I went on an archaeology expedition on my hard drive and found the long-lost, oft-demanded true UI!

PinoZino

The UI isn't that bad. It's having flaws, but so is every game or every piece of software.

Take a more simple device with an UI: an ATM (automated teller machine or automated banking machine) by instance. Some have a very good UI, some don't.

Why?

Because some companies did usability testing and some don't.

I have the impression that ZOS do have usability knowledge, at least some.

But there could be several reasons why nice worked out UI functionality didn't reach the finished product:

• It was maybe beta, unstable and not ready for release. Later it dropped on the priority list.
• Maybe there were constraints, like technical issues, that blocked the best usability approach
• It was maybe more expensive. And every project is limited by its budget.
• And maybe they used later the wrong approach and started by instance with Focus Groups. Focus Groups are evil when developing an UI. However they are used a lot, not by serious usability people, but by marketing types. If they are too dominant in an organization developing software, you can bet the UI will drop in quality.
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