide as in, that side menu (that pops up on the left side of the screen) that lets you access Profile, Options, Friends, Achievements, etc... That's a "different menu from all three directions"?

I mean... it's the Xbox button, it brings up the Xbox guide. Do you want it to do something else?

 

[Mohasus]

That interface was good for its time but once the New Xbox Live Experience layout rolled out it was quickly forgotten.

That was just a vertical XMB.

 

[Vlodril]

i always had playstation consoles including 4 and getting an xbox console for the first time with one s i was appalled how bad it is. not easy to navigate at all or really user friendly.

hopefully they can do something better next time.

 

[Lkr]

anothertech this sentence in particular has me really confused. When you say "press the guide button" do you mean the Xbox button?

Because the Xbox button brings up the Xbox guide... Not "a different menu again from all three direction". I'm not sure what you're talking about.

The Xbox guide as in, that side menu (that pops up on the left side of the screen) that lets you access Profile, Options, Friends, Achievements, etc... That's a "different menu from all three directions"?

I mean... it's the Xbox button, it brings up the Xbox guide. Do you want it to do something else?

Lmao this thread. Why even use anything other than the guide now that it has a nice design and use. I remember when this shit didn't even have a guide and that's when I would have agreed the xbo menu design is terrible.

 

[VaultBoy101]

The launch UI was incredibly awful and incomplete, but I like it a lot now. The only problem I have with it is the frequent lag/slowness. I greatly prefer it to the PS4 menu system and can't fathom the opinion that things are hard to find on the XB1 menus but not so on PS4.

And though I shouldn't have to say this, no I was not a fan of the original disastrous DRM plans.

 

[Redd]

I much prefer the 360 menu. As much as I use the xb1s I still get frustrated using it to do anything.

 

[darthsontin]

That interface was good for its time but once the New Xbox Live Experience layout rolled out it was quickly forgotten.

Unless you had a theme, which was 75% covered by the big gray blob at the bottom.

The Xbox One UI is pretty mediocre. The games and apps organization is fine, but the randomly-sized rectangles on the menus make it hard to navigate. The store is also atrocious, with multiple copies of the same game, difficult to see prices, and the "Bundle Only" text which comes up on a large amount of content.

 

[mavericktopgun]

No. The Wii U had.

 

[arhra]

The main reason it's not basic as it gets is because of the direction misleads. For example turning my Xbone on I immediately see large ads on the right and smaller icons I want to use on the left. My cursor is on home.

When and why are you hitting 'up'? The system starts with the last-used app highlighted, not the Home tab header.

I press to the left to select my Netflix app and a whole other menus pops up with shit all over the place. I press to the right to get out of that menu and I'm navigating the new menu and perplexed. I have to press right twice to get back to where I was, and that's just obtuse.

If you wanted to re-open Netflix (assuming it's the last-used app), you just hit the A button, because that's what's focused on system startup. But somehow you managed to fuck even that up, and ended up getting confused and horrified by the Guide opening when you navigated left to it. Are you similarly surprised when you hit 'up' on the PS4 and open the system bar? Also you can close the Guide by just hitting 'B', the same way you'd back out of any other menu in the system.

Press right three times on accident cause I button mash and suddenly I'm in mixer menu which who the hell knows what that is and it's officially a clusterfck of a shitshow menu at this point.

Maybe, and this might be a radical suggestion, you should stop button mashing. Funnily enough, in most UIs you end up in places you might not expect when you mash inputs randomly.

Once I'm back to my home screen, I press to the right to get to 'my games and apps' and a whole different section of the menu is up, myganes and apps is gone.

What? I mean, seriously, what?

No really, what the fuck are you even talking about here.

Are you somehow not paying any attention to the focus highlight and just randomly hitting buttons and hoping that the system will somehow psychically know what you want it to do? Because that's the only possible explanation for what you're saying here.

I press the guide button and I'm at a different menu again from all three directions.

There's one simple way to get where I want to go but that's the ONLY way to get there. Down, right, A. There's only one way to get back from the left side menu. Right right. You can't just press right, can't press right right right. Just right right. Not to mention, just to search for games that you want to buy or might already own, you have to hit right right right right down down to get to the search bar. What the hell ms.

OK, so you somehow do expect it to psychically know what you want despite you randomly mashing inputs.

Just tried it on my PS4, and would you believe it, hitting the directional buttons random numbers of times in random directions didn't open my friends list. Unbelievable, what the hell sony.

That post was like reading a transcription of a toddler who picked up an Xbox controller for the first time.