Just checking in before I finally go to sleep (it's been a long - but good - day).
We appreciate all the feedback here and I will be pouring through it through the weekend and next week. I'm glad to see such a positive reaction to something the team has worked so hard to deliver. For those sharing criticism and concerns over the new format, be assured that we will be taking all of it into consideration as we make continual improvements over time.
While the functionality improvements are excellent, this is a massive step backwards in user experience and design.
Good web design gives you access to the information you need as you need it, not all at the same time. Why would you replicate a 45-year-old pen and paper character sheet design, instead of continuing to use clean modern web design?
Here's the biggest problem: this design is fundamentally unfriendly to new players.
New players have years of experience with clean modern web design, thanks to Facebook, Apple, Google and the like. These companies have ingrained standard patterns of interface design and user behaviour into literally billions of people - everyone knows to pinch to zoom, or pull to refresh, because these designs cut across everything we use. The old Beyond design built on those patterns of design; you didn't have to learn how to use Beyond, because you already knew how. It was the same as any other modern web tool - intuitive to any five-year-old who's ever used an iPad. This redesign disregards all digital design principles users are intuitively familiar with from modern web design, in favour of recreating a pen and paper experience.
This character sheet is basically just an index you click on, to bring up the relevant rules in the side pane - it's functionally no different from just flicking between PHB pages.
This redesign clearly did not consider new players, and their ability to quickly and easily pick up the game; it did not consider how modern web design allows you to present and access information in ways more efficient than just having an index and a reference book.
Expandable drop down items. Simple visual representations. Clear visual distinctions between objects and sections. These are core to modern design, and all seem to have gone out the window. The best thing about using Beyond was that it wasn't burdened by the D&D character sheet's existing design paradigm and 45 years of history; it gave a fresh, clean interface, relevant for a modern digital toolset like Beyond. Returning to the information overload of the pen and paper character sheet is a bad decision, if for no other reason than it makes it exponentially harder to introduce new players to the game.
Previously, information was sorted into clean, simple headings, following the principles of modern web design in a way that any of those five-year-olds I mentioned before can navigate; now it's an information overload, where you almost have to know specifically what you're looking for in order to find it anywhere. When you do find it and click it, all you get is "great, here's the relevant section of the PHB; you can figure out how it works yourself."
Spell slots were previously a nice easily understood grid of checkboxes of how many you had at each level, visible clearly on the main page.
Now, if you want to know how many spell slots you have, you have to find the spells tab on the confusingly grouped combat/actions/spells/equipment pane, click the right tab, then count up the numbers next to the levels of your slots. Why on earth would you get rid of a perfect at-a-glance way of visually representing spell slots, and replace it with 'count up all these numbers'?
Oh no wait, you can still get the visual layout - you just have to go to the spells tab, click the completely un-obvious cog to open the side pane, then expand out the drop-down for spell slots. Three unclear steps - so much easier than just having it immediately visible! /s
Under the old design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me scroll through my list."
New design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me click back and forth between tabs for each level, or again open up that unmarked cog to get that sidebar thing."
Want to add an item previously? Easy! In the Equipment pane, click add item, search, and add it!
Whoops, now you've got to go into the equipment tab and search for an item, then click add item, then search for the item again, then add it, then clear your previous search to see your items, then scroll down to the new item. That's much easier! /s
Alternatively, you can click on the completely unexplained cog in the bottom right corner.
This goes completely against sensible UX - when people want to add an item, they're not going to think "I should search for an item, or click that tiny almost invisible cog", they're going to look for something that says "Add Item".
There used to be a nice visual distinction for key useful numbers - AC, Initiative, Passive Perception, Move Speed, etc; they were separated out at the top, in a visually distinct section, because they're useful numbers. What's it like now?
There is basically zero visual distinction between my base stats, walking speed, and proficiency bonus
Passive stats are buried off to the side separately
AC is only visible if you have the combat tab open (WHY?)
Also why do base stats take up so much space?
No clear section headings to direct new players. Used to have clear, visually distinct headings - Abilities, Skills, Attacks, Equipment, etc. - with a clear difference in background colour, to identify them as headings.
"Yeah nah, let's make them visually indistinct, move some of them to the bottom of the pane (like Senses, Saving Throws, and Skills), and move the rest into equally unremarkable tabs at the top (Combat, Actions, Features and Traits)."
Or, how about, you know, have visually clear headings that are both consistent in terms of their placement in the pane, and visually distinct?
Skills. Before: nice modern UI, with unintrusive indication of which base stat was relevant to the skill, and modern green 'notification' style dots to indicate proficiency.
Now: Remember when you were in school and had to fill out those machine-marked tests by filling in the right circle? THEY'RE BACK BABY.
Suddenly, a third of the entire panel is taken up by literally one dot and three letters.
Speaking of skills, why has the font size and weight of everything in that panel been changed to the least sensible combination? The bonus number shouldn't be bold, and nor should the three letter base stat abbreviation, because those aren't what needs to catch my eye when I look at that pane; what I'm going to be looking for more often than not is the name of the skill! But let's keep that nice and plain, because we'd rather you see a whole bunch of bolded numbers and then have to figure out which one is which, than easily find the skill and then look across for the bonus number!
Saving throws: remember the good old days (last week) when the section that explained what you had advantage on for your saving throws had all the words there? Yeah, those were the days.
Now if you have multiple different ones, the text gets cut off by an ellipsis (...), and you have to mouse over it to read it.
Spells: Before, a nice list with good use of bold font for names, with other details in lighter, smaller font. Nice little colourful icons to visually distinguish different spell schools.
Now: Italics baby. Also do you like Excel spreadsheets? Cause that's what you've got now.
In fact, font in general. Did this change? Because everything feels a lot less readable - feels much denser and smaller.
Also the side panel - massively awkward at times. Clicked on a class feature? Great! We won't just use a familiar expandable item to give you the information you wanted where you clicked - instead you have to look all the way up over here at this new window thing that's opened! Isn't that easy to follow?!
Actually I know why this pisses me off - it's because it feels like instead of having a modern digital toolset, that's designed for digital use, I'm just flipping back and forth between my character sheet (main panes) and the PHB/DMG/whatever (side pane). The whole advantage of digital tools is you shouldn't have to be flipping back and forth, because in a modern digital toolset, your character sheet should be interactive, not just an index you click on that brings up a second reference document on the side. A digital character sheet should not act like a piece of paper. If I click on a spell because I want more details, it should expand the details right there, not ask me to look up some other reference pane. That's the whole point of digital design - get what you want, where you need it.
This has been a rambling rant, but the fundamental question I have is this:
Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?
If I wanted to use a paper character sheet, I would.
(Also, to reiterate, I really like some of the new functionality improvements - it's just the design I take issue with)
Hey everyone! Just wanted to say after looking at the new revamp that I personally love what you've done here and appreciate all of the work you all put it.
My group likes to do a lot of customization and have been waiting for many of the new features like adding more feats or adding new custom items on the fly has been a big issue, a lot of the things we wished to have like sharing characters have been implemented so thank y'all for that. We're looking forward towards all the stuff that you will be updating soon like the Warlock rituals, companions sheets, and inventory bags system and so much more [It's hard for me to think of stuff that hasn't already been addressed or asked for in the feedback sections]
From initial thoughts we like it, but we are wondering if there is going to be a point where we could add more spells to our spell list that is more than the class would normally allow? This an important question for us since we like to give more spells known to certain characters based off the story elements or even classes in general like Sorcerer/Warlock.
Also one of our members like what you guys have done with the Actions section to outline them, but thinks that you added a bit too many tabs.
This is my first post for the Feedbacks [or ever really] and I can't wait to put in more after this Sunday when we all try it out for the first time. Hopefully I don't have to go and report any issues in the bug sections and can provide more feedback instead once we all have a better understanding of the character sheet from playing a session for a day.
Again just thanks for doing all of this, we have been losing our minds this month waiting for this and you've exceeded what I thought was going to be released.
Looks great. Not a fan of small scroll within the page sections. I have a workable alternative, DDB, PM if you want the override CSS to try it out. It isn't pixel perfect, but the rough draft works for me :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
Bug - Magic Initiate Feat Cantrips and Spell are not calculating saves or attack bonus appropriately. They are only taking the proficiency bonus and not taking the associated statistic bonus. Confirm this for Magic Initiate - Sorcerer. Haven't looked at others.
Functional issue - Overall Navigation - the little drop down carrot next to the sections on the top bar (My Content, Characters, Compendium) are annoyingly small and hard to click on many touchscreen applications. The previous iteration where it was a clickable box with a drop carrot in it was way easier to click than just the small down triangle.
While the functionality improvements are excellent, this is a massive step backwards in user experience and design.
Good web design gives you access to the information you need as you need it, not all at the same time. Why would you replicate a 45-year-old pen and paper character sheet design, instead of continuing to use clean modern web design?
Here's the biggest problem: this design is fundamentally unfriendly to new players.
New players have years of experience with clean modern web design, thanks to Facebook, Apple, Google and the like. These companies have ingrained standard patterns of interface design and user behaviour into literally billions of people - everyone knows to pinch to zoom, or pull to refresh, because these designs cut across everything we use. The old Beyond design built on those patterns of design; you didn't have to learn how to use Beyond, because you already knew how. It was the same as any other modern web tool - intuitive to any five-year-old who's ever used an iPad. This redesign disregards all digital design principles users are intuitively familiar with from modern web design, in favour of recreating a pen and paper experience.
This character sheet is basically just an index you click on, to bring up the relevant rules in the side pane - it's functionally no different from just flicking between PHB pages.
This redesign clearly did not consider new players, and their ability to quickly and easily pick up the game; it did not consider how modern web design allows you to present and access information in ways more efficient than just having an index and a reference book.
Expandable drop down items. Simple visual representations. Clear visual distinctions between objects and sections. These are core to modern design, and all seem to have gone out the window. The best thing about using Beyond was that it wasn't burdened by the D&D character sheet's existing design paradigm and 45 years of history; it gave a fresh, clean interface, relevant for a modern digital toolset like Beyond. Returning to the information overload of the pen and paper character sheet is a bad decision, if for no other reason than it makes it exponentially harder to introduce new players to the game.
Previously, information was sorted into clean, simple headings, following the principles of modern web design in a way that any of those five-year-olds I mentioned before can navigate; now it's an information overload, where you almost have to know specifically what you're looking for in order to find it anywhere. When you do find it and click it, all you get is "great, here's the relevant section of the PHB; you can figure out how it works yourself."
Spell slots were previously a nice easily understood grid of checkboxes of how many you had at each level, visible clearly on the main page.
Now, if you want to know how many spell slots you have, you have to find the spells tab on the confusingly grouped combat/actions/spells/equipment pane, click the right tab, then count up the numbers next to the levels of your slots. Why on earth would you get rid of a perfect at-a-glance way of visually representing spell slots, and replace it with 'count up all these numbers'?
Oh no wait, you can still get the visual layout - you just have to go to the spells tab, click the completely un-obvious cog to open the side pane, then expand out the drop-down for spell slots. Three unclear steps - so much easier than just having it immediately visible! /s
Under the old design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me scroll through my list."
New design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me click back and forth between tabs for each level, or again open up that unmarked cog to get that sidebar thing."
Want to add an item previously? Easy! In the Equipment pane, click add item, search, and add it!
Whoops, now you've got to go into the equipment tab and search for an item, then click add item, then search for the item again, then add it, then clear your previous search to see your items, then scroll down to the new item. That's much easier! /s
Alternatively, you can click on the completely unexplained cog in the bottom right corner.
This goes completely against sensible UX - when people want to add an item, they're not going to think "I should search for an item, or click that tiny almost invisible cog", they're going to look for something that says "Add Item".
There used to be a nice visual distinction for key useful numbers - AC, Initiative, Passive Perception, Move Speed, etc; they were separated out at the top, in a visually distinct section, because they're useful numbers. What's it like now?
There is basically zero visual distinction between my base stats, walking speed, and proficiency bonus
Passive stats are buried off to the side separately
AC is only visible if you have the combat tab open (WHY?)
Also why do base stats take up so much space?
No clear section headings to direct new players. Used to have clear, visually distinct headings - Abilities, Skills, Attacks, Equipment, etc. - with a clear difference in background colour, to identify them as headings.
"Yeah nah, let's make them visually indistinct, move some of them to the bottom of the pane (like Senses, Saving Throws, and Skills), and move the rest into equally unremarkable tabs at the top (Combat, Actions, Features and Traits)."
Or, how about, you know, have visually clear headings that are both consistent in terms of their placement in the pane, and visually distinct?
Skills. Before: nice modern UI, with unintrusive indication of which base stat was relevant to the skill, and modern green 'notification' style dots to indicate proficiency.
Now: Remember when you were in school and had to fill out those machine-marked tests by filling in the right circle? THEY'RE BACK BABY.
Suddenly, a third of the entire panel is taken up by literally one dot and three letters.
Speaking of skills, why has the font size and weight of everything in that panel been changed to the least sensible combination? The bonus number shouldn't be bold, and nor should the three letter base stat abbreviation, because those aren't what needs to catch my eye when I look at that pane; what I'm going to be looking for more often than not is the name of the skill! But let's keep that nice and plain, because we'd rather you see a whole bunch of bolded numbers and then have to figure out which one is which, than easily find the skill and then look across for the bonus number!
Saving throws: remember the good old days (last week) when the section that explained what you had advantage on for your saving throws had all the words there? Yeah, those were the days.
Now if you have multiple different ones, the text gets cut off by an ellipsis (...), and you have to mouse over it to read it.
Spells: Before, a nice list with good use of bold font for names, with other details in lighter, smaller font. Nice little colourful icons to visually distinguish different spell schools.
Now: Italics baby. Also do you like Excel spreadsheets? Cause that's what you've got now.
In fact, font in general. Did this change? Because everything feels a lot less readable - feels much denser and smaller.
Also the side panel - massively awkward at times. Clicked on a class feature? Great! We won't just use a familiar expandable item to give you the information you wanted where you clicked - instead you have to look all the way up over here at this new window thing that's opened! Isn't that easy to follow?!
Actually I know why this pisses me off - it's because it feels like instead of having a modern digital toolset, that's designed for digital use, I'm just flipping back and forth between my character sheet (main panes) and the PHB/DMG/whatever (side pane). The whole advantage of digital tools is you shouldn't have to be flipping back and forth, because in a modern digital toolset, your character sheet should be interactive, not just an index you click on that brings up a second reference document on the side. A digital character sheet should not act like a piece of paper. If I click on a spell because I want more details, it should expand the details right there, not ask me to look up some other reference pane. That's the whole point of digital design - get what you want, where you need it.
This has been a rambling rant, but the fundamental question I have is this:
Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?
If I wanted to use a paper character sheet, I would.
(Also, to reiterate, I really like some of the new functionality improvements - it's just the design I take issue with)
I completely agree. I have been playing DND for about 6 months and loved the old style. It was clear and easy to understand with all important info at the top then with easy scroll across functionality to go to relevant pages.
I feel this new update has been to service the more experienced users who wish to have it look like the old character sheet style. There are some things that I like such as the grid style for spells showing DC, range and other important info. But I also miss the clean look with magic school icon and large casting button.
I think in time I will get used to the functionality of the new design but I think it would be nice to have the opportunity to choose.
Just checking in before I finally go to sleep (it's been a long - but good - day).
We appreciate all the feedback here and I will be pouring through it through the weekend and next week. I'm glad to see such a positive reaction to something the team has worked so hard to deliver. For those sharing criticism and concerns over the new format, be assured that we will be taking all of it into consideration as we make continual improvements over time.
Thanks!
Thanks for taking the time to post! Good to know the feedback is being taken into account, especially after something as major of a change as this.
To be honest, I think a simple toggle that allows you to use the old one or the new one, based on preference would fix everything. The tabs are what kill it for me, I'd rather scroll a bit than have to switch tabs back and forth to get to simple things like my HP or my spell list. On a desktop, it is FANTASTIC, especially the spells section. It does NOT translate well to mobile, however.
I don't mean to be so negative, by the way, I love what you guys are doing here at beyond. Just so passionate about my dnd sessions that I get worked up lol.
Edit: Read the post above from QQMcRage>>, if you have the chance. He has good points, and breaks down the issues well.
The biggest issue I had with the previous UI was there was A LOT of wasted space when not on iOS and there's even more now. Please can we have the option to drag boxes around to resize them. I find the text hard to read on a big monitor.
Look how difficult the heal and damage text is to read. Especially the grey text on grey background.
I hate having to zoom in on the web browser as it'll zoom all my other pages with it.
Please re-add the little drop down arrow next to the characters name so new users know how to access the quick edit menu. New users aren't going to know that clicking on your characters name does anything.
Wow I must say I was surprised when the new layout arrived.
So far on the surface, this payout is alot more sensible than the previous one. Time will tell whether this remains going forward but I was finally happy that, for example, all my sorcery point options were actually listed.
Love that all reference info is hidden behind extra tabs, so if you need to read it you can but it'a not in the way when you need to scan for something quick.
Hopefully, this extends to actually plugging in all the mechanics into the sheet. I love the higher spell slot options for spells.
First off I love it! Thanks for the hard work. Things I would still love to see:
Pets/Summons/Druid Animals/NPC's stats!
Character portraits. I'd like to have a location that supports a bigger image (still retain the smaller for thumb nail).
Not being able to scroll downward on the PC feels awkward. While having a couple of boxes with tabs available might be nice for some, my initial take is that I don't like it.
I want on the PC to be able to scroll down to a "second page" and have it list what is being nested in the tabs, at least as an option. I can see sometimes keeping it 'as is' might be handy, but right now I feel like from an accessibility stand point, a PDF sheet with multiple pages is easier to use (but would lack the discover-ability and auto updating that D&D beyond has).
Option to turn 'off' spell scaling either all of it per character or just on specific spells.
This new design is just bad when it comes to spells, the old version was brilliant with clearly marked slots and a nice list. This new one is just a mess with too many clicks and no good list of all the spells, the only good part of it is the fact that it auto levels spells. When I think about the whole actions and spells box is terrible and too small. You guys really need to rework that part, it's awful.
Agree with you on toggle part to give users option between old and new layout . Personally find it a lot better than old one on mobile . Just initially need to find your way around it
This is awful and on mobile pretty much unusable. Swiping between tabs was far better then having a bunch of buttons. The layout for the spells is really confusing too. It's too cluttered and I can no longer see all my spell slots, I have to select the level to see them individually.
While the functionality improvements are excellent, this is a massive step backwards in user experience and design.
Good web design gives you access to the information you need as you need it, not all at the same time. Why would you replicate a 45-year-old pen and paper character sheet design, instead of continuing to use clean modern web design?
Thanks for the feedback. To offer some counterpoints:
Here's the biggest problem: this design is fundamentally unfriendly to new players.
New players have years of experience with clean modern web design, thanks to Facebook, Apple, Google and the like. These companies have ingrained standard patterns of interface design and user behaviour into literally billions of people - everyone knows to pinch to zoom, or pull to refresh, because these designs cut across everything we use. The old Beyond design built on those patterns of design; you didn't have to learn how to use Beyond, because you already knew how. It was the same as any other modern web tool - intuitive to any five-year-old who's ever used an iPad. This redesign disregards all digital design principles users are intuitively familiar with from modern web design, in favour of recreating a pen and paper experience.
This character sheet is basically just an index you click on, to bring up the relevant rules in the side pane - it's functionally no different from just flicking between PHB pages.
This redesign clearly did not consider new players, and their ability to quickly and easily pick up the game; it did not consider how modern web design allows you to present and access information in ways more efficient than just having an index and a reference book.
Expandable drop down items. Simple visual representations. Clear visual distinctions between objects and sections. These are core to modern design, and all seem to have gone out the window. The best thing about using Beyond was that it wasn't burdened by the D&D character sheet's existing design paradigm and 45 years of history; it gave a fresh, clean interface, relevant for a modern digital toolset like Beyond. Returning to the information overload of the pen and paper character sheet is a bad decision, if for no other reason than it makes it exponentially harder to introduce new players to the game.
Previously, information was sorted into clean, simple headings, following the principles of modern web design in a way that any of those five-year-olds I mentioned before can navigate; now it's an information overload, where you almost have to know specifically what you're looking for in order to find it anywhere. When you do find it and click it, all you get is "great, here's the relevant section of the PHB; you can figure out how it works yourself."
Lots of generalizations and opinions here, and based on the theoretical instead of actual play using the sheet. First of all, this was playtested with hundreds of beginner players and the feedback was positive. When UX testing was performed with new players, a great deal of negative feedback was recorded regarding the collapsibles and how difficult it was to find specific information when asked (like a DM would do during a session) on the old sheet.
Additionally, Dungeons & Dragons as an interactive game that is played is far different than browsing Ars Technica's news content. In other words, designing a digital character sheet for use during play of a game with a complex ruleset might not be conducive to the same modern design principles as a general news/ content/ blog website.
Lastly on this section, when you click to pull in the sidebar, we are absolutely not just plopping down a section of the PHB and forcing you to fend for yourself - the content in that sidebar is both specific and focused on what was clicked. The design goal was to capture what information might need to be seen and understood at a glance while still providing the full context from the rules of the game that we support close at hand. Now we might not have gotten the balance between those two perfectly right as a first pass, but the design intent is not necessarily bad because it doesn't fit into the mold of some other websites out there.
Plenty of websites (especially those that would be considered closer to an "app" and have meaningful information to show in it) use sidebars effectively. A great example is Google Drive.
Spell slots were previously a nice easily understood grid of checkboxes of how many you had at each level, visible clearly on the main page.
Now, if you want to know how many spell slots you have, you have to find the spells tab on the confusingly grouped combat/actions/spells/equipment pane, click the right tab, then count up the numbers next to the levels of your slots. Why on earth would you get rid of a perfect at-a-glance way of visually representing spell slots, and replace it with 'count up all these numbers'?
Under the old design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me scroll through my list."
New design: "Hmm, what's the right spell for this situation? Let me click back and forth between tabs for each level, or again open up that unmarked cog to get that sidebar thing."
The numbers representing spell slots on each spell level are quick indicators, and you still get the visual boxes at each level - you don't have to open the sidebar to check them. This was also based on feedback that most players tested got overwhelmed by having the entire spell list/ spell slot boxes thrown at them. If we see the representative sample is not in fact representative of the broader community, we will make adjustments.
Oh no wait, you can still get the visual layout - you just have to go to the spells tab, click the completely un-obvious cog to open the side pane, then expand out the drop-down for spell slots. Three unclear steps - so much easier than just having it immediately visible! /s
Want to add an item previously? Easy! In the Equipment pane, click add item, search, and add it!
Whoops, now you've got to go into the equipment tab and search for an item, then click add item, then search for the item again, then add it, then clear your previous search to see your items, then scroll down to the new item. That's much easier! /s
Alternatively, you can click on the completely unexplained cog in the bottom right corner.
This goes completely against sensible UX - when people want to add an item, they're not going to think "I should search for an item, or click that tiny almost invisible cog", they're going to look for something that says "Add Item".
I agree (and we asked the question before release and ultimately decided to see what kind of feedback we got) that the cog icon is not enough to call out spell or equipment management. Our goal of utilizing screen real estate more effectively (instead of having strange puzzle pieces that players had a hard time of navigating) was on our mind with the icon, but we saw the early feedback and know that it's not enough. A change was already developed today, is being tested, and should roll out tomorrow.
There used to be a nice visual distinction for key useful numbers - AC, Initiative, Passive Perception, Move Speed, etc; they were separated out at the top, in a visually distinct section, because they're useful numbers. What's it like now?
There is basically zero visual distinction between my base stats, walking speed, and proficiency bonus
Passive stats are buried off to the side separately
AC is only visible if you have the combat tab open (WHY?)
Also why do base stats take up so much space?
You're making some assumptions here on priority of information. You could be correct, but what you feel like should always be exposed might not be the same as what others would want. Again, this was based on hundreds of thousands of posts and internal and external playtesting (and UX testing with focus groups). This is what we came up with as a starting point. Many players wanted the ability scores to be prominent, for instance.
Having said all of that, we are paying attention to information display priority and I would expect some tweaks to that in the coming weeks as we sort through what is reactive versus real, especially after actual use during play.
No clear section headings to direct new players. Used to have clear, visually distinct headings - Abilities, Skills, Attacks, Equipment, etc. - with a clear difference in background colour, to identify them as headings.
"Yeah nah, let's make them visually indistinct, move some of them to the bottom of the pane (like Senses, Saving Throws, and Skills), and move the rest into equally unremarkable tabs at the top (Combat, Actions, Features and Traits)."
Or, how about, you know, have visually clear headings that are both consistent in terms of their placement in the pane, and visually distinct?
Your opinion for this is noted, and I'll share that your calling it out here is the first time we've seen this specific feedback in any of our months-long testing. We'll keep an eye on whether players do indeed struggle with this and adjust if needed.
Skills. Before: nice modern UI, with unintrusive indication of which base stat was relevant to the skill, and modern green 'notification' style dots to indicate proficiency.
Now: Remember when you were in school and had to fill out those machine-marked tests by filling in the right circle? THEY'RE BACK BABY.
Suddenly, a third of the entire panel is taken up by literally one dot and three letters.
Speaking of skills, why has the font size and weight of everything in that panel been changed to the least sensible combination? The bonus number shouldn't be bold, and nor should the three letter base stat abbreviation, because those aren't what needs to catch my eye when I look at that pane; what I'm going to be looking for more often than not is the name of the skill! But let's keep that nice and plain, because we'd rather you see a whole bunch of bolded numbers and then have to figure out which one is which, than easily find the skill and then look across for the bonus number!
The green notification style dots used for proficiency were literally the most-reported point of confusion in all of our feedback and testing. Virtually no one knew what they meant and 9 out of 10 people requested a better visual representation of not only proficiency but half and twice proficiency.
If we see that folks are struggling with the text formatting for skill names or numbers we will indeed make changes to that.
Saving throws: remember the good old days (last week) when the section that explained what you had advantage on for your saving throws had all the words there? Yeah, those were the days.
Now if you have multiple different ones, the text gets cut off by an ellipsis (...), and you have to mouse over it to read it.
Many testers complained about the space the save modifiers were taking up, and that those were elements they needed to see when making saves but that the full information was "already known." So, with that feedback, we made that section more of a "notification." If players wanted to be reminded of the full information they could mouse over or pull in the sidebar.
We'll see if that was the right approach over time and keep an eye on it.
Spells: Before, a nice list with good use of bold font for names, with other details in lighter, smaller font. Nice little colourful icons to visually distinguish different spell schools.
Now: Italics baby. Also do you like Excel spreadsheets? Cause that's what you've got now.
Spells in D&D are italicized. We need to support that formatting standard as WotC uses it. In our testing, we also observed that spell school has very little to do with a player making spellcasting choices, so we de-emphasized it. When's the last time you cast a fireball because it was an evocation spell? If you're an evoker and care, you likely already know its school. Also, it's relatively easy for me to point to make the claim that people do like spreadsheets for the presentation of like/ similar information because it makes it easier to digest.
In fact, font in general. Did this change? Because everything feels a lot less readable - feels much denser and smaller.
Yes, fonts changed in an attempt to utilize the space as I noted above. If we end up needing to make changes for readability, we will do it.
Also the side panel - massively awkward at times. Clicked on a class feature? Great! We won't just use a familiar expandable item to give you the information you wanted where you clicked - instead you have to look all the way up over here at this new window thing that's opened! Isn't that easy to follow?!
We received many more complaints about how players didn't like the way collapsibles moved all the other content around the element they were browsing when clicked than any other thing with the old sheet (except for the green proficiency dots). The sidebar was a way for us to still be able to fit in full description information without the information in the character sheet jumping around.
Actually I know why this pisses me off - it's because it feels like instead of having a modern digital toolset, that's designed for digital use, I'm just flipping back and forth between my character sheet (main panes) and the PHB/DMG/whatever (side pane). The whole advantage of digital tools is you shouldn't have to be flipping back and forth, because in a modern digital toolset, your character sheet should be interactive, not just an index you click on that brings up a second reference document on the side. A digital character sheet should not act like a piece of paper. If I click on a spell because I want more details, it should expand the details right there, not ask me to look up some other reference pane. That's the whole point of digital design - get what you want, where you need it.
I've never been able to touch a piece of paper and have every detail about what I touched slide in magically on the side of it. I know - particularly at this point in what you wrote - that there's some healthy ranting going on (as you state below) - but I have to say that "flipping back and forth" is a bit of a dramatic phrase for what's actually happening on a screen. I click a spell (and for many spells, I hopefully didn't even click because I saw all the major info I needed to make my decision already at a glance in the list) and the sidebar appears, even on the largest screens that would typically fit on a desk, a few inches away.
This has been a rambling rant, but the fundamental question I have is this:
Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?
Why can't we have both? [insert meme here]
In all seriousness, we are trying to walk that line. We might not always succeed, but we are going to be earnest in the attempt, course correct where needed, and relentlessly work towards making this better and better. Sure, we are trying to make a modern, interactive tool, but we are supporting a pen and paper game (not a video game).
I hope you take my comments in the spirit that I wrote them - an attempt to explain our rationale for the design decisions we made and how much feedback and testing played into it - and not as anything personal. You do make some solid and valid points that we will add to our consideration as we parse feedback in the coming weeks.
Thanks!
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Thanks for all the hard work!
While the functionality improvements are excellent, this is a massive step backwards in user experience and design.
Good web design gives you access to the information you need as you need it, not all at the same time. Why would you replicate a 45-year-old pen and paper character sheet design, instead of continuing to use clean modern web design?
Here's the biggest problem: this design is fundamentally unfriendly to new players.
New players have years of experience with clean modern web design, thanks to Facebook, Apple, Google and the like. These companies have ingrained standard patterns of interface design and user behaviour into literally billions of people - everyone knows to pinch to zoom, or pull to refresh, because these designs cut across everything we use. The old Beyond design built on those patterns of design; you didn't have to learn how to use Beyond, because you already knew how. It was the same as any other modern web tool - intuitive to any five-year-old who's ever used an iPad. This redesign disregards all digital design principles users are intuitively familiar with from modern web design, in favour of recreating a pen and paper experience.
This character sheet is basically just an index you click on, to bring up the relevant rules in the side pane - it's functionally no different from just flicking between PHB pages.
This redesign clearly did not consider new players, and their ability to quickly and easily pick up the game; it did not consider how modern web design allows you to present and access information in ways more efficient than just having an index and a reference book.
Expandable drop down items. Simple visual representations. Clear visual distinctions between objects and sections. These are core to modern design, and all seem to have gone out the window. The best thing about using Beyond was that it wasn't burdened by the D&D character sheet's existing design paradigm and 45 years of history; it gave a fresh, clean interface, relevant for a modern digital toolset like Beyond. Returning to the information overload of the pen and paper character sheet is a bad decision, if for no other reason than it makes it exponentially harder to introduce new players to the game.
Previously, information was sorted into clean, simple headings, following the principles of modern web design in a way that any of those five-year-olds I mentioned before can navigate; now it's an information overload, where you almost have to know specifically what you're looking for in order to find it anywhere. When you do find it and click it, all you get is "great, here's the relevant section of the PHB; you can figure out how it works yourself."
This has been a rambling rant, but the fundamental question I have is this:
Why are you trying to recreate the pen and paper experience, when you should be designing a modern, interactive web tool?
If I wanted to use a paper character sheet, I would.
(Also, to reiterate, I really like some of the new functionality improvements - it's just the design I take issue with)
Hey everyone! Just wanted to say after looking at the new revamp that I personally love what you've done here and appreciate all of the work you all put it.
My group likes to do a lot of customization and have been waiting for many of the new features like adding more feats or adding new custom items on the fly has been a big issue, a lot of the things we wished to have like sharing characters have been implemented so thank y'all for that. We're looking forward towards all the stuff that you will be updating soon like the Warlock rituals, companions sheets, and inventory bags system and so much more [It's hard for me to think of stuff that hasn't already been addressed or asked for in the feedback sections]
From initial thoughts we like it, but we are wondering if there is going to be a point where we could add more spells to our spell list that is more than the class would normally allow? This an important question for us since we like to give more spells known to certain characters based off the story elements or even classes in general like Sorcerer/Warlock.
Also one of our members like what you guys have done with the Actions section to outline them, but thinks that you added a bit too many tabs.
This is my first post for the Feedbacks [or ever really] and I can't wait to put in more after this Sunday when we all try it out for the first time. Hopefully I don't have to go and report any issues in the bug sections and can provide more feedback instead once we all have a better understanding of the character sheet from playing a session for a day.
Again just thanks for doing all of this, we have been losing our minds this month waiting for this and you've exceeded what I thought was going to be released.
Looks great. Not a fan of small scroll within the page sections. I have a workable alternative, DDB, PM if you want the override CSS to try it out. It isn't pixel perfect, but the rough draft works for me :)
Playtesting Fugare Draconis, an epic tale of adventure, loss, and redemption
Bug - Magic Initiate Feat Cantrips and Spell are not calculating saves or attack bonus appropriately. They are only taking the proficiency bonus and not taking the associated statistic bonus. Confirm this for Magic Initiate - Sorcerer. Haven't looked at others.
Functional issue - Overall Navigation - the little drop down carrot next to the sections on the top bar (My Content, Characters, Compendium) are annoyingly small and hard to click on many touchscreen applications. The previous iteration where it was a clickable box with a drop carrot in it was way easier to click than just the small down triangle.
I completely agree. I have been playing DND for about 6 months and loved the old style. It was clear and easy to understand with all important info at the top then with easy scroll across functionality to go to relevant pages.
I feel this new update has been to service the more experienced users who wish to have it look like the old character sheet style. There are some things that I like such as the grid style for spells showing DC, range and other important info. But I also miss the clean look with magic school icon and large casting button.
I think in time I will get used to the functionality of the new design but I think it would be nice to have the opportunity to choose.
Thanks for taking the time to post! Good to know the feedback is being taken into account, especially after something as major of a change as this.
To be honest, I think a simple toggle that allows you to use the old one or the new one, based on preference would fix everything. The tabs are what kill it for me, I'd rather scroll a bit than have to switch tabs back and forth to get to simple things like my HP or my spell list. On a desktop, it is FANTASTIC, especially the spells section. It does NOT translate well to mobile, however.
I don't mean to be so negative, by the way, I love what you guys are doing here at beyond. Just so passionate about my dnd sessions that I get worked up lol.
Edit: Read the post above from QQMcRage >>, if you have the chance. He has good points, and breaks down the issues well.
A lot of wasted space.
The biggest issue I had with the previous UI was there was A LOT of wasted space when not on iOS and there's even more now.
Please can we have the option to drag boxes around to resize them. I find the text hard to read on a big monitor.
Look how difficult the heal and damage text is to read. Especially the grey text on grey background.
I hate having to zoom in on the web browser as it'll zoom all my other pages with it.
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
Please re-add the little drop down arrow next to the characters name so new users know how to access the quick edit menu. New users aren't going to know that clicking on your characters name does anything.
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
Can we have the option to view all our spells at once when on iOS. It only lets me switch between spell levels.
3D Artist - www.charliepharis.com
Wow I must say I was surprised when the new layout arrived.
So far on the surface, this payout is alot more sensible than the previous one. Time will tell whether this remains going forward but I was finally happy that, for example, all my sorcery point options were actually listed.
Love that all reference info is hidden behind extra tabs, so if you need to read it you can but it'a not in the way when you need to scan for something quick.
Hopefully, this extends to actually plugging in all the mechanics into the sheet. I love the higher spell slot options for spells.
I am trying to be optimistic.....
As least on a desktop view, you can do this by clicking the grey cog at the bottom right of the equipment tab.
First off I love it! Thanks for the hard work. Things I would still love to see:
This new design is just bad when it comes to spells, the old version was brilliant with clearly marked slots and a nice list. This new one is just a mess with too many clicks and no good list of all the spells, the only good part of it is the fact that it auto levels spells. When I think about the whole actions and spells box is terrible and too small. You guys really need to rework that part, it's awful.
Strange I found old version a mess as it did not list all spells in 1 place . Find this one easier and better pdf export.
Agree with you on toggle part to give users option between old and new layout . Personally find it a lot better than old one on mobile . Just initially need to find your way around it
This is awful and on mobile pretty much unusable. Swiping between tabs was far better then having a bunch of buttons. The layout for the spells is really confusing too. It's too cluttered and I can no longer see all my spell slots, I have to select the level to see them individually.
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In mobile view, click the quick-menu and go to Equipment and then click the gear beside the Equipment header.
In mobile view, click the quick-menu and go to Equipment and then click the gear beside the Equipment header.
Thanks for the feedback. To offer some counterpoints:
Lots of generalizations and opinions here, and based on the theoretical instead of actual play using the sheet. First of all, this was playtested with hundreds of beginner players and the feedback was positive. When UX testing was performed with new players, a great deal of negative feedback was recorded regarding the collapsibles and how difficult it was to find specific information when asked (like a DM would do during a session) on the old sheet.
Additionally, Dungeons & Dragons as an interactive game that is played is far different than browsing Ars Technica's news content. In other words, designing a digital character sheet for use during play of a game with a complex ruleset might not be conducive to the same modern design principles as a general news/ content/ blog website.
Lastly on this section, when you click to pull in the sidebar, we are absolutely not just plopping down a section of the PHB and forcing you to fend for yourself - the content in that sidebar is both specific and focused on what was clicked. The design goal was to capture what information might need to be seen and understood at a glance while still providing the full context from the rules of the game that we support close at hand. Now we might not have gotten the balance between those two perfectly right as a first pass, but the design intent is not necessarily bad because it doesn't fit into the mold of some other websites out there.
Plenty of websites (especially those that would be considered closer to an "app" and have meaningful information to show in it) use sidebars effectively. A great example is Google Drive.
The numbers representing spell slots on each spell level are quick indicators, and you still get the visual boxes at each level - you don't have to open the sidebar to check them. This was also based on feedback that most players tested got overwhelmed by having the entire spell list/ spell slot boxes thrown at them. If we see the representative sample is not in fact representative of the broader community, we will make adjustments.
I agree (and we asked the question before release and ultimately decided to see what kind of feedback we got) that the cog icon is not enough to call out spell or equipment management. Our goal of utilizing screen real estate more effectively (instead of having strange puzzle pieces that players had a hard time of navigating) was on our mind with the icon, but we saw the early feedback and know that it's not enough. A change was already developed today, is being tested, and should roll out tomorrow.
You're making some assumptions here on priority of information. You could be correct, but what you feel like should always be exposed might not be the same as what others would want. Again, this was based on hundreds of thousands of posts and internal and external playtesting (and UX testing with focus groups). This is what we came up with as a starting point. Many players wanted the ability scores to be prominent, for instance.
Having said all of that, we are paying attention to information display priority and I would expect some tweaks to that in the coming weeks as we sort through what is reactive versus real, especially after actual use during play.
Your opinion for this is noted, and I'll share that your calling it out here is the first time we've seen this specific feedback in any of our months-long testing. We'll keep an eye on whether players do indeed struggle with this and adjust if needed.
The green notification style dots used for proficiency were literally the most-reported point of confusion in all of our feedback and testing. Virtually no one knew what they meant and 9 out of 10 people requested a better visual representation of not only proficiency but half and twice proficiency.
If we see that folks are struggling with the text formatting for skill names or numbers we will indeed make changes to that.
Many testers complained about the space the save modifiers were taking up, and that those were elements they needed to see when making saves but that the full information was "already known." So, with that feedback, we made that section more of a "notification." If players wanted to be reminded of the full information they could mouse over or pull in the sidebar.
We'll see if that was the right approach over time and keep an eye on it.
Spells in D&D are italicized. We need to support that formatting standard as WotC uses it. In our testing, we also observed that spell school has very little to do with a player making spellcasting choices, so we de-emphasized it. When's the last time you cast a fireball because it was an evocation spell? If you're an evoker and care, you likely already know its school. Also, it's relatively easy for me to point to make the claim that people do like spreadsheets for the presentation of like/ similar information because it makes it easier to digest.
Yes, fonts changed in an attempt to utilize the space as I noted above. If we end up needing to make changes for readability, we will do it.
We received many more complaints about how players didn't like the way collapsibles moved all the other content around the element they were browsing when clicked than any other thing with the old sheet (except for the green proficiency dots). The sidebar was a way for us to still be able to fit in full description information without the information in the character sheet jumping around.
I've never been able to touch a piece of paper and have every detail about what I touched slide in magically on the side of it. I know - particularly at this point in what you wrote - that there's some healthy ranting going on (as you state below) - but I have to say that "flipping back and forth" is a bit of a dramatic phrase for what's actually happening on a screen. I click a spell (and for many spells, I hopefully didn't even click because I saw all the major info I needed to make my decision already at a glance in the list) and the sidebar appears, even on the largest screens that would typically fit on a desk, a few inches away.
Why can't we have both? [insert meme here]
In all seriousness, we are trying to walk that line. We might not always succeed, but we are going to be earnest in the attempt, course correct where needed, and relentlessly work towards making this better and better. Sure, we are trying to make a modern, interactive tool, but we are supporting a pen and paper game (not a video game).
I hope you take my comments in the spirit that I wrote them - an attempt to explain our rationale for the design decisions we made and how much feedback and testing played into it - and not as anything personal. You do make some solid and valid points that we will add to our consideration as we parse feedback in the coming weeks.
Thanks!