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Session Name:

Improving Your Tool UX Design by Removing the Faults of "Sensible Defaults"

Overview:

When we make game development tools it is very easy to pick what we think is a 'sensible default', and have all users deal with it. We think those defaults makes sense, and work for most users. However, even a cursory look at DCCs such as Unity, Unreal, 3dsMax, Maya, and Blender shows us that this is wrong. Unity, Max, and Maya have the hierarchy on the left side of the screen, while Unreal and Blender have the hierarchy on the right side of the screen. The same differences can be found between all of them when it comes to toolbars, the 3D view, the property panel, and the asset browser. There is no 'sensible default' for any of those panels in the UI, yet we often hear they 'should' be on the left or 'should' be on the right.nnWhat do we have to unlearn, to improve the UX of our tools?

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