Application Template: A Mockup for Blender Touch

You are right! I am changing the title. Any ideas on the mockup itself or where the UI could go in the future?

You are absolutely right

Thanks for the comment!

• The foldable editors would work probably just like "new windows" but without a border. Therefore, no need to redesign the editors for now
• Navigation gizmos and most of the interactable UI I prefer at the bottom as it is easily reachable but it is really up to individuals (viz. Nomad Sculpt nomadsculpt.com/images/monster_glen.jpg )
• Scale of the UI needs to be a little bit bigger for touch but it is always a User Preference. And the current Blender UI could use a bit of a clean-up.

Maybe a comparison to the current UI would be useful to see how much the UI is uncluttered in the mocap (while missing some features, of course).

• Targets are Tablets screens like Wacoms - tools mostly for sculptors, storyboarders, animation etc.
• Phones dont really make sense for Blender.
• Scale of UI must be a little bigger from my experience.
• My main inspiration was Substance Modeler (img: ibb.co/XVRPcFs ). I think their user-friendly approach to UI will slowly overtake the industry.

I agree! I wish for an Android build in the future but definitely not a priority. However! Touch UI might be the next step in the UI evolution for professional 3D software in general.

I think there will soon be a need for evolution of the UI just like 2.79 -> 2.80 was. The mockup definitely suggests more touch elements but all the basic structure of Blender is there. What is the most jarring thing for you?

I know long posts with lots of critics can easily be read as a massive rant, but it's not. I'm just trying to explain my thoughts, and I really suck at being short and synthetic.

As a graphics tablet and pen display user myself, I do have some wishes for some UI options for Blender. But not at the cost of having two different UIs to learn switch back and forth all the time. Like an option for the right-sided scrollbars to be on the left so that left-handed me can still see where I am scrolling. Also take inspiration from akeytsu's gizmo system and in-viewport animation curves. But that's another subject.

IMHO if the BF had to make a touchscreen UI, I hope they wouldn't do it on a different Blender build, instead they would adapt the current UI for everyone , with maybe a few things optional. Much like we can already enable menus opening on hover, we could have a few options that accommodate tablet users and touch screens.

I am not a graphic designer, my words are mere opinions bases on my own and my peers' experience and my observations on UI changes on multiple softwares.
When it comes to heavy UI changes, I think it shouldn't come at the cost of the current UI. And IMHO it just should not change in a major way if it isn't needed, like if that part works and is already simple enough to use. Everyone benefics from some UI simplification, but only if it doesn't multiply clics and screen-traveling and doesn't cause people to feel lost every ten seconds. Also, after 20 years old, it gets harder and harder to learn new UIs and you are proposing some big changes here x)

A good example of that is how you basically flipped Blender both vertically and horizontally:

• All the top bar tools and viewport gizmo are now down and scene stats are up. Why is that? What does it achieve? You indicate that it's "reachable by hand", I don't have statistics on that, but I don't think most people have any significant difficulty reaching either side of the screen, so it doesn't sound worth the change to me.
• Then the menus that every application in the world have at the top left corer are now at the bottom right. Why aren't they in the top left corner, just after the Blender burger menu?
• The shading options are now on the left and without popover to control options.
• Actually, where are all the popovers? Proportional editing? Overlays? Gizmos? Object Types Visibility? If there's one UI part that works well using tablets, it was that IMHO. It makes a lot of useful things available at a click while remaining screenspace efficient.
• I guess the transform pivot - orientation - snapping - proportional editing buttons work as a multi-state toggle where clicking cycles through the different states. Ok, but IMHO that kind of toggle button if fine when you have a few states, like two or three, Here it goes from five to eight (or infinity if we count the custom transform orientations).
• What is that cube icon, and where do I go when I need to alter the other options that used to be in the popovers?
• is that tiny green thing at the bottom right the current sidebar? Is that even able to display objects coordinates without overflowing?
• what are these shader and texture buttons in the top left corner of the viewport?
• the scenes menu is not in the left, but the view layers menu is just gone.
• I don't understand how the outliner works, what are these icons?
• i'm not sure scroll-heavy elements like the outliner, properties editor or sidebar should be ever put in a small vertical space. That's just going to multiply the time spent just scrolling.
• the playback buttons are all over the place? There's a reason why we have buttons laid out in a symmetrical way, and there's no pause button at the same time as the play button.

These things listed one by one sound like nothing. But the issue is that it's a lot of little things, little changes that completely change the user experience both when switching to a new UI and when using it in the long run.

Now to be positive, the toolbar looks nice, the compact format of the application menu and workspaces works for a small screen and looks tidy.

But then, there are more global issues:

Blender is a Swiss army knife with lots of tools, functionalities and user customization. Your mockup doesn't look the same way.

In your mockup, it seems to be viewport centric (which Blender is not), other editors feel gone, in the background.
I didn't need you to tell me what kind of softwares you got inspired from, because your mockup is absolutely just that: a viewport-centric modeling tool.
In fact I got surprised you even mentioned "tools mostly for sculptors, storyboarders, animation etc ". Because your mockup doesn't show that. And even if it was, then you are confirming that this mockup is about reducing Blender, not enhancing it.

There are many more user cases for Blender. CAD users, shading / texture artists, crowds, procedural modelers, vfx, video editors, compositing, scripting, ... so many areas you left in the blind.

Blender makes it work by having a default workspace that fits most viewport based usage, can fit even more with very little tweaking, can be easily customized to an extreme extent, and you even have workspaces to have multiple pre-configurations.
Your mockup, I don't know, it doesn't feel comfortable from the get go, it feels like I'm on a tiny screen and I am expected to just have only three buttons and one panel at all times.

I guess that you hope that people would just switch workspaces and figure it out.
But you basically leave that up to imagination, so we can all imagine different things and that's useless to debate about.
How would the video editing workspace look like?
I'm a character animator for movies and series, so I need a dope sheet, a graph, a free perspective viewport, a shot camera viewport and a side viewport. All at the same time. How does it look, and how is the user experience to set it up?

You say in an above comment:

Targets are Tablets screens like Wacoms"

Then that means you deal with UI scale that are within the same ranges of desktop computers, and thus, UI scale should remain about the same. Why upscale everything like we are on a tiny smartphone screen? Aside from 13 inches displays (where the current Blender ui scale is enough), there's no need to make buttons the size of my fingers.

Many times in your comments you indicate that you did something because you like it more, but that's up to user preferences.
I think that's actually interesting: you therefore made a mockup for you, not for Blender users.

If you want to make a mockup for everyone, first you have to wonder who that "everyone" is. You have to think about what is the default experience. How to make people understand how the UI works. How to not leave part of the people behind.

You can't just make your Christmas wishlist UI and fill all the gaps by "it's optional". It would work in an ideal world, but the reality is that it's a hell to even develop such a software, and the default experience matters the most.

TLDR:

- My mockup was supposed to introduce 3 simplified concepts:

• Foldable Editors
• Simplify 3D Header
• Compact Workspaces Menu

- And small Utilities for Touch UI which are:

• Bigger Toggles for Sidebar and Tool Bar
• Move Gizmos and Icons which are in the Top left to Bot left for easy reach

NOW! I would like to take this mocap further and fix the issues

• making the general look be more similar to current Blender,
• being more detailed about the concrete changes of the UI
• mainly making it up to scale with the current UI, so it is less confusing
• keeping the menus on top
• mockup pop-up windows so it is more clear where they show up

Hi! I am super thankful for these criticisms, however harsh they may be :)

This is exactly the neccesary discussion I hoped for, for the sake of Blender. If somebody is to redesign the UI in the future, they might stumble upon this conversation and learn from the mistakes I made in the mockup.

Now I will try to reply to your points:

My User Preferences ≠  Blender Community Preferences

• That is so true, that's why I am talking to you, guys
• I live in a bubble, utilizing Blender for 2D animation and general 3D stylized work, I use it either on a small 16 Wacom tablet or Galaxy Tab S7+ so my decisions are biased a lot by that
• My attempt should work with the current UI scale too and should preserve the compatibility

Menus are flipped

• Currently, you can switch the header position and that should remain the same, my idea was to merge it with the tools menu in a reasonable way
• Blender General Menus are hidden under the Hamburger in its original position as these Menus are not as commonly used, however that could be the case only for a compact view (this already is impleneted in Blender in Header settings)

This would need to be a separate Blender Build

• I think that the evolution of Blender's UI will be gradual and we would probably see these ideas being implemented slowly

I use Blender differently

• I am currently working as a previz artist for a full-feature in Blender and I see your point loud and clear!
• I have seen so many Blender layouts over the years, it is amazing to see the different workflows, this should be kept and expanded upon (a further discussion could be led on how we bend the UI with addons sometimes)

EDIT: I reevaluated this and renamed the proposal as a potential Application Template , which should be coming to Blender this year. I