Action button labels


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Huge fan of the greek letter idea. I get the controversy around such an idea, it's just so unconvential. But then again, when is Pyra a convential device? I also would like to add, that greek letters are VERY common in our society. It's actually a part of our culture, mostly noticed whenever you try to do any math/physics. The geometric shape of several can also be quite accurately referred to, as well as the similarity to latin characters.
 
Gambling is part of this earth too. Gambling needs higher mathematics too. And so my dice :)
I still prefer these dice buttons:

dice style :)

2mmxr0x.png
-God Ginrai
 
Dice are cool, dice can mean things, and are also immediately understood as numbers.  Plus they're blind-friendly (and not looking at your hands friendly) without creating crevices for dirt to stick between.  I still like symbols more, random scary new symbols.
 
Dice / numbers are an interesting proposal, and at first glance they are the most logical thing to do. But when you think about it, what order should they be in?

left-to-right, top-to-bottom makes sense:

  1

 2 3

4 5

 6

numeric keyboard style (left-to-right, bottom-to-top) also makes sense:

  6

 4 5

2 3

 1

there are two rows of three buttons so you could also do one of these:

  1            3          6        4

 2 4     or   2 6   or   5 3  or  5 1

3 5          1 5        4 2      6 2

 6            4          1        3

And so on. There are many others that would make sense, and there are 6! = 720 permutations in total. Picking one of them is going to be a rather arbitrary choice, there is no "natural" way to do it.

More importantly, using numbers does not solve Neelix' ambiguity problem (we also have number keys on the keyboard).
 
More importantly, using numbers does not solve Neelix' ambiguity problem (we also have number keys on the keyboard).
It does in written form, though then you introduce the same issue as with non-latin alphabet:

⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅

EDIT: I'm referring to the symbols not being on (a standard keyboard|all fonts) issue
 
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More importantly, using numbers does not solve Neelix' ambiguity problem (we also have number keys on the keyboard).
It does in written form, though then you introduce the same issue as with non-latin alphabet:

⚀ ⚁ ⚂ ⚃ ⚄ ⚅

EDIT: I'm referring to the symbols not being on (a standard keyboard|all fonts) issue
Yes, use dice symbols helps. I'm not sure if I really like that look though. It makes all buttons look a bit too much alike to my taste (dots all over the place, almost makes it look like the labels are in braille).
 
Dice / numbers are an interesting proposal, and at first glance they are the most logical thing to do. But when you think about it, what order should they be in?

[...]

And so on. There are many others that would make sense, and there are 6! = 720 permutations in total. Picking one of them is going to be a rather arbitrary choice, there is no "natural" way to do it.
 The majority of customers for this device read left-to-right, so a right-to-left order does not make sense, so those are ruled out. Second, the progression of the numbers should follow the arc of the thumb, because it indicates the order you will find the button in relation to the other buttons. Because of this, only increasing numbers from left to right in a row make sense.

There are only 2 natural ways to do it:

  • 123 bottom row, 456 top row
  • 123 top row, 456 bottom row
The choice could be either of these and it would work. I would lean towards 123 on the bottom row and 456 on the top row, because on normal controllers, the early part of the alphabet is normally the bottom row and the later part of the alphabet is normally the top row.
More importantly, using numbers does not solve Neelix' ambiguity problem (we also have number keys on the keyboard).
Well, it can if you refer to them as dice. D1 ... D6 is easy to use. And I've already pointed out numerous times that Neelix's ambiguity problem exists for the 2 seconds it takes the user to try both options and learn which one is the correct one.

-God Ginrai
 
Well, it can if you refer to them as dice. D1 ... D6 is easy to use. And I've already pointed out numerous times that Neelix's ambiguity problem exists for the 2 seconds it takes the user to try both options and learn which one is the correct one.
You can always refer to the buttons as B(utton)1, B2, B3 etc... if they are labeled in any numerical way.
 
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B1 etc is punny, I like that too.  I know the buttons will look rather similar, but there is no reason for them not to.  You're not going to spend a long time looking at them.  Dice dots would be easy enough to tell apart the few times you have to remind yourself which button is what, but you'll probably just count them with your thumb so you don't need to look away from the screen.  I'm also a fan of the numpad order, B1 B2 B3 below B4 B5 B6.
 
If we're going with Alphanumeric combinations why not this?


B3
B2 A3
B1 A2
A1
Edit: Or to avoid overlap with A and B:

Code:
     Z3
  Z2   C3
Z1  C2
  C1
- Neelix
 
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The majority of customers for this device read left-to-right, so a right-to-left order does not make sense, so those are ruled out. Second, the progression of the numbers should follow the arc of the thumb, because it indicates the order you will find the button in relation to the other buttons. Because of this, only increasing numbers from left to right in a row make sense.
You really ought to expand your senses. Not in a psychedelic way, but anyone who will with that kind of certainty go "This is the only thing that makes sense, because this is what makes sense to me!" do need a broadening of perspectives. Seriously.

And anyone who uses "this is natural" in any argument is per definition wrong (unless we're arguing about very specific things). Particularly when arguing about gaming controller button placements. There is nothing natural with neither buttons nor gaming controllers.
 
All of those (1-6, D1-D6, B1-B6, A1-A3/B1-B3) look cheap and generic to me. I prefer to have button labels that can have semantic connotations.

For fighter games the labels are not that important, what matters most for those is the positioning of the buttons (2 rows of 3 buttons).

For other kinds of games like RPGs or strategy games, it is nice if you can associate button labels semantically. E.g. if the game needs buttons for YES/CONFIRM, NO/ABORT, and MENU/INVENTORY, it's nice if you can use buttons with labels like ◯    for that and not labels like B1 B2 B3.

For this reason I like labeling proposals that add some "character" to the buttons. The playing card symbols are nice, but don't they don't extend well to 6 buttons. The chess symbols would be OK, but they look a bit too "specialized" in my opinion, and they depend on relatively fine details to distinguish e.g. pawn, bishop and queen.
 
Important for me:

- Blind orientation (to stay focused on the screen when a button is recommended by the game/program)

- Logical relation

- Logical arrangement

North, West, South, East, Extra1, Extra2 (below 1, because we rather read from above to below) fulfills these prerequisites,

the numeric and alphanumeric suggestions fulfill most of them.

Prerequisites for others on here:

- Keeping the old labels for the programs that refer to them (and have to be ported anew anyway)

- Keeping the usual shuffled ABXY style that's different on every gaming system

- Using strange/unique symbols to not be able to confuse them with other devices but are not possible to type casually

- Design (cool looking)

It does not really make sense to post oozens of suggestions if the prerequisites are not yet set.

Best solution in software can be seen in PND-manager:

The direction of the button is visible in the icon, thank you for that B-ZaR,

it's the only program I can use intuitively in a dark room without trial and error, every coder should make it that way if possible.

The reason why I suggested the No, We, So, Ea-solution is, that you cannot always use pictures for instructions and arrows or Up,Left,Down,Right are rather used for the d-pad.
 
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The button set of PNDManager is from Cristopher.K, not B-Zar.
 
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