How to think about workflows when designing tools - Robin-Yann Storm - GodotCon 2024

[@rystorm-]

I apologize for the microphone catching every single time I smacked my lips 🙇Also, thank you Godot crew for cutting out all the silent parts where everyone is writing down their answers!

[@0xkeez]

I’m just starting to watch but there is no need to apologise. Thanks for contributing with your time, effort and skills to share what you did.

[@mrkaratedo]

🦁Aguante Godot! saludos desde provincia de San Juan - Argentina!!🦁

[@geoffreymegardon5624]

Very nice workshop! To come up with feature ideas, I made a vertical slice of a game and each time I felt some tool/feature is missing or blocking me, I wrote a note. I have been focusing on level design and I could see that my notes were covering multiple tools/areas. So that really echoes with what you say. I ended up creating a meta proposal on improving the level design workflow which gather multiple proposals. I think it would be very help to have more workflow based meta-proposals, so that we can discuss and review the big picture, rather than only looking at PR bits by bits.

[@boukew]

I feel like this can also help streamlines Godot's editor, except that a Github's Issues review don't really have enough bandwidth for aksing '5' why's.

[@rystorm-]

Bandwidth is indeed the main issue for many editors that want to resolve these kinds of issues. In my GDC 2016 talk about level editor design I call to action to hire a UX designer, in that case a Tool Designer, so that someone has the dedicated role with time to chase down the why's. Also, when it isn't possible to ask the 5 why's directly, for example when the feedback came in anonymously, it is often possible to chase down some of the why's through researching the issues and workflows adjacent to the suggested feature. This does also take more time, though the goal is that it prevents features being built which will not be used. So it is an up-front cost that saves later in time.

[@boukew]

​@@rystorm- I would have loved to contribute UX 1-2 year ago and tried via the standard coding channels, but it did not catch on. I even researched Godot 1.0, which has relatively higher coherency. One can still see the basic structure in the current Godot, but it now has multiple paradigms to accommodate for multiple users. 'Better UX' indeed has (indirect) technical benefits, and users should be happier. Some workflows can be unified for less maintenance. If I reflect now it might just be that the traditional UX might not work because the open context of Godot? Perhaps an open user group, where anonymous users can leave feedback about ability. Or do some Think-Aloud Protocol videos about the editor. Then it would be open 'scientific' reports of the 'issues' instead of 1 hired person trying to accommodate/dictate all considerations.

[@nullvoid3545]

What if we made it so the launcher let you download the engine binarys, and then added experimental binarys for testing new editor features so people test them out!

[@nullvoid3545]

I cant help but feel like the opening 5 minutes just made the at this point very tired case that user configurable UI is needed in Godot. I like everyone else, I recommend looking at blender for inspiration.

[@noahmostafa-d3z]

good (first)