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Hello TeamLiquid!
EDIT:
You guys brought up good arguments and have confinced me that it would not be an improvement. While we are on the discussion about the current HUD. Please feel free to place your idea's here and discuss them :D
What is left of the idea is that we can have a cleaner HUD, like removing the rank.
End of edit 
I was busy doing a small HUD analysis today for my GameDesign course when I got an idea for a small improvement in the HUD of Starcraft 2. It is just a small change, so before you continue reading keep that in mind
Like I said, I had to make a HUD analysis. I choose SC2's selection panel. The power of the selection panel is the use of iconic language rather then text, while still giving newer players the option to read more information by the use of tooltips.
The idea behind all this is to let pro players read the information as soon as possible, so we need a clean display of usefull information. Why do we still have a kill counter and a rank displayed when we are selecting a single unit? The HUD is trying to hide information that is useless for pro players, but we still have this useless information in the middle of our selection panel.
My suggestion is to continue the trend from Blizzard Entertainment to use icons and tooltips. Let's remove the kill counter and rank and create a small icon for it. This gives us the opportunity to increase the size of the upgarde icons, which is very usefull and important information that pro players wanna read. If they only have a split second to click on a unit of his opponent to check his upgrades before the unit disappears, then it would benefit the player to have a larger icon for the upgrades.
Here is what I suggest, Lets turn this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QEuXO.jpg)
Into this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/A7y1O.jpg)
This gives a much cleaner look to the selection panel. The icons for the upgardes could be increase a little bit extra, but that would be up to Blizzard. The icon for the rank could change for every rank.
Notes:
I know this is not the place for suggestions, but I wanna hear TL opinion 
I played that game purely for screenshots, please dont talk amount my resource management
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I agree. THe UI is very intrusive at the moment, and i would like an option to hide it entirely or at the very least reduce it.
Play by hotkeys and touch typing, that's me.
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i don't think that would be improvement
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I don't see a difference...
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Sometimes you need to be able to read a units kill count on the fly too. I would personally be against the change. I've never had a problem with the size of the upgrade icons. Therefore this would only make important game information less accessible to me.
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How is that an improvement? It looks like it is making it more intrusive to me.
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Kills isnt useless info. Why move it away from there?
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I don't see a difference...
Like I said, it is a small change
Sometimes you need to be able to read a units kill count on the fly too. I would personally be against the change. I've never had a problem with the size of the upgrade icons. Therefore this would only make important game information less accessible to me.
When do you want to do that, if I may ask? It could also be an option or some sort.
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Seems kind of insignificant for SC2. But I do like neat and systematic\clean HUD's, so I sorta like your suggestion.
I think the thing with the SC2 one is that it is very similar to the SC1, which many people probably prefer.
EDIT: Kills are important when you want to see i.e how much dmg you did to your opponent with harass units. Sometimes you only get a glance before they are killed off.
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it's so small small small diffrence that it's the same lol
just joking i'm into everything that makes UI more readable or "ergonomic"
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Hmm, the idea has merit. Not sure about the implementation. The icon looks really out of place visually.
My personal philosophy is that if the rank and number of kills doesn't have a meaningful game mechanic tied to it, it shouldn't be in the game at all. I think a much cleaner solution would be to just get rid of it.
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On April 04 2012 22:53 JellowLight wrote:Like I said, it is a small change Show nested quote +
Sometimes you need to be able to read a units kill count on the fly too. I would personally be against the change. I've never had a problem with the size of the upgrade icons. Therefore this would only make important game information less accessible to me.
When do you want to do that, if I may ask? It could also be an option or some sort.
An example would be checking your DT to see how many worker kills it made before it dies. This is vital information to deduce whether the DT's put you ahead/behind/even.
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On April 04 2012 22:55 PandaTank wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2012 22:53 JellowLight wrote:I don't see a difference... Like I said, it is a small change
Sometimes you need to be able to read a units kill count on the fly too. I would personally be against the change. I've never had a problem with the size of the upgrade icons. Therefore this would only make important game information less accessible to me.
When do you want to do that, if I may ask? It could also be an option or some sort. An example would be checking your DT to see how many worker kills it made before it dies. This is vital information to deduce whether the DT's put you ahead/behind/even.
Observer tab -> workers killed.
Ah, I see you meant the player checking himself. In which case it's true, although I'm not really sure looking at that number is very intuitive or that many people do it at all.
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Another example is if say, someone kills a few workers of yours early on with a banshee, and gets away with it, then comes back. You can look at the kills to see if it is the same banshee, or if they have more than one.
It's little things, that say so much.
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On April 04 2012 22:56 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2012 22:55 PandaTank wrote:On April 04 2012 22:53 JellowLight wrote:I don't see a difference... Like I said, it is a small change
Sometimes you need to be able to read a units kill count on the fly too. I would personally be against the change. I've never had a problem with the size of the upgrade icons. Therefore this would only make important game information less accessible to me.
When do you want to do that, if I may ask? It could also be an option or some sort. An example would be checking your DT to see how many worker kills it made before it dies. This is vital information to deduce whether the DT's put you ahead/behind/even. Observer tab -> workers killed.
Lol, are you serious? We are talking about playing the game. Not watching replays smarty pants.
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I'd rather have it vertical next to the upgrades and roach icon rather than a pop-up.. A pop-up as such might become an annoyance or a hindrance to actual gameplay..
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I don't like it. Sometimes I need to know quickly whether my marines killed a scouting worker without me knowing or if there's a lucky probe that got away making proxy pylons.
I will say one change I want is for the Green Terran cursor to be used for all races. The brown and yellow crayon smudges make me laugh everytime I offrace.
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You guys bring up some valid points, I am not a good player or anything so I didn't think of these little things What might be an idea it to just get rid of the ranks.
I'd rather have it vertical next to the upgrades
This is also true, why do we have so much unused black space on the panel? We could use that space for example, but it should stay clean ofcourse.
A pop-up as such might become an annoyance or a hindrance to actual gameplay..
It is mend as a mouse over pop up, just like a mouse over the upgrades
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I don't think this helps. The upgrade icons are already large enough, and color coded to boot. Even a quick glance will tell you the level just from the color that you see on it. And as others have pointed out, seeing the kills is quite useful on units, knowing how many kills your banshee or dts achieved is important to know in an instant glance too, or just how efficiently your army has performed overall with an instant glance, not one you have to mouse over to find out.
Does this help? No. You can see upgrades just fine before the change at an instant glance because of the color coding.
Does this detract? Yes. You can't see the important information of kills(rank not so much, but it's cool) at a glance anymore.
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Okay, this is a small thing. But, I do like where you are going.
If you can maybe combine a few more improvements. I suggest you modify your OP to ask the community for more improvements. Thereafter, since you are studying user interfaces, you can make proof of concepts applying what you know.
Maybe then it you will have something.
My 2 cents, the kill count should be visible. Maybe even more visible than before because it is useful when watching replay/casts. That rank thing is useless.
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EPT
