What do you look for, when creating your UI?

[PragmaticGamer]

So I'm reluctantly joining the ranks of "not TOTAL scrubs." Not terrible, but not great..

I've broken my habit of keyboard turning, and and use moderate key binding. So next up is copying elements of people's UI that I might find useful.
So... help a mostly-former scrub, what should I be looking for?

[Thelxi]

I like to keep everything important close together so my eyes don't have to travel from one corner of my screen to the other. I also make things that aren't important small or transparent, or I get rid of them altogether.

[Djuntas]

I look for usability. I really dont care if people find my 3 bars stacked ugly. Some like to hide everything, but I just like Icons. Yes I bind my stuff, but you just dont always remember it going on alts or w/e

[f3llyn]

I would suggest getting ElvUI. You can customize it to your hearts content and make it suit your specific needs.

What works for other people may not work for you.

[Temp name]

I prefer minimalist, but functional.

For things that are important (Mana for healers, secondary resources, that stuff), they're always visible.
Things that are important sometimes (cooldowns, health), are only visible during combat.
Things that are rarely important (Potions, hero/lust), only visible when they're usable.
Things that are almost never important (Mana for dps classes), only visible when it's abnormally low/otherwise I need to know about it.

But really, it's all about personal preference and while UI packages can offer a good starting point, you should expect to tinker with them quite a lot to get them just right for you.

[shanthi]

If it doesn't help you make a decision during combat, hide it during combat. I've always found that to be an important principle to cut down on clutter and isolate the things that actually help performance.

[ComputerNerd]

Don't use another UI to tell you what you need.
Start from scratch, completely, and decide what influences your decisions.
What information do you actually NEED to know during combat.
What information might you look at regularly outside of combat.

How best do you read that information, as in what format.
Text messages, icons, progress bars, etc.

A premade UI can give you ideas on how to present the information, but I have seen too many be guilty of providing too much.
Combat text for instance.
Is seeing how much each tick or melee hit does going to influence a decision during combat ?
No.
Is a miss, a parry, an immunity, going to ?
Yes, it could.

[PragmaticGamer]

I have two accounts (one paid, one starter).

I'm guessing I should experiment on the starter account, so I don't ruin my leveling account?

I'm mostly trying to make alt hopping as painless as possible. 14-16 100+ (invasions were good to me for leveling, not so much for learning my classes), I barely know how to play my main. I broke the WA that was helping keep my rotation mostly relevant and Afenar's blood DK WA doesn't seem to have priorities.

[Arbiter]

I have two accounts (one paid, one starter).

I'm guessing I should experiment on the starter account, so I don't ruin my leveling account?

I'm mostly trying to make alt hopping as painless as possible. 14-16 100+ (invasions were good to me for leveling, not so much for learning my classes), I barely know how to play my main. I broke the WA that was helping keep my rotation mostly relevant and Afenar's blood DK WA doesn't seem to have priorities.

You could just back up your WTF folder rather than waste time on a useless account. If you screw up and you want to go back to what you had just replace the folder itself. If you want to copy everything to a new toon, just copy the current toon's folder and rename the copy to your new toon's name. Change any profiles that didn't carry over and it's that simple.

Just always keep a backup of a point in time where you don't mind going back to and you'll always be able to easily revert back to that point by just replacing the entire folder.

[ComputerNerd]

You could just back up your WTF folder rather than waste time on a useless account. If you screw up and you want to go back to what you had just replace the folder itself. If you want to copy everything to a new toon, just copy the current toon's folder and rename the copy to your new toon's name. Change any profiles that didn't carry over and it's that simple.

Just always keep a backup of a point in time where you don't mind going back to and you'll always be able to easily revert back to that point by just replacing the entire folder.

As well as a backup being a good habit to get into anyway.
In case of patch issues, hardware issues, or some other reason that will either damage or lose you the work.

[palthis]

For a long time I didn't know anything about addons or mods and was a keybd turner, used the default UI and hated it. Esp the action bars rotating on mouse scroll. For the first few times I couldn't realize what had happened and didn't understand why my buttons where gone. I started playing alone and the guilds I was in didn't realize I was a newbie in all respects. WoW tips didn't help either. Once I came to know about addon and it's power; it was like a whole new world. Some of the basic tenets I try to follow while making my UI:

• General
  
  1. Being able to see as much environment is very important!
  2. Raid Frames / Party Frames are not so important so can be kept in a corner / faded. I still use them to perform specific tasks like a mouseover Brez, Misdirect / tricks, Innervate etc
  3. I have moved my quest frame to the left and minimap down below to the right
  4. 2 action bars are shown though I am trying to hide them and use muscle memory. Another 2-3 bars are hidden and shown on mouseover. They contain non combat abilities, professions, fishing etc. I prefer to have everything on a bar instead of mapped to a key and forgetting what was which. Typically I follow a pattern for spell placement on my bars so that there is a bit of consistency. For ex: 1-6 are my basic hitters of which first half are focus generators and remaining last half are the spenders. F5 is interrupt, F3 = healthstone, F4 = long cooldown defense, F11 = mount and so on.. Use your own mapping and you will get comfortable
  5. dbm is positioned so that the small bars are positioned to the middle right as they are easy to quickly glance at them. The big bars are about 1.5 times the small ones and come up to the left above my unit frame. My unit frame is moved to left of my character rather than being at the left top.
  6. I like Skada and have a damage and heals window side-by-side at the bottom
  7. My weakauras / tellmewhen rotation / cooldowns are just in the middle of the screen and seen during combat
• Healer
  
  1. As healer I prioritize the raid and party frames in the middle of the screen. Only exception is BG frames or 40 man frames which are to the side
  2. Mouseover macros are a must and I also use Healbot to configure mouse clicks
  3. I use ElvUI and the frames it provides is good for what I want to see

[C J]

"Does it look like the Guild Wars 2 UI?" :P

[shise]

Yes I bind my stuff, but you just dont always remember it going on alts or w/e

Pretty much all classes have the same mechanics (basically, in a way or another), so you can bind them all similarly... For example, to use "X" for silence/kick/interrupt spells... then "F" for your maaain attack, "s-F" for whatever is the second attack... and so on with the different spells which are quite similar.

That´s an easy way to quickly master your main and alts... since you always use the same keys for the same or very similar ends

[ComputerNerd]

Pretty much all classes have the same mechanics (basically, in a way or another), so you can bind them all similarly... For example, to use "X" for silence/kick/interrupt spells... then "F" for your maaain attack, "s-F" for whatever is the second attack... and so on with the different spells which are quite similar.

That´s an easy way to quickly master your main and alts... since you always use the same keys for the same or very similar ends

Putting together a list is an approach I am considering based on this.
Defining certain abilities by a basic role it has, and therefore working out a fixed set of binds I can translate to any character.
I hope to define a list in such a way that I can just drop a new class or spec into it, and many of the abilities should instantly have a place they fit.

As mentioned, interrupts.
But also things like resource generators, spenders, mobility, persistent aoe, etc.

[PragmaticGamer]

Pretty much all classes have the same mechanics (basically, in a way or another), so you can bind them all similarly... For example, to use "X" for silence/kick/interrupt spells... then "F" for your maaain attack, "s-F" for whatever is the second attack... and so on with the different spells which are quite similar.

That´s an easy way to quickly master your main and alts... since you always use the same keys for the same or very similar ends

My keyboard is set for:
Interrupt, Q
Stun, 1
Heal, E
Filler spell (i.e., "button to pound when nothing else is up"), F
Finisher (not as many of these as there used to be, sigh), Z
(Any other categories I should use across alts?)

I've got X as "strafe left" and V as "strafe right." C is down, and Space is jump/up. That freed up spots on the action bar for F3 (mount) and F4 (kite), with an un-keybinded Dalaran hearthstone.

Because I am trying to master my alts, I've got four action bars stacked (1-2 and 5-6), but have only keybinded the ones along the left-hand side, where my left hand rests. (Right hand is on the mouse.) The right side, I have utility spells. The rest of my spellbook, food/potions, special toys/pets (e.g., on my one character who has the Argent Grunt with reins, I can call up a bank in the field... if I had space in my bank...). The top action bar is my long CD spells on the left, with special mounts (vendor/repair mammoth, sea turtle, 2-person flying mount) on the right. And the top action bar can become the professions bar, and a third action bar (3 & 4).

Most of my spells are clustered around the F key.

[Deleted]

So I'm reluctantly joining the ranks of "not TOTAL scrubs." Not terrible, but not great..

I've broken my habit of keyboard turning, and and use moderate key binding. So next up is copying elements of people's UI that I might find useful.
So... help a mostly-former scrub, what should I be looking for?

I've got X as "strafe left" and V as "strafe right." C is down, and Space is jump/up. That freed up spots on the action bar for F3 (mount) and F4 (kite), with an un-keybinded Dalaran hearthstone.

So you're moving with WASD, while turning with A and D + strafing on X and C ? I'd advise just rebinding A and D as strafing, and turning with the mouse. Holding down right button and moving the mouse instantly changes where your character is facing, allowing you to turn around instantly and gaining a looooooot of time. Plus you free up 2 close keys for more bindings.

As far as binds go, I personally am a big fan of keeping it close + using modifiers.

For example as a fury warrior, I have my main rotational abilities on 1234 (the number keys on top of your QWER keys, not the numpad), with the spender on 4, execute is on E (for execute, get it ?) because i don't want to extend all the way to the 5 key. Aoe abilities and less used abilities (taunt, weapon toss) on shift + 1 2 3 4. On some toons I use the ² key too (maybe it's ~ on qwerty ? The one on the far left of the numbers row).

I bound heroic leap (movement ability) to Q, CCs on Shift + Q and Shift + E, offensive cooldowns on F,R,S+F,S+R, defensive cooldowns on mouse boutons (some with shift modifiers too). On my mage I have blink on < (the one right between shift and Z for qwerty), press it with the same finger I press shift.

Overall I try to keep it on a small number of keys, plus the shift modifier which I press with my left hand little finger while still resting comfortably and not needing to move my hand around while playing and still being able to move my toon + hit spells without too much trouble.


As far as UI goes, I'd recommend trying stuff out and figure how you like to have it set up.

Some guidelines I think could be useful :

Try having your mandatory elements central on your screen, but don't cramp it too much, keep it to maybe 5 or 6 elements top.
Under your character's feet, a bit on the sides is a good spot to put some less important but still important stuff : you and your target's health bars for example.

With all your really important information central, anything you'll put in periphery will pop out instantly if needed (peripheral vision works that way, evolutionary needs and all that, need to see that tiger coming before he eats you). This is where you'd put your debuffs for example, I'd advise on either side of your character, like 1/4 from and edge of the screen so as not to cramp to much the center part of your screen.

As far as action bars go, it all depends on personal preferences and what addons you use that may or may not tell you all the info you could pick up from actionbars. I personally like having them visible but not too central, as I tend to sometimes look for them when I want to know how long is some CD instead of some addons I use.

Last but not least at all, if you're willing to put some time in it (as with any "advanced" UI tweaking really), weak aura can become your best tool, and chances are that whatever you're trying to do can be done via a WA. I use it to make stuff pop out : debuffs, major cooldowns coming back up, procs I must react to, combined to glow effects to make sure I can't miss them, and sound, especially when playing as a healer. Audio cues are a really powerful tool that weak aura opens up, as you can use those to know if your spells came off CD without ever looking at anything else than your character and the raid's health bars. Be careful not to overdo it with the audio cues though, or they'll just become useless background noise.

[lolpve]

I like to remove any information that isn't combat-relevant. So no buttons, only cooldowns visible, important cooldowns more prominent than less important ones. Player/target/focus bars close together near the centre of the screen near to cooldowns, no fluff, no blizzard frames, chat frames hidden during combat, dps meter only if you actually need it (not for pvp). Weakauras for all buff/debuff tracking.