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Is the Xbox One UI terrible?

cakely said:
The back button, when hit at the top of level of a UI, should always remain at the home screen. See: any web browser, any smartphone, any cascading menu system, at all since cascading menu systems have existed. It's always a "safe" operation. On the Xbox One UI, it's not.
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I disagree based on the way I use the Xbox One (apps/games running in the background).

Again, pressing B is much faster to me than having to scroll the cursor to a game or app's tile and then opening it.

I understand why people want it the way it was on the 360 though since that's what many people are familiar with (as you've stated) and I feel that it would be smart for MS to put in the option for that to let users choose which way they want it.

It also doesn't help that there's a giant "window within a window" in the center of the Xbox One UI which may or not contain what looks like another set of clickable tiles. Sometimes I actually don't know if I'm at the top level of the Xbox One UI. It's hard to tell. So I might click "b", and immediately regret it.
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The "giant window" always has the name of the app the window is showing when the cursor is on it. That (at least to me) basically shows that you have to go into the app to pick what the window is showing at that time.

It's terrible design, and I'm surprised that it made into a UI by a company that at this point, should really know better.
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Disagree. It's different than the 360 but the differences make it a much faster UI to use to get to what you want in my opinion. More options for people who feel differently are always welcomed though (and are a smart thing to add).
 
modsbox said:
I've had a PS4 since launch and XBO since Sunset Overdrive bundle. I hate the XBO UI.

I *highly* doubt they did significant task-based usability testing of this UI using just a controller and not Kinect. It's just not obvious how to do shit at all.

Part of it is on me, because I don't use it nearly as often as I use my PS4. But still. Simple things like 'do I have this game all the way updated?' are not easy to discover (is there even a way to do this aside from launching the game?). Or even just 'how close to finished downloading is this game?.' It's not intuitive to me that I need to go into My Games and then look at each individual one to see what's happening. I'm always looking for Downloads somewhere in the UI and... it's not there.

Each time I use the console, I feel like I've finally got the hang of it. Then I come back to it a week or two later and I feel like I have to figure it out again. If that's not evidence of a bad UI, I don't know what is.
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There's a star next to recently updated games/apps and there absolutely is a screen that shows you how far along a downloading/installing game is. It even pops up on the home screen.
 
It's just slow to load things and awkward.

My biggest petty gripe is the whole pressing B on the menu launching your last played game. Why? Just why?

I know people say it's taking you back to the game or why are you pressing B but it still doesn't make sense. If I close a game it should stay closed and if I press B when I'm on a side menu like friends or the store I should be able to press B to go to the home page but nope. It figures that's me saying hey get me back to that game I closed an hour ago.

Also dislike that wait from closing a game and starting a new one or if you need to close and relaunch a game. Takes over 5 seconds. Minor still but I need those 5 seconds of my life man. Why are you taking that from me MS?
 
It's a bit of a pain to navigate with the controller I find, but works pretty damn well with Kinect voice commands.
 
modsbox said:
Part of it is on me, because I don't use it nearly as often as I use my PS4. But still. Simple things like 'do I have this game all the way updated?' are not easy to discover (is there even a way to do this aside from launching the game?).
Click to expand...

Games/apps usually have an asterisk in the corner of their tiles when they are updated.

Or even just 'how close to finished downloading is this game?
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There should be a progress bar that's on the bottom of the game's tile that shows you how close it is to "100%" -- the bar fills up from left to right.
 
Every time I see a thread like this I feel compelled to throw in my two cents. I don't even know why I feel so strongly about it, but I clearly do.

It looks like people fall into two camps on this one and I don't think anyone is going to be convinced to cross sides. :)
 
Duxxy3 said:
Even when it's figured out, it's still slow as shit to do basic tasks. Forming a party takes an eternity compared to a 360. Sending a message is the same deal. Snap takes too long to come up, and from there you need to open up yet more apps to get where you want to go. I don't even bother using the snapped achievement apps. It's just quicker to hop out of the game and load up the full app. On the 360 I just open the guide men, go to the left once and I have full access to all achievements for every game.

Microsoft tried to do too much with this OS, and by doing so they created another windows 8.
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Its quicker to go home, select the achievements app (assuming you pinned it), select the relevant game and look through achievements than...

Double tapping guide, flicking up, selecting achievemnts and having the achievements for the game youre already playing automatically load?

So when you want to track achievemnt progress, you find it quicker to exit the game each time than have the app updating on screen as you play?

Quicker? Hmm.
 
cakely said:
The back button, when hit at the top of level of a UI, should always remain at the home screen. See: any web browser, any smartphone, any cascading menu system, at all since cascading menu systems have existed. It's always a "safe" operation. On the Xbox One UI, it's not.

It also doesn't help that there's a giant "window within a window" in the center of the Xbox One UI which may or not contain what looks like another set of clickable tiles. Sometimes I actually don't know if I'm at the top level of the Xbox One UI. It's hard to tell. So I might click "b", and immediately regret it.

It's terrible design, and I'm surprised that it made into a UI by a company that at this point, should really know better.
Click to expand...

Windows Phone does this too, so you are wrong.
 
It's pretty poor. Especially the "right click" replacement they've created with the centre menu button on the controller.

The reason a right click is intuitive is your figure is always resting on that button, not so with the centre of the controller.

My first few hours with the Xbox One was disappointing from a UI standpoint.
 
Zeouterlimits said:
It's pretty poor. Especially the "right click" replacement they've created with the centre menu button on the controller.

The reason a right click is intuitive is your figure is always resting on that button, not so with the centre of the controller.

My first few hours with the Xbox One was disappointing from a UI standpoint.
Click to expand...

So hat happened after your first few hours?
 
I think it's atrocious and I've had the system since day one. I much prefer the PS4 UI, much simpler, faster and more intuitive.
 
It truly is. And I even loved the blades and NXE. The current 'dynamic' one is just confusing. I want my games in a games blade, media in media blade. Not this recently used or pinned shit. Plus the achievement menu is worse and slower too. And everything is uglier, less polished and less visual than NXE
 
I think the people struggling with the OS don't use the Menu button enough (formerly start button).

It's effectively a "right-click" on a mouse. Once you start using it more and knowing WHEN to use it, the OS really really opens up.
 
I quite like it. Although I do wish I could get something like a list view instead of the grid icons. Things are getting long enough that it's getting annoying having to go through multiple pages to get to the app/game/achievement you're looking for.
 
You don't have to go to My Games and Apps to get an app (like Achievements) to go full screen. If it's snapped, make it the active window and press Start, then choose "go full screen".
 
I've grown to like it a lot, but I use a combination of controller and voice input to get around. My only gripes are how slow some of the apps load and the frequency of apps crashing or requiring a restart.
 
I love it a lot especially with kinect voice recognition. I would like for them to integrate Cortana into the mix and make it even better.

Only thing I don't like about is the abrupt period of lassitude here and there.
 
it has its moments but every week or two i'll come across something that i just flat-out cannot work out how to do without googling. there are some very weird gaps.
 
I like it.

The system is way too slow after the updated they did last year, specially after introducing the Snap Center.

Hopefully in June we'll get to see that it'll look like with Windows 10 as it's engine.
 
After having a ps4 since launch and just getting my Xbox one it's amazing these launched at the same time. Microsoft needs to put more work into this. My ps4 feels a lot better to use and getting into games without seeing ads and other garbage is missed. Here's hoping that when windows 10 update is out for it we see improvements.
 
It's competent in some ways and embarrassingly bad in others. Some things are just so clunky and weird to access. Xbox 360's UI was slow in the later years of the console, but at least things were easy and made sense off the bat.

It has gotten much better over time though, so hopefully over the next few years it gets good.
 
The Xbox UI is ok.
Very obvious it was made with Kinect in mind front and center though.

Cynar said:
After having a ps4 since launch and just getting my Xbox one it's amazing these launched at the same time. Microsoft needs to put more work into this. My ps4 feels a lot better to use and getting into games without seeing ads and other garbage is missed. Here's hoping that when windows 10 update is out for it we see improvements.
Click to expand...

Have to give MS some credit though. They have a suspend feature for games.
PS4 is till catching up on that one.
 
cakely said:
Every time I see a thread like this I feel compelled to throw in my two cents. I don't even know why I feel so strongly about it, but I clearly do.

It looks like people fall into two camps on this one and I don't think anyone is going to be convinced to cross sides. :)
Click to expand...
The many opinions on the XBone's UI just solidifies my opinion that it's not that great. It's polarizing to say the least.
 
The fact that you (and many others) have to ask this question regularly says it all. If it were a good interface, this topic wouldn't come up so often.

I've come to navigate it fairly well, but, it sure took a while to get to that point.
 
I use a mix of voice commands & controller input to navigate around the X1's UI and I love it. I'm expecting Win-10 to improve it even further.

I can't wait to navigate around using my holo-glasses.
 
GrizzleBoy said:
Its quicker to go home, select the achievements app (assuming you pinned it), select the relevant game and look through achievements than...

Double tapping guide, flicking up, selecting achievemnts and having the achievements for the game youre already playing automatically load?

So when you want to track achievemnt progress, you find it quicker to exit the game each time than have the app updating on screen as you play?

Quicker? Hmm.
Click to expand...

Honestly... yeah. Snap is just that damn slow.
 
Collingwood said:
I think the people struggling with the OS don't use the Menu button enough (formerly start button).

It's effectively a "right-click" on a mouse. Once you start using it more and knowing WHEN to use it, the OS really really opens up.
Click to expand...

I used it all the time. I used it to close apps/games when I was done with them. Then I'd be doing something else and hit 'b' as is your natural inclination and it restarted the games. That's absolutely ridiculous. Backing out of something should never open something that was previously purposely closed. It's just one of many design decisions that makes me question just what the heck those people were thinking. MS is a company that supposedly hires the best people, and yet this is what they came up with.
 
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