Post Your UI

[Kaitain]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I use to use like Kaitain's Resto and Eclipse UI when I was hardcore raiding. But they really aren't completely raid ready. With like bigwigs/dbm and like weakauras to add a few weakauras then I was fine. I never liked the default WoW UI, but like Kaitain's balance bar was the most amazing thing ever.

I did (fairly) hardcore raiding with the Eclipse UI. You can make UIs for raiding very minimal and also effective if you really commit to making a UI for just one class and raid role. And by raid role I mean more than just the general tank/healer/dps role, I mean the exact moment-to-moment role that you as a person in your specific raid group are fulfilling. Also, how you use raid warnings can vary a lot depending on your specific raid and tactics and things.

As such, I deliberately trimmed back some of the raid warnings and bars and things before "publishing" those UIs. I figured people could (and should) make those additions themselves.

all I did to change it was add a timer for Celestial Alignment in the middle when it was active.

I never added a bar for Celestial Alignment because it triggers Nature's Grace and has the exact same duration. I used the Nature's Grace bar as it's timer. One less timer, woohoo! :-)

The only UIs I use for raiding (as part of a regular group) are the ones that are aggressively optimized for functionality, e.g. this one. For UIs that I only plan to use for solo leveling I don't even always bother to have auras or cast bars visible, but if other people are going to be depending on me I don't feel good about lacking any useful information or having any clutter.

Nice UI!

[Ferrone]

That looks really really great Like.. the unitframes look so clean/smooth and the castbars are amazing. Gimme more!! #britney
Is it all made with WeakAuras?


While you were off tinkering on that, I finished my druid UI:


If anyone likes editing videos I would love it if you wanted to do my next one. I only have WMM and it's really not my thing..

Too bad that video is blocked in Germany because of the included music :P I'd like to see it

[Birgwow]

It's a shame that UIs like yours don't have their own game (rather than being a mod of someone else's game).

I'm at that point in my life where I'm about to choose my (first) career path so who knows, maybe someday it will! There are already lots of games with amazing UIs out there though..

Also having at least spell type coloured combat text would make reading it so much easier

Am I missing something here? Why would I need to see that?

I just can't see it being very efficient for pushing content or anything.

And why is that? I know a lot of people seem to have problems with minimalistic UIs not being "raid-friendly", but I never see an explanation for it. Obviously you're gonna want to show everything you need, it's just a matter of tidying it up a bit.
Sorry if I sound bitchy, absolutely not meant that way!

Granted, this UI is made for my druid that is currently leveling up so I haven't bothered with anything other than the essentials.

Too bad that video is blocked in Germany because of the included music :P I'd like to see it

Here's a silent version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvs5...ature=youtu.be

[Alzu]

Am I missing something here? Why would I need to see that?

Well if you don't care about which skill dealt the damage/healing, I guess not. I just feel like seeing the skill itself is more important than seeing how much damage was dealt. I'd disable combat text completely in that case.

[vulpix]

http://a.pomf.se/idlnqp.jpg

After I switched to not having my actionbars visible except for cooldowns, I've started to learn new keybinds faster or rather, forcing my stupid brain to remember.

[Shahad]

And why is that? I know a lot of people seem to have problems with minimalistic UIs not being "raid-friendly", but I never see an explanation for it. Obviously you're gonna want to show everything you need, it's just a matter of tidying it up a bit.
Sorry if I sound bitchy, absolutely not meant that way!

Granted, this UI is made for my druid that is currently leveling up so I haven't bothered with anything other than the essentials.

Bolded the reason. People see your UIs, or similar UIs, and they love them. But if they go to try them with the intent of doing any kind of non-lfr raiding, they'll notice there's quite a few bits of information that aren't available where and how they should be. The process of then adapting a UI isn't something most people will be willing or even capable of doing properly without ruining the cool sleek look of the UI. There definitely are a few design challenges with including everything you need for raiding while still keeping it minimalistic.

[Drayarr]

WTB Payday so I can get internet put in at my mums....
Seeing people making slick UI's makes me want to start playing again :'(

[dementedlogic]

And why is that? I know a lot of people seem to have problems with minimalistic UIs not being "raid-friendly", but I never see an explanation for it. Obviously you're gonna want to show everything you need, it's just a matter of tidying it up a bit.
Sorry if I sound bitchy, absolutely not meant that way!

My biggest personal gripe with these and why I couldn't use them is simply because they aren't tailored to me (read on, this isn't the extent of it). Minimalistic UIs are great, but there are a few things you (as an individual) *need* in your UI and these minimalist UIs often discard them. A good example is that when I'm raiding I need my health to be visible and obvious regardless of where my eyes may happen to be on the UI. The major reason for this is that I play tanks which all have some form of active and reactive mitigation/healing component largely based on spike mitigation and quick response times. Many of these UIs have health bars I wouldn't notice unless I was specifically looking for that information. This is largely fine for DPS who shouldn't be taking damage in most cases (as is obvious by ground effects, etc) and healers, who are already looking at raid frames.

The other thing is that many of the minimalist UIs using cooldown monitoring addons like CoolLine, ForteXorcist, etc. which I simply can't use. After nearly 10 years of using a CD monitor on my buttons (and weak auras tracking) I simply can't use a line system like that. I also can't hide action buttons, simply for the same habit. All of my keybinds for raids are bound or otherwise available on mouseover to click, but something psychologically makes me need to have the buttons visible, a good part of this is likely the CD monitoring (all my abilities are laid out in similar places/keybinds across all my alts, so if I need to know what my CD is on sprint or speed of light it's in the same area).

I currently have 10 L90 tanks (5 horde, 5 alliance) with many more dps alts (who have a healing ui setup, but don't heal) and I can't deal with having a specific UI tailored to each spec/role per each class in their prospective raids, so my UIs implement all of the information I may need as a tank/dps, with a heal portion of the UI if needed.

I'm not classifying these as "needs" as in this information is required to play, but "needs" as in it's so ingrained in me over 10 years that I'm unwilling to break the habit and relearn (largely because it's not needed, see below). UI elements being the same over the years means I adapt and respond to things much quicker than when I modify my keybinds a little bit. I do not need to see my outgoing healing/damage, I don't need omen (because lol threat and my nameplates shows it), I don't need skada, I don't need a minimap (in most cases), I don't need to show the duration of the 8 main raid buffs (only when they aren't present and are available), I don't need to know what my loot spec is, my local time, or the combat time while I'm in a raid encounter, etc. but they are information I've become accustomed to having when I am raiding and playing without them simply feels weird.

There's a number of psychological studies which have been conducted that express how difficult it is for a person to break habits they've formed over years of continual exercise and it applies a lot to UIs as well.

The ultimate question for me in all of this though is "why change?" All the extra fluff information I have on my UI is pushed out to the outside and far from visible in the midst of the fight unless I specifically decide to look there. None of it is particularly flashy enough to draw my attention (except my raid frames, which I have a tough time determining how to implement effectively).

[ComputerNerd]

Minimalist should be about avoiding unnecessary display.
Displaying only that is which is relevant to making decisions during your play.
Some UI's called "minimalist" are far from it, displaying things like the number of friends/guild you have online, what your framerate is, etc.
I don't consider those important enough in most cases to be making gameplay decisions from, and therefore shouldn't IMO be on constant display.

Too many themed or neat UI's are being called minimalist only because they are tidying up the elements but not often displaying less unnecessary information.

[Deleted]

Minimalist = showing the bare minimum*



*Bare minimum is different for different roles/classes.

[Deleted]

Here's a couple of blog posts written by extremely cool and handsome people about minimalism in UI design: http://holyworddelicious.blogspot.co...inimalism.html http://oopsihitaltz.blogspot.com/201...inimalism.html

[frantik]

I had a conversation about this exact thing with my good buddy Xintic a day or two ago. I think there is currently 2 "definitions" of what minimalist is. One is showing only necessary/crucial elements and hiding everything else. The other definition is making elements smaller/out of the way and making it all uniform and purty. There's an argument to be made for both and this is why I think the best UIs take elements from both of those definitions. Some of my older UIs were definitely the latter of those and I've tried to move closer to the former in my more recent efforts. The struggle comes from keeping that functionality and at the same time having a uniform, purty interface. I think it's also why some people seem to dislike pre-packaged UIs like Elv or Tuk. The customization is limited and with the freedom and customization of individual addons you can realise a UI that is tailored to your own needs. I personally use ElvUI because it's everything that I need (for now ). I'm still on the hunt for that "look" but as far as function goes my UI is quite bare bones already and is absolutely functional at a high-end raider level. Interested to see how far I can go with it and still maintain that level of "minimal".

[Deleted]

Yeah, there's definitely two different (and often incompatible) definitions of "minimalistic" going around, which causes some confusion.

[shanthi]

I love minimalism (I wrote one of the blog posts linked above) and my WoW UIs always tend towards the minimal because I believe strongly both in seeing as much of "the world" as possible as well as the (not necessarily consciously noticed) costs to attention of every informational element you include in your UI. Even if you think something doesn't distract you, so it's harmless to include even if you don't strictly need it, you are generally at some level aware of it and noticing it and that carries cognitive costs.

That said, I also try to balance the fact that this is a game and while I'm trying to do my best when I raid, I still want a UI that I really enjoy looking at (since I look at it so very much) and was fun to build. Building UIs is as much fun to me as raiding, so I do like to exercise creativity, which extends both to the aesthetic as well as the "informational infrastructure."

A lot of really brilliant UIs displayed in this thread I wouldn't use exactly as-is for raiding, but I still admire them and think they're incredible. I'm fascinated by novel ways of representing familiar information, especially in "pretty" ways.

[dementedlogic]

What is directly *needed* to perform ones class/spec role is highly subjective to the person and the specific role they fulfill in the raid. I think that's really the easiest way I could put what I said.

As an example the UI by Constie here would be nearly impossible (for me) to fulfill my role as a warrior tank in SoO: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PetL0C_-0A...512_215747.jpg

It shows the buff application in text, which is something that would bother me. The CD bar has already been mentioned, but I find it as a poor way to track CDs (for me). The health bar fortunately is vibrant enough to notice if it's low, but to the same extent it's too small for me to notice if I were to be picking up adds spawning in the upper right hand section of my screen and getting hit by something hard at the same time. It doesn't display how much vengeance I would gain if I were to taunt off my OT to maximize damage (which probably wasn't a thing when that UI was made/taken). It doesn't display the approximate value of shield barrier if I were to use it. It doesn't change the rage bar color based on rage thresholds I've set. Extending on that... why those specific buttons? The only ones you particularly need to track in an uber minimalist UI is revenge/shield slam availability. Everything else falls in to a standard priority rotation. He's specifically added those buttons to balance the UI out a bit.

My UI displays all the information I need in a central position for the roles I fulfill in my raids. The stuff I could do without is pushed to the outside and doesn't obscure my view of what's going on in combat and doesn't impair my ability to perform. Why would I change?

I can understand how minimalism can work for people, but those same people need to realize that THEIR minimalist UI is specifically designed for them as a player, on that class, in that spec, fulfilling their specific role and may not work for specific individuals (even if in a similar spec/role).

[Deleted]

Well, that particular UI was made for use in five-man dungeons, not raids. The narrow health bar, non-color-changing rage bar, and lack of a Shield Barrier value display are just straight-up mistakes that I wasn't aware of until now. (Also Vengeance, if it were for raiding.) The buttons are all there for a reason, though - I'm not extremely experienced with the spec and I strongly dislike mashing keys, so if I don't have e.g. the Thunder Clap cooldown displayed I'm going to be forgetting about it pretty often, aside from the fact that the buttons also show me what I'm in range to use and what I have enough rage for. I prefer aura names over icons because not every aura has a unique icon and I'm paranoid about making incorrect assumptions.

All that defense aside, though, I do agree with what you're saying about how a good minimalistic UI is going to have to be tailored to a specific player. However, I would say that that is not an argument against minimalism so much as it is an argument against using a minimalistic UI that wasn't made fairly specifically for whatever you're currently playing. Which means more work, sure, but that's no problem if you enjoy doing it. (I'm pretty sure we basically agree with each other, and I appreciate your thoughts on my UI.)

[Shahad]

While you're here Constie, I really like your priest UIs and I've tried to replicate and adapt them for myself, but I haven't been very successful. Would you mind sharing your UI settings?

[Deleted]

While you're here Constie, I really like your priest UIs and I've tried to replicate and adapt them for myself, but I haven't been very successful. Would you mind sharing your UI settings?

I'm afraid I delete my UI settings whenever I reinstall WoW, so I don't have any of those to share. I think there should probably be more than one new UI screenshot/video per page of this thread, but feel free to make a new one to ask about how to do specific things.

[yoshioo]

Here's a silent version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvs5...ature=youtu.be

WOW! this is awesome.... i feel like leveling my druid now or play my shaman with a ui like that!! :P

[Sunnydee]

Started to update my UI a little:
changes some fonts, some mouseover hidden junk, relocated some Actionbars,






any feedback is welcome