War Room

Releasing soon is Privateer Press' War Room, an application that helps with army construction and game management for their table top game Warmachine and Hordes. One interesting feature it has is that you can purchase the 'cards' for factions in the game, and have access to them electronically along with automatic updates when new units are released. As a Privateer Press customer with a number of obsolete books and game cards this is very welcome, though I do wonder what the update lag will be. War Room should be coming out for iOS and Android platforms.

A preview video has been released of War Room, and while these show the application while it is still in development it is clear that the User Interface (UI) isn't yet mature. Below is a screenshot of the application from the preview video.

A number of things spring immediately to mind just from the screenshot, namely:

• The information box is a modal lightbox containing text, so nothing else on the screen should be all that relevant to the user. Why then is it a relatively small box that the user needs to scroll through the text? I would like to see:
• A larger content area.
• An option to have the text read aloud.
• An easy way to resize the text.
• Hyperlinks to other relevant rules, and to have glossary terms.
• Contextual additions to the text, e.g. rather than just referring to STR (strength) in the text it could also include the STR of the unit currently being viewed.
• Diagrams and examples, which could include animations, movie clips, and 3D models that can be rotated.
• There is no clear difference between Cancel and Back buttons on the information box, and it is likely that one of them (at least) is redundant.
• No use of icons or iconic shapes/buttons. The back button doesn't have an arrow indicator.
• The display looks to be mainly a direct replication of the game cards, but the information design for the cards is just that; the information design for cards. While directly copying/reusing in this way is consistent, and likely a time saver, it doesn't fully exploit the medium. Changes could be introduced that improve the software, whilst staying consistent in style and spirit. For example, why are the damage boxes so small? On the cards they're small because there isn't much space. On a mobile device you might have more space (e.g. on a tablet), but crucially the display is dynamic and reconfigurable, so you can easily have a larger damage grid. It's going to be a complete pain if it is tricky to tick off the right damage boxes (or will there be a damage roller?).
• Will the artwork etc scale up to larger resolutions, e.g the new iPad3's retina display?
• Is the information on screen context-aware? Some abilities will be lost, and others brought into play, as damage is taken and these could be highlighted on the display.
• Will you be able to add identifying markers (name changes, labels, icons, photos of your model, etc) to a card in your list so that you can easily distinguish between models and units of the same type?
• Cool: being able to tap a quote box and get a voice acted quotation.
• For larger displays: various tile arrangements to see some units at the same time.
• Swipe scrolling to navigate through your units (if the image is an in-game shot, it suggests you have to go up a level with the 'back' and then pick a unit, quickly swiping back and forth would be easier). There could be a grid structure for your units, with a default something like Warcaster up top, below that a row for their battlegroup of warjacks, below that a column of units, etc.
• I hope to see unit cards show changes caused by other units, e.g. if you have Trollkin Longriders and Horthol in the same game, then the extra rules that Horthol brings to the Longriders should be displayed on their card.

Of course this is an early screenshot while the application is in development, I have no idea about the behaviour of the app or its task flow, nor am I aware of various drivers and priorities (e.g. reuse of art materials), so most of my comments may be totally moot and void. The preview does look like an application made for a pointer rather than a touch driven interface, but I can't see this remaining the case by the time it is released.

I'm excited.