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11-19-15, 11:27 PM   #5
Phanx
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Done, and I agree about the specificity. For example, I wasn't really sure how I should answer the questions about UI complexity -- my personal UI is visually extremely simple, with far less displayed on the screen than in the default UI and far less graphical decoration on individual elements, but in many ways it's conceptually or functionally more complicated than the default UI. I ended up rating both the default UI and my custom UI as the same complexity, but I don't know how meaningful that actually is for your reasearch.

Some other factors you may want to consider that weren't reflected in the "reasons" questions in the survey:

- Accessibility. For me, this is a big factor in UI customization. None of the options in WoW's default UI do much for my astigmatism, but since I can customize the UI, I can make text big enough to comfortably read without also making everything else unusably gigantic. There are many other ways that UI customization can make the game more comfortable (or even possible!) for people with all kinds of accessibility needs.

- Aesthetics. Customizing a game UI doesn't just have to be about fixing actual problems in the default UI. It can also just be about personal preference and making things "look nice". For example, when you get a new car, you can just drive it as-is, but things like bumper stickers and fuzzy seat covers might make you have more fun driving the car, even if they don't actually affect the car's functionality.

- Deeper engagement. Creating and sharing UI customizations (as addons/mods) builds a whole ecosystem outside of the game, and offers new ways for players to engage with the game. I know a number of addon authors (myself included) who would have forgotten about WoW years ago, but stay engaged with the community because of their addon work. The possibility of customization also introduces people to programming who would have otherwise never even considered that they could learn it or might enjoy it.
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