Johnny Awesome
Veteran
The dual shock is terrible IMO. Also, someone was smoking crack when they decided to use triangle, square etc... instead of the usual A, B, etc...
PS3 Controller Rumor (Updated)
- Thread starter aldo
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I think the symbols an excellent piece of design. The designer used shapes made of 1, 2, 3 and 4 lines, producing identifiers that are culturally neutral, unlike the romano-alphabet of ABXY is arabic numerals. This also provided Sony with a strong 4 character identifying icon that is still culturally neutral and also very versatile.
What's wrong with this choice then? Why is ABXY better when they are functionally the same, and ABXY hasn't the design advantages of the PS symbols?
What's wrong with this choice then? Why is ABXY better when they are functionally the same, and ABXY hasn't the design advantages of the PS symbols?
Shifty Geezer said:
Unfortunately the symbols are not culturally neutral as a Japanese publisher once explained to me the Japanese X means no and to the US audience X means action, so you end up with Japanese games actually requiring different input configurations (although some Japanese games hav shipped with their original mappings more recently).
Sony tried pretty hard, you noted the 1,2,3,4 lines and each button has a different color.
Alphabetic letters are pretty much as neutral as it gets. Any order that's implied is done so by anyone familiar with the aplphabet.
The day the DS is a stellar controller, I prefer it to even the 'S'-controller on Xbox. I do like the X360 controller a lot though, shape is a little different and it feels better that the Xbox one IMO. But controllers seem to be one of the more personal choices.
I don't think these are hard meanings though. In the US X is common for cancel too AFAIK, such is it's used to close a window for example. The only obvious symbols I can think of with definite meanings are the Tape controls, Triangle for play, Circle for record, two lines for pause.ERP said:
I don't know how strong the Japanese interpretations of the PS icons are. Certainly on most PS2 games I've layed Triangle is the cancel/go back a page button though Triangle has no common meaning that I know of.
What about XBox? Are the Red and Green buttons used for menu Accept/Decline respectively based on colour ergonomics?
The symbols and layout of the N64 pad and also to some degree the GC pad is IMO the best ever.
On the N64 pad the four directions and A and B, maps very well to your mind, ei easy yo remember.
The GC pad has a bit of the same thing going, with the very recognizable bean shaped buttons and large and small circle. These are shapes and directions, that when seen on the screen are instantly findable.
Not so with the A B Y X or square, circle, triangle and cross symbols.
Even after all these years, I have to think for a second before I can recall those two layouts.
On the N64 pad the four directions and A and B, maps very well to your mind, ei easy yo remember.
The GC pad has a bit of the same thing going, with the very recognizable bean shaped buttons and large and small circle. These are shapes and directions, that when seen on the screen are instantly findable.
Not so with the A B Y X or square, circle, triangle and cross symbols.
Even after all these years, I have to think for a second before I can recall those two layouts.
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GC might have easier to identify with buttons, but I don't like the layout. Not sure why but it doesn't sit comfortably. I'll also say that even if the XB and PS button positions are harder to identify (if I said press Square on the PS controller, how many would know which of the four buttons that is?) in a game the controls are based on motive memory. eg. When playing football if one of my friends (never me, obviously!) hits the wrong button and sends the ball over the goal, if we ask which button did you press they might not know Square or Circle but they know it's the Lob button instead of the Shoot button. This is a matter of motize intelligence rather than visual recognition and I don't think there's anything about the symbols or colours that can improve accuracy, simply because the user is looking at the screen and not the controller. It's a matter of the button placement and recalling which movement to make to get which action. This motion coordination it what makes gaming difficult for some and is what Nintendo hope to address with the Revolution. Even if the buttons were different shapes, Star, Circle, Square and Stickman, I don't think it'd help with ingame recollection at all.
It's just that kind of condescending attitude that holds back UI design in general.Xenus said:
It's not the position of the buttons we can't remember, it's the symbols printed/embossed on them that you can't remember in the split-second that is often required in action games.
Of course if you think about it for a second, you can remember the placements but a second is too long.
The arrow or arrow like shape/embossing of the two recent Nintendo pads completely alleviates this problem. Anyone an react immediately to being told to press right arrow or right-curved kidney button.
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Again, that's not how gameplay works (though I agree with your sentiments regards Xenus). When you want to perform an action, let's say Shoot in PES, the thought>action process does not go...Squeak said:
Want to Shoot
...fetch Shoot Symbol from memory
...Shoot Symbol=Square
...Locate Square Button position
...Square button = left on pad
...Press left button on pad
Shoot
What happens is
Want to shoot
...Press shoot button
Shoot
The memory involved is positional, not symbolic. You body learns to associate the shoot button, a movement of the thumb to the left of centre, with the shoot action. Motive memory involves grey matter in the spine, not the brain, avoiding totally the higher functions of pattern recognition. During the learning process there's a need to associate the button positions with actions, for which the symbol recognition might be important before you've had enough experience to train you muscles to associate the symbols directly. After some experience most gamers should be able to move their thumb to Triangle or Circle buttons directly when they intend to without having to think about where those buttons are. Of course different people have different levels of physical aptitude and some will find learning the motion difficult.
In the case of a physically different button, such as having a relief of a symbol on it, if it's obvious it may aid the development of the motive association between button position and action, but I don't imagine it'll aid much if at all. In game the use of a relief or shape would be too slow to provide any benefit. If you reach out and feel a button, that feeling would need to go to the brain, get processed to determine which button you were feeling, and then go to be interpretted as a movement. Plus have you ever reached for a button, felt it, and realized you were feeling the wrong one so changed your thumb position? The spacial variation between button locations is diverse enough to provide an obvious distinction.
No it's not close minded it is just the way it is. Until we getr a virtual reality type sytem it will rely on memory and reaction times. If you cannot remember what the sysbols are you cannot function well within the game. This is not meant to be condisending it is just a function of the control scemes we have now.
Except, as I've said, playing a game isn't dependant on recognising or placing symbols. But there's no point in me repeating myself so I'll leave it at that.Xenus said:
Though Nintendo's Revolution controller is seeking to provide gameplay that bypasses that learning process and I imagine it'll prove successful. EyeToy manages this already and should hopefully be improved in future. Though neither will replace conventional controllers for all games.
Shifty Geezer: What you a describing goes without saying. Haptic feedback cycles is the aim of learning any interface, but before they come, you have to learn them.
Very often in games you are told to press a certain button via an onscreen graphic or have to learn a whole combination sequence fast. In situations like that an immediately memorable layout helps tremendously.
Xenus: You are dense.
Very often in games you are told to press a certain button via an onscreen graphic or have to learn a whole combination sequence fast. In situations like that an immediately memorable layout helps tremendously.
Xenus: You are dense.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Shifty Geezer said:
That's true, except for games that have certain button pressing mini-games incorporated into their gameplay, Fahreinheit comes to mind, or thos dance games, that have to doing combinations of button presses the screen shows "x,x,y,b,y,b,a" you have to remember what letter correspons to each position, irrelevent of the action normally assigned to that button in regular gameply.
The flip side is a game like NHL where you can go from PS2 to XBOX and pick it up instantly, the symbols are irrelevent it's just the positioning that matters.
Squeak that was totally unneccesary.
You expect me believe that if you don't understand where the x button and they tell you x is shoot when you are playing a fps that you will get very far. You must be able to do simple button and spacial recognition on the controller for present control scemes or you cannot function within the game.
You expect me believe that if you don't understand where the x button and they tell you x is shoot when you are playing a fps that you will get very far. You must be able to do simple button and spacial recognition on the controller for present control scemes or you cannot function within the game.
Squeak said:
Honestly, if that is a problem then any person that has trouble remembering 4-6 buttons with symbols will have a lot of trouble working at any job that requires them to type or work any kind of keyboard.
It's sad when people say a 6 button controller scheme is too difficult, yet we have the least intelligent, least educated people working as cashiers in fast food places using 100+ button keyboards and they seem to remeber the buttons just fine.
That's because their locus of attention is the keyboard.Powderkeg said:
Learning to blind type on a keyboard takes very long time. I must admit that I catch myself looking down now and again to re-adjust my fingers and confirm.
But typing is not as real-time dependent as a video game. Having to look down now and again is not at all acceptable in a fast paced game.
Keyboard functions don't change around as much as game controllers. Sure, some function keys might mean something different in certain programs but you are not under time pressure there.
Game controllers are effectively re-mapped with each new game and sometimes within the same game.