The new seek invite function

[Rhianu]

When putting up a seek-party flag, the only, and I mean ONLY thing you should have to specify is what job you want to come to the party as.

Forcing players to specify the purpose of their party as well is asinine. If players want to specify a purpose, that's fine, but the system should not force them to do so.

FFXI got this almost perfect by allowing players to seek a party with just one button, which was clearly labeled "Seek Party." You just can't get any simpler or easier than that, which is how it should be.

Though FFXI didn't allow you to search for entire parties, only individual members, so even FFXI's system has room for improvement.

My suggestion is this:
When a player clicks on the "Party" button in the main menu, the resulting window should immediately display a complete list ALL available parties on the entire server, without regard to purpose, location, or level range. It is only after players have had an opportunity to look at this list that they should have to specify any filters.

A good interface design principle to keep in mind when building search functions is to never make it necessary to filter search results before the user knows what any of the results are. Filtering should only be done after the results are displayed, never before.

[SuzakuCMX]

When putting up a seek-party flag, the only, and I mean ONLY thing you should have to specify is what job you want to come to the party as.

Forcing players to specify the purpose of their party as well is asinine. If players want to specify a purpose, that's fine, but the system should not force them to do so.

The only fields you have to fill out when seeking a party are Purpose: Seek Invite and Class. The other fields are for people trying to create parties.

FFXI got this almost perfect by allowing players to seek a party with just one button, which was clearly labeled "Seek Party." You just can't get any simpler or easier than that, which is how it should be.

Wish we had one-button seeking :[

My suggestion is this:
When a player clicks on the "Party" button in the main menu, the resulting window should immediately display a complete list ALL available parties on the entire server, without regard to purpose, location, or level range. It is only after players have had an opportunity to look at this list that they should have to specify any filters.

Along with this, they should change "None" to say "Any" as that is how "Purpose: None" and "Location: None" function in both searching and creating, and they should also allow "Any" as an option when filtering classes/locations for "Seek Invite."

A good interface design principle to keep in mind when building search functions is to never make it necessary to filter search results before the user knows what any of the results are. Filtering should only be done after the results are displayed, never before.

Yep

[Rhianu]

The only fields you have to fill out when seeking a party are Purpose: Seek Invite and Class. The other fields are for people trying to create parties.

That's one more field than is needed. Like I said, the player should only have to specify their class/job, and nothing else. Also, seeking a party and creating a party should be separated into two different tabs within the window.

Anyway, I cooked up a simple mockup UI in MS Paint real quick for what I think the Party Search should look like:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/snuuj/FFXIV/interface_redesign/partysearch.png

It's only a rough draft, and there's probably room for improvement, but you get the idea.

[SuzakuCMX]

That's one more field than is needed. Like I said, the player should only have to specify their class/job, and nothing else. Also, seeking a party and creating a party should be separated into two different tabs within the window.

Anyway, I cooked up a simple mockup UI in MS Paint real quick for what I think the Party Search should look like:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v255/snuuj/FFXIV/interface_redesign/partysearch.png

It's only a rough draft, and there's probably room for improvement, but you get the idea.

It's not exactly more than one field since one of them is saying you're seeking an invite and not creating a party.

[Rhianu]

It's not exactly more than one field since one of them is saying you're seeking an invite and not creating a party.

That's something that should be done with tabs, not fields.

[SuzakuCMX]

That's something that should be done with tabs, not fields.

Tru dat.

/10char.

[Rhianu]

Tru dat.

/10char.

Indeed.

What did you think of my mockup?