peteranthony01

I'm back again! Thankfully I managed to save the demo from the jaws of a rather large monster, so we're still looking good for Sunday. Shame about the princess who got eaten by said monster, but the demo's more important, right?

So, interface stuff. As I said in the last blog, we undertook some usability tests last year after Football Manager 2007 came out to make sure that we got the interface and usability of FM2008 as good as humanly possible, so that it was easier to play.


We didn't only look at experienced players though. We looked at people who've never played the game before too, to try and find out why they weren't playing it. And it bore some very interesting results.


And one of those results have lead to the new advisor system. The idea of this is a little box that helps you our when you are stuck on a screen. A bit like the paperclip thingy that those of us who use windows don't like very much, but less annoying. Hence the original idea of an animated talking football with a moustache and big eyes didn't happen because, well, it would have been ridiculous.


For new users, or people who get stuck on a screen in the game when trying to do something, it's going to be invaluable. For those experienced users, it's very easy to turn off from the preferences screen, so you aren't forced to use it.


Now, as an experienced user, I haven't used it that much, so sat down with Phil & Ed who were heavily involved in getting it up and running to ask them about it, and this is what they had to say

"The Advisor system was born out of the results of a study conducted into making our User Interface far more intuitive to the user. One of the points raised by this study was that new users could sometimes become lost in the game, especially the first few times they played. So, the idea to design a small system to help such users through their first steps in Football Manager seemed a good one.


The Advisor offers beginner level support and guidance to the user on some of the most common but most important actions they will take in the game. Items such as selecting your line-up, continuing the game, and buying a player are covered. The user will be presented with a list of suggestions for actions they may wish to take in context with what is on the screen at the time. If one is selected, they then take the steps through that particular advisor until they have completed it, at which point they will hopefully now know what to do in this part of the game.


For example, if the user navigates to their Squad Screen, the Advisor will appear and ask the user if they would like to pick their line-up. If they wish to do so, they will be shown how to get to the Tactics screen with both textual and graphical hints, and then advised how to actually make a selection and assign a player to a shirt and position.


The system is designed to be unobtrusive, clear, and concise. It covers the absolute basics of how to do something that the user will then find beneficial every time they play the game, with the ultimate aim of making the user feel completely comfortable with the interface and the actions in the game. Visually, the advisor appears as a small pop-up box, positioned to allow as much key information to be displayed without being obstructed - in particular areas the advisor is referring to.


Once a user has completed their way through the various advisors, they too can choose to turn them off, or to re-appear at a defined time should they find themselves needing a refresher."


So there you have it from the horses mouth. Or, for those of you who know Ed, that should probably be the goat's mouth.


However, we haven't just been looking at issues for new users. There's lots of cool stuff for power users too.


For example, when the game is processing, you'll now be used to getting hints and tips and latest scores as this happens after our last few releases. This year, we've also added in a variety of stats to that, so you can see things like top goalscorers, league tables, matches without winning and losing etc.


Or I could point to the recently viewed players panel, which lists all the players you've looked at for the last 2 weeks of in-game time. Or the special "free transfers" filter on the world transfers screen.


Or the multiple colums in tactics screen thingy. But then that doesn't really give you much club of what I mean. So let's ask Michael…


"When changing your tactics before a match you can now hide the pitch, which will reveal extra columns with information about your players, the extra information can be very helpful in picking the right players for the match. Some of these extra columns can also be revealed without hiding the pitch, by increasing the width of the window when playing in windowed mode."


That's enough for today I think. Just think - this coming Sunday, you'll be able to play the demo, so by the time the blog comes round on Monday, you'll be able to try out the things you learn about the game straight away! Or you'll just be ignoring the blogs entirely, and I'll feel unloved. But hey - don't even give that a second thought, or let it ruin your weekend or anything.


Miles (who is sobbing quietly to himself)

Email/MSN: peteranthony001@gmail.com