GT Life Menu Design Competition

[Earth]

I know there has been alot of complaints about GT5's GT Life Menu. Reaction to the menu has been pretty negative, so can you design a better one? GT Life is the menu of choice because all other menus run through it.

Guidelines

• No Larger then 1920 x 1080 pixels
• GT Life Menu Screen only
• You may show as many drafts as you want, but be sure to mark "final entry" next to the Menu you want representing you in the competition
• No limit/restrictions on what you can add to your menu, you can borrow as much as you want from earlier GT menus you can copy the whole thing for all I care it doesnt matter
• In a separate thread all final entries will be presented along with a poll. They will be judged on style and navigation quality/ease/speed

GT5's GT Life Menu

Deadline: October 30th, 2012

 

[IceMan PJN]

I'm not going to play Photoshop-My-GT6 and create a mock menu. I'll just say what I expect from a proper menu: for it not to be arranged with clickable boxes arrayed about the screen as though I'm supposed to drag my mouse cursor over to those boxes and left-click on them. I want to not have to bounce to any sort of "exit" or "back" icons to back out of a menu, and these shouldn't even be options for menu navigation on a game console. All options should be arranged in a linear fashion and advancing or backing out of menu levels should be between A button and B button..., or in the case of Sonyland - this shape button or that shape button.

This cobbled mess looks like it was intended for a Windows PC. For folks browsing on a PC rather than a cell phone, move your cursor around over the image and see what I mean. It's like it was meant to be with a mouse.

 

[NISMO_GTR_]

I will be entering

 

[jojotizzle]

About The Design:

On the GT Life Screen: The current city, weather and time are displayed. *The weather would be used for created tracks* This can be clicked for editing. Below the City information, The users male or female avatar is displayed. A-Spec and B-spec Levels are displayed in a bar graph. Under the player information, a feed of the photo stream (updated upon reloading). The center map changes based on user location, changes between day and night depending on time.

Event Calendar:
Displays current month of events. Events can be developer/sponsor or user created. The circle icon on the date indicate user creation; the square icon on the date indicates developer created. Starred events indicate sponsor events (not displayed in example)

Top Menu Bar
Events - A-Spec and B-Spec events will be combined as well as online events/play. Special Events will appear here, some events will be held on certain days indicated by the calendar.
GT Auto - The Tuning Shop, Car Maintenance & Services, the Garage, and licenses are combined. The Tuning Shop would also contain a dyno/testing area for fine tuning. The Garage would have customizable tabs for organization.
Dealerships - New and Used Dealerships, as well as a trader depot (online trading) Online trading would include stock & tuned cars. Custom vinyls/paint designs available at trading depot.
Photo Travel - Includes all tracks as well as pit areas and spectator areas.

Bottom Menu bar
Help Option: Includes Settings for menu and gameplay
Mail: Includes Car Delivery, Friend messages, gifts, and news
Save: Saves Game & Settings
DLC: Downloadable content

 

[Brend]

Ooooooh, I will be entering this. 👍

 

[porthillking]

About The Design:

On the GT Life Screen: The current city, weather and time are displayed. This can be clicked for editing. Below the City information, The users male or female avatar is displayed. A-Spec and B-spec Levels are displayed in a bar graph. Under the player information, a feed of the photo stream (updated upon reloading). The center map changes based on user location, changes between day and night depending on time.

Event Calendar:
Displays current month of events. Events can be developer/sponsor or user created. The circle icon on the date indicate user creation; the square icon on the date indicates developer created. Starred events indicate sponsor events (not displayed in example)

Top Menu Bar
Events - A-Spec and B-Spec events will be combined as well as online events/play. Special Events will appear here, some events will be held on certain days indicated by the calendar.
GT Auto - The Tuning Shop, Car Maintenance & Services, the Garage, and licenses are combined. The Tuning Shop would also contain a dyno/testing area for fine tuning. The Garage would have customizable tabs for organization.
Dealerships - New and Used Dealerships, as well as a trader depot (online trading) Online trading would include stock & tuned cars. Custom vinyls/paint designs available at trading depot.
Photo Travel - Includes all tracks as well as pit areas and spectator areas.

Bottom Menu bar
Help Option: Includes Settings for menu and gameplay
Mail: Includes Car Delivery, Friend messages, gifts, and news
Save: Saves Game & Settings
DLC: Downloadable content

I like your idea. However, i'm not sure you would need to know the weather in your city. You could just look out of the window. Still a good menu though.

 

[Hyped]

I like your idea. However, i'm not sure you would need to know the weather in your city. You could just look out of the window. Still a good menu though.

I wouldn't mind getting a forecast, the weather around here changes pretty quick sometimes.

 

[porthillking]

I wouldn't mind getting a forecast, the weather around here changes pretty quick sometimes.

I guess it would come down to personal preferance anyway.

 

[jojotizzle]

I like your idea. However, i'm not sure you would need to know the weather in your city. You could just look out of the window. Still a good menu though.

I imagined this feature could be used to provide real time weather at tracks during gameplay. The users city weather would be used on created tracks.

 

[porthillking]

I imagined this feature could be used to provide real time weather at tracks during gameplay. The users city weather would be used on created tracks.

That makes sense actually. Good idea! 👍

 

[Earth]

"Youtube" style GT6 Life Menu v 1.1

The idea with this was to reduce the amount of menus you have to go through to get to where you want to be as much as possible. So I went for a GT4 style approach and added almost everything to the GT Life Menu. You can join a race with 2 presses of the X button. License requirements for the races and how many you have complete are both easily visible.

Icons are ordered neatly for easy navigation with a DS3's D-pad or analog stick

 

[Samus]

That is just as bad as GT5 for nav, it still looks made for a mouse or touch input device.

 

[shmogt]

Hopefully I think of something good for this. I kinda like I think GT2 or GT4 don't remember where they had the map. You kinda flew to different countries to do things so it's was like a menu and races and dealership in one

 

[Earth]

That is just as bad as GT5 for nav, it still looks made for a mouse or touch input device.

Woah, as bad as GT5's mess?

It may work well with a mouse, but Im confused as how it wouldn't work or would be extremely inefficient with a D-Pad

 

[Samus]

Well getting to races is slightly easier but apart from that it's nearly the same. Boxes spaced out on a background like that work on a PC or even moreso a touch device, not so a control pad. It's too finicky moving from one to the other exactly as you want. Compare that to the simple yet slick Forza main menu:

Very simple and clear, the only nav is left or right so easy with a pad and there are only 5 main options to go where you want, you aren't faced with 20 or so options all over the screen.

 

[jojotizzle]

Well getting to races is slightly easier but apart from that it's nearly the same. Boxes spaced out on a background like that work on a PC or even moreso a touch device, not so a control pad. It's too finicky moving from one to the other exactly as you want. Compare that to the simple yet slick Forza main menu:

Very simple and clear, the only nav is left or right so easy with a pad and there are only 5 main options to go where you want, you aren't faced with 20 or so options all over the screen.

I debated a design similar, but felt that 5 items on the top (left and right navigation) and four options on the bottom (left and right navigation) was vast improvement from the mess of GT5. Hitting up or down would navigate between the top menu and the bottom menu.

 

[analog]

How about a small 3D garage which would basically replace GT-Auto/Tuning Shop as you can do the maintenance/tuning there.
Want parts? Get to your laptop and order them (same with car dealership). Want to enter Photo-Mode? Grab the camera lying next to the laptop.
Want to paint a car (or add a livery)? Walk into the paint booth directly attached to the garage. Want to select driving gear? Walk into your wardrobe.
Want to race/free practice, enter the car sitting in your garage (the one you previously selected).

All these options would lead to a new basic screen obviously where you can select cars, tracks, items, events, etc.
What's more, you could perhaps personalize that garage with trophies won or premade paraphernalia/automobilia you can select (on your laptop).

 

[IamKillax]

How about a small 3D garage which would basically replace GT-Auto/Tuning Shop as you can do the maintenance/tuning there.
Want parts? Get to your laptop and order them (same with car dealership). Want to enter Photo-Mode? Grab the camera lying next to the laptop.
Want to paint a car (or add a livery)? Walk into the paint booth directly attached to the garage. Want to select driving gear? Walk into your wardrobe.
Want to race/free practice, enter the car sitting in your garage (the one you previously selected).

All these options would lead to a new basic screen obviously where you can select cars, tracks, items, events, etc.
What's more, you could perhaps personalize that garage with trophies won or premade paraphernalia/automobilia you can select (on your laptop).

I have an idea similar but very different to this one I will try to create and post up in the next couple days. The only thing I'd think would be a negative for yours is the large amount of options you'd have to select through to get to the desired selection. maybe that's just me

 

[Earth]

Well getting to races is slightly easier but apart from that it's nearly the same. Boxes spaced out on a background like that work on a PC or even moreso a touch device, not so a control pad. It's too finicky moving from one to the other exactly as you want. Compare that to the simple yet slick Forza main menu:

Very simple and clear, the only nav is left or right so easy with a pad and there are only 5 main options to go where you want, you aren't faced with 20 or so options all over the screen.

I dont think it would be too finicky. "My Garage" which is in the center of the menu would serve as the default selected icon. From there any of the 20 other icons can be reached with 1-4 presses on the D-Pad. Thats more efficient then any "2D" left/right or up/down only menu system can offer.

Well anyway, you've given me an excuse to design a new menu to test out your ideas, so off I go

How about a small 3D garage which would basically replace GT-Auto/Tuning Shop as you can do the maintenance/tuning there.
Want parts? Get to your laptop and order them (same with car dealership). Want to enter Photo-Mode? Grab the camera lying next to the laptop.
Want to paint a car (or add a livery)? Walk into the paint booth directly attached to the garage. Want to select driving gear? Walk into your wardrobe.
Want to race/free practice, enter the car sitting in your garage (the one you previously selected).

All these options would lead to a new basic screen obviously where you can select cars, tracks, items, events, etc.
What's more, you could perhaps personalize that garage with trophies won or premade paraphernalia/automobilia you can select (on your laptop).

Not sure that would work with the attention span of people today

About The Design:

On the GT Life Screen: The current city, weather and time are displayed. *The weather would be used for created tracks* This can be clicked for editing. Below the City information, The users male or female avatar is displayed. A-Spec and B-spec Levels are displayed in a bar graph. Under the player information, a feed of the photo stream (updated upon reloading). The center map changes based on user location, changes between day and night depending on time.

Event Calendar:
Displays current month of events. Events can be developer/sponsor or user created. The circle icon on the date indicate user creation; the square icon on the date indicates developer created. Starred events indicate sponsor events (not displayed in example)

Top Menu Bar
Events - A-Spec and B-Spec events will be combined as well as online events/play. Special Events will appear here, some events will be held on certain days indicated by the calendar.
GT Auto - The Tuning Shop, Car Maintenance & Services, the Garage, and licenses are combined. The Tuning Shop would also contain a dyno/testing area for fine tuning. The Garage would have customizable tabs for organization.
Dealerships - New and Used Dealerships, as well as a trader depot (online trading) Online trading would include stock & tuned cars. Custom vinyls/paint designs available at trading depot.
Photo Travel - Includes all tracks as well as pit areas and spectator areas.

Bottom Menu bar
Help Option: Includes Settings for menu and gameplay
Mail: Includes Car Delivery, Friend messages, gifts, and news
Save: Saves Game & Settings
DLC: Downloadable content

I like the color pallet you used for your menu. And the calendar is a great idea, hope you dont mind if I borrow it for other menus I might make .

My biggest gripe with your design is that its not uniform. One thing that irritated people with GT5's menu was the varying sizes (and shapes ) of menu icons. Yes the icons on top are the same size and the ones on the bottom are the same size, but it feels kind of awkward, at least to me, for them all not to be uniform in size or in placement from eachother.

Also I'm not sure I see the need to dedicate 70% of the screen to your location. That and the 3 pictures on the left dont add much so Im thinking that room could be used for displaying more information etc. I know this may sound kind of hyprocritical with my massive clock but oh well

Oh and I will be giving my comments on all menus posted here so Im not picking on you, just giving an opinion thats hopefully constructive.

 

[iMikeTheKing]

"Youtube" style GT6 Life Menu v 1.1

The idea with this was to reduce the amount of menus you have to go through to get to where you want to be as much as possible. So I went for a GT4 style approach and added almost everything to the GT Life Menu. You can join a race with 2 presses of the X button. License requirements for the races and how many you have complete are both easily visible.

Icons are ordered neatly for easy navigation with a DS3's D-pad or analog stick

I like the menu but something that has me thinking. What would be considered an extreme endurance race?

jojotizzle, I like yours a lot. The colors are perfect.

 

[Samus]

I like the menu but something that has me thinking. What would be considered an extreme endurance race?

jojotizzle, I like yours a lot. The colors are perfect.

24 Hours of Tsukuba. Complete it and you win an MX-5 but lose the will to live.

 

[Earth]

I like the menu but something that has me thinking. What would be considered an extreme endurance race?

jojotizzle, I like yours a lot. The colors are perfect.

The whole idea is to slowly introduce endurance races as you advance through the game, instead of in one big pile at the end which only overwhelms the driver

Beginner Endurance

1. Grand Valley 300km
2. Laguna Seca 200 miles
3. Clubman Stage Route 5 2 hours
4. Trial Mountain Normal Car 2 hours
5. Deep Forest Truck & SUV 2 hours
6. Autumn Ring Classic Car 2 hours
7. Midfield Roadster 2 hours
8. Tsukuba 2 hours
9. Super Speedway 150 miles
10. Nurburgring 2 Hours

Advanced Endurance

1. Daytona 500
2. Indianapolis 500
3. Route X 400
4. SSR5 4 Hours All Night
5. SSR11 4 Hours All Night
6. High Speed Ring 500km
7. Tokyo R246 500km
8. Monaco 3 hours
9. Infineon 2 hours 45 minutes
10. Nurburgring 4 hours

Extreme Endurance

1. 1000km Suzuka
2. 1000km Bathurst
3. 1000km Fuji
4. 1000 Miles/10 hours Petit Le Mans
5. 12 Hours Sebring
6. 24 hours of Le Mans I
7. 24 hours of Le Mans II (No Chicanes)
8. 24 hours of Spa
9. 24 Hours of Daytona
10. 24 hours of Nurburgring

 

[Samus]

That's too many though, especially five 24 hours races.

 

[Earth]

That's too many though, especially five 24 hours races.

Too many? Thats not in my vocabulary

GT5's two 24 hour races = 48 hours of A-Spec driving

GT6'S five 24 hour races = 40 hours of A-Spec driving (less or more depending on you) with B-Spec help

 

[Samus]

Less driving maybe but they would still take 24 hours to complete unless they allow fast forwarding as well. What is the total time for those races, must be several hundred.

 

[Earth]

Less driving maybe but they would still take 24 hours to complete unless they allow fast forwarding as well. What is the total time for those races, must be several hundred.

Several hundred? No way. Only about 80-100 hours of A-Spec driving. And yes, fast forwarding would be an option for B-Spec.

How many times did people repeat the Indy 500 in GT5 to level up? I know I must have beat it 10 times to try and level up to unlock the Vettel challenge. Giving a larger variety of races is only ever good and helps prevent grinding

The idea is for the A-Spec mode to last a couple of years and not become dependent on stupid seasonals

 

[jojotizzle]

I like the color pallet you used for your menu. And the calendar is a great idea, hope you dont mind if I borrow it for other menus I might make .

My biggest gripe with your design is that its not uniform. One thing that irritated people with GT5's menu was the varying sizes (and shapes ) of menu icons. Yes the icons on top are the same size and the ones on the bottom are the same size, but it feels kind of awkward, at least to me, for them all not to be uniform in size or in placement from eachother.

Also I'm not sure I see the need to dedicate 70% of the screen to your location. That and the 3 pictures on the left dont add much so Im thinking that room could be used for displaying more information etc. I know this may sound kind of hyprocritical with my massive clock but oh well

Oh and I will be giving my comments on all menus posted here so Im not picking on you, just giving an opinion thats hopefully constructive.

Not at all, borrow the calendar and improve upon it As for the 70% being location, the open space in the center is where the selected items would open. The main layout would stay the same but the top menu would 'rotate'. The native position shown is GT life. Hitting the d-pad right would select Events, which would basically replace the map. Hitting the d-pad right again and the top menu would move EVENTS to the end and GT AUTO would be where EVENTS was. The photo stream photos would minimize to one or zero images depending on the selected menu option. I am considering creating one of the other menu items to explain my idea better (though not for this contest)

 

[Phoenix]

The whole idea is to slowly introduce endurance races as you advance through the game, instead of in one big pile at the end which only overwhelms the driver

Extreme Endurance

1. 1000km Suzuka
2. 1000km Bathurst
3. 1000km Fuji
4. 1000 Miles/10 hours Petit Le Mans
5. 12 Hours Sebring
6. 24 hours of Le Mans I
7. 24 hours of Le Mans II (No Chicanes) w/ 60/70's Le Mans race cars.
8. 24 hours of Spa
9. 24 Hours of Daytona
10. 24 hours of Nurburgring

In my opinion it would look better like this, because driving 24 hours around Daytona is just not gonna happen, B-spec included or not...

 

[daus26]

I definitely like jojo's approach, but I really miss GT's "map" like menu system. If they're going to call it "GT World," then they need to have some kind of world map navigation on it.

GT5's menu system is like a slap-on rush project, like the A-spec events were. I think Windows 8 might actually look something like that. Perfect for touch screens, but just boring.

 

[The Gran Finale]

In my opinion it would look better like this, because driving 24 hours around Daytona is just not gonna happen, B-spec included or not...

But they do it in real life. They use the road course, you know.