New Navigator

[Daltron]

I honestly think this could drive so many users away from the Habbo service. The navigator is the hub for every user selecting where they want to spend time. It's not broken now. Don't 'fix' what is not broken. It doesn't need to change, it can only go downhill.

[ediootti]

Looks like the ex-Creative Director of UX Design at Sulake has seen this thread, and is probably not impressed at his illumina being scrapped for this. If only Illumina could live on, just counting down the days now until the private messenger receives this UI:frust:

Yeah, I like to stay up to date on what's happening, even though I'm not staff anymore, nor really actively on at the hotel these days. Habbox is the best in town for that in my books. Here's the thing, though; when you've worked on design for a while (I'm going on my 16th professional year now), you learn to let go of your babies. Would I have designed elements like this with Illumina? Likely not, as all designers are different and have their own style. I like my pixels clean and crisp (some might, and did, say un-Habboish), the current people in the helm like something else. Is it my place to say what Sulake should do with their IP? Definitely not.

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of some of the choices they've made over the past year and a half, but I've got nothing but respect for the people still working at Sulake - no hard feelings here.

[Lewis]

yes why has illumina been scrapped for this mess. why has the old navigator even been scrapped for this mess

i don't mind the actual hotel client itself atm, but everything put together is awful... this navigator, disgusting.

[ediootti]

I think the biggest line difference is that when I started, I very deliberately set out to modernize Habbo. In my mind, the pre-Illumina interface had critical usability flaws that needed fixing, and the most straightforward way to fix them was to completely re-imagine the interface layer. The work that I did (both visibly in the hotel and backstage) was very fundamental in two ways; 1.) I didn't have history with Habbo, so it was easy for me to steer away from the notion of "classic Habbo", and just focus on building something I felt was superior in user-friendliness and 2.) I focused purely on the user experience, not really on preserving the integrity of the illustrations, which is logical considering that I'm actually an interaction, and not a graphic designer - there's a big difference.

The path that the hotel is now on leans more on respecting the ways of the classic Habbo and bringing back the fun from the glory days. While some of the choices they're taking don't make a lot of sense to me personally interaction design-wise, I can definitely appreciate the effort they're putting into old-schooling the hotel.

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This specific redesign effort aside; I actually disagree with Daltron. I think the Navigator has always been fundamentally broken. The power of familiarity is strong, though - you learn to cope with things that aren't logical when you get used to them.

[Lewis]

I think the biggest line difference is that when I started, I very deliberately set out to modernize Habbo. In my mind, the pre-Illumina interface had critical usability flaws that needed fixing, and the most straightforward way to fix them was to completely re-imagine the interface layer. The work that I did (both visibly in the hotel and backstage) was very fundamental in two ways; 1.) I didn't have history with Habbo, so it was easy for me to steer away from the notion of "classic Habbo", and just focus on building something I felt was superior in user-friendliness and 2.) I focused purely on the user experience, not really on preserving the integrity of the illustrations, which is logical considering that I'm actually an interaction, and not a graphic designer - there's a big difference.

The path that the hotel is now on leans more on respecting the ways of the classic Habbo and bringing back the fun from the glory days. While some of the choices they're taking don't make a lot of sense to me personally interaction design-wise, I can definitely appreciate the effort they're putting into old-schooling the hotel.

- - - Updated - - -

This specific redesign effort aside; I actually disagree with Daltron. I think the Navigator has always been fundamentally broken. The power of familiarity is strong, though - you learn to cope with things that aren't logical when you get used to them.

Although they might be bringing back some stuff from 'old habbo', they're continuing to remove a lot of good things either some elements from old habbo and other elements from the current habbo lol

[passion]

They are trying to stick to what Habbo originally looked like. You could argue their dedication to this should be applauded. A lot of businesses/companies/games forget what they originally were and become something totally different. Whilst that isn't advisable neither is what the designers are currently doing.

There is no room for nostalgia in business. Sulake should know this. Habbo was first designed over a decade ago (14 years I think). So much has changed since then. What people expect has changed. People do not expect such bulky designs, the majority of people want something fresh, clean and most importantly easy to navigate. This looks less user friendly and for that reason alone, the aesthetics of the new navigator needs a total revamp.

There is a wider issue to consider here. Sulake's fundamental aim should be attracting new users and then retaining their services. This design may cater to an older crowd (although this thread would suggest otherwise...) but new users are going to sign up and see a design that wouldn't have been out of place at the beginning of the century and not want to come back.

I have heard Habbo described as "a game for veterans" what people mean by this is that Habbo is only used by players who have played for years and the whole game is catered towards them. This is very true. The design is just one of the things that make this true. Old customers are important, sure. However, there is certainly an argument (a valid one IMO) that suggests newer customers are equally, if not more, important.

I have been told that a lot of the updates regarding the navigator were 'under the hood'. So maybe it will be easier to use (doesn't look like it...) but the design is just a disaster. If you sign up to something and the design doesn't look like it has been updated for the last fifteen years it would be easy to assume the game is no longer active and you wouldn't return.

When it opened at the turn of the century, the UI was revolutionary and exciting. Fifteen years is a huge amount of time in the design industry and what people see as exciting then is certainly not seen as exciting now. The whole UI if Habbo is terrible, 3 or 4 different UIs can be witnessed depending on what/where you click. It is a real issue and definitely one of the fundamental reasons as to why they have a user retention issue.

Something else to emphasise this point:

Let's say that BBC is one of the most visited sites in the world. This is the BBC website in January 2001 (when Habbo opened to the public):

Show Hide

This is BBC now:

Show Hide

Old Habbo should remain exactly that, old. Whilst something new, exciting and revolutionary is built.

[ediootti]

They are trying to stick to what Habbo originally looked like. You could argue their dedication to this should be applauded. A lot of businesses/companies/games forget what they originally were and become something totally different. Whilst that isn't advisable neither is what the designers are currently doing.

There is no room for nostalgia in business. Sulake should know this. Habbo was first designed over a decade ago (14 years I think). So much has changed since then. What people expect has changed. People do not expect such bulky designs, the majority of people want something fresh, clean and most importantly easy to navigate. This looks less user friendly and for that reason alone, the aesthetics of the new navigator needs a total revamp.

There is a wider issue to consider here. Sulake's fundamental aim should be attracting new users and then retaining their services. This design may cater to an older crowd (although this thread would suggest otherwise...) but new users are going to sign up and see a design that wouldn't have been out of place at the beginning of the century and not want to come back.

I have heard Habbo described as "a game for veterans" what people mean by this is that Habbo is only used by players who have played for years and the whole game is catered towards them. This is very true. The design is just one of the things that make this true. Old customers are important, sure. However, there is certainly an argument (a valid one IMO) that suggests newer customers are equally, if not more, important.

I have been told that a lot of the updates regarding the navigator were 'under the hood'. So maybe it will be easier to use (doesn't look like it...) but the design is just a disaster. If you sign up to something and the design doesn't look like it has been updated for the last fifteen years it would be easy to assume the game is no longer active and you wouldn't return.

When it opened at the turn of the century, the UI was revolutionary and exciting. Fifteen years is a huge amount of time in the design industry and what people see as exciting then is certainly not seen as exciting now. The whole UI if Habbo is terrible, 3 or 4 different UIs can be witnessed depending on what/where you click. It is a real issue and definitely one of the fundamental reasons as to why they have a user retention issue.

Something else to emphasise this point:

Let's say that BBC is one of the most visited sites in the world. This is the BBC website in January 2001 (when Habbo opened to the public):

Show Hide

This is BBC now:

Show Hide

Old Habbo should remain exactly that, old. Whilst something new, exciting and revolutionary is built.

I do agree with many points in your sentiment. In the end, it all comes down to the matter of your chosen business goal. I was headhunted to work on one goal, and was arguably a pretty good choice for it. Judging from what I've seen over the past year and a half while working elsewhere, the goals have changed pretty drastically. Whether or not the direction will be successful, remains to be seen.

[Michael]

Yeah, I like to stay up to date on what's happening, even though I'm not staff anymore, nor really actively on at the hotel these days. Habbox is the best in town for that in my books. Here's the thing, though; when you've worked on design for a while (I'm going on my 16th professional year now), you learn to let go of your babies. Would I have designed elements like this with Illumina? Likely not, as all designers are different and have their own style. I like my pixels clean and crisp (some might, and did, say un-Habboish), the current people in the helm like something else. Is it my place to say what Sulake should do with their IP? Definitely not.

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of some of the choices they've made over the past year and a half, but I've got nothing but respect for the people still working at Sulake - no hard feelings here.

I would agree, your design was very different - but to me it was a breathe of fresh air and a glimpse of good things to come, then it was scrapped..

I'd have loved to see illumina as a finished product, I and many adored the style. If anyone is to search 'habbo illumina' on a search engine such as Google you'll find hundreds of user-made concepts and designs, people were head-over-heels when they first found out Habbo was finally changing to a fresh crisp new-UI, heck it seems even Sulake was excited getting a blog post up on their main website - now abandoned.
(http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/illuminating-th-ui/)

It's just very frustrating seeing your design come together bit by bit for it to be thrown into the gutter, the design allowed Habbo to do things it hadn't done before and really experiment with things. Now we're left with a mess & everything up in the air.

Show Hide

[ediootti]

I still have to add that the interesting thing about Habbo in general is that it exists in two different business realms, having two completely different sets of rules. On one hand, you can think of Habbo as a game (and most people do), but you can also think of it as an online community. Granted, multiplayer games grow their own communities, which blurs the division, but bare with me for a second here.

A game can be practically timeless. A good quality video game is still cool 10 or 20 years later (case in point; Super Mario Bros 3), even if no one ever touched it again after the last compile.

A pure online community is a different beast, though. I claim that when you look at Habbo as an online community enabler, and not as a game, you care less about how the environment works, as long as it works. You just want to spend time with your chosen family. Sure, a portion of the users would always like to return to the nostalgic version that they used back in the day, but if you make the social features good enough, the retro value becomes less and less important.

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I would agree, your design was very different - but to me it was a breathe of fresh air and a glimpse of good things to come, then it was scrapped..

I'd have loved to see illumina as a finished product, I and many adored the style. If anyone is to search 'habbo illumina' on a search engine such as Google you'll find hundreds of user-made concepts and designs, people were head-over-heels when they first found out Habbo was finally changing to a fresh crisp new-UI, heck it seems even Sulake was excited getting a blog post up on their main website - now abandoned.
(http://www.sulake.com/blog/entries/illuminating-th-ui/)

It's just very frustrating seeing the your design come together bit by bit for it to be thrown into the gutter, the design allowed Habbo to do things it hadn't done before and really experiment with things. Now we're left with a mess & everything up in the air.

Show Hide

Thanks, dude - I appreciate the kind words and the awesome work people did based on the small scratch in the surface we released before it was my time to go. I had a lot of fun, which is probably obvious considering that I still enjoy talking about it almost two years after leaving the game business.

I think I've said this before, but releasing a completely new interface (and in Illumina's case, a feature bundle) in one go takes tremendous development efforts, and a company always has to weigh how much they're willing to invest on it. That's also why the new-new designs are coming in bit by bit. Obviously, from the pure user experience point of view, it would be better to just release all at once.

[imaloser]

Haha, Habbo have no idea what appeals to teenagers