So far I'm enjoying the visuals and the gameplay presented in skyrim (so long as i don't need to open the menu), but I feel that there are some distinctive problems that could be addressed in regards to the UI and the game menus. I've highlighted these below:

1:
remapping keys (e.g. switching F and R) will also remap any ancillary functions
that might happen in other parts of the game that use these keys
(e.g. assigning favourites will be switched when the inventory is open, but the hint key will not be updated on the inventory screen)
if the functionality of a key will change depending on the menu that is open/closed at the time, then the two functions should be listed seperately in the keybind options, allowing the user a greater scope of customisability to reach a comfortable setup.


2:
right mouse button controls left and left controls right.
in a game with dual wielding this makes no sense at all and is infact actively confusing when you're trying to assign things to a hand in the menus, and when using them in game

2a: the shield can only be wielded on the left says the manual
well than it should say that in game. it took me far too many tries to equip
both a sword and a shield
2b: WHY should a shield be only usable on the left? why not let ppl have the freedom to choose this themselves?

3:
inconsistent use of buttons.
i.e. to take an item from a container you highlight it and press E
but to put an item into a container you must press R (as E will equip/de-equip/use the item)

4:
inconsistent use of buttons.
opening a container uses E, but to close it you must press tab. this has resulted in my often taking an item when i merely wished to close the inventory

5:
mouse wheel scrolling through the options only works if the mouse focuses over them directly. - mousewheel scrolling should assume focus of this menu regardless of mouse position, since there's nothing else on screen at that time that would react to the mousewheel.

6:
the option menu (i.e. volume, keybinds, etc) should be available from the game's main menu,not just from the in game menu

7:
the 4-point menu is clunky and inefficient to use when compared to the oblivion model (i.e. a single keypress of F1-F4 could open up any of those four options without needing to open a menu first)
by extension, it feels more clicks are required to actual get to the items within the inventory, whilst not actually making it easier to sort them

8:
hotkeying items should be doable without favouriting them first, as this just adds more unnecessary keypresses
favouriting should take into account left or right hand. and/or should allow you to favourite a left and a right option together and/or accessing the favourites item should allow the option selected to go to right or left, instead of always to the right.
if you are using magic + melee weapon, you end up needing to go into the menu and select first your spell and then your weapon
whilst the favouriting system is clearly a good idea for a console system, on the PC it just comes across as clunky, and in using it, the clunkiness and inefficiency of the menu is highlighted

8a:
you should be able to hotkey other items (e.g. letting you quickly switch from heavy armour to your enchanted robe of mana regeneration)


9:
when in 'vanity mode' (holding down the 3rd person button), moving the mouse up/down should pan up/down, instead it zooms in/out (which should be controlled by mouse wheel)


10:
consistency with previous elderscrolls key layout:
E= jump
space = use
vanity mode mouse control
F= ready weapon
(although i AM aware that E= use and space=jump is a more standardised system across first person gaming in general, but when i play an elder scroll game i actually find i mix them up if i try keybinding them way around - I accept this is personal preference however.)

(see point3): use/equip an item in previous elder scrolls was right click, rather than pressing E



11:
why can't you favourite "unarmed combat"? - again the clunkyness of the menu rears up, as going into unarmed combat mode requires:
sword+shield/dual wield: 5 button clicks
sword+spell: 4to de-equip sword + 1to close menu + 4 to de-equip spell = 9


12:
using the E key for both grabbing items and for picking up items is a bad convention, and results in far too many un-intentional picking up of items that are only desired to be moved around in the world.


[edit]:
from further playthrough i have some more issues i'd like to highlight:

13:
conversation options sometimes become "sticky", where clicking on one option will instead play the one that is highlighted by the arrow and/or play the one below it
this issue also occurs occasionally in the options menu and journal.

13a:
there is also a similar problem when trying to load a game (i.e. if you click on one game file, but then click on another one, when the user makes that 2nd click the game will load the 1st save game instead of highlighting the 2nd save file

14:
when trading or crafting or giving/taking items from ahireling or a container, it should be clearer what the action you are doing is.
in particular, when trading it should be clear that the item clicked on is in the buy menu not the sell menu.
the best way to make this apparent would be to have the merchants list of items appear on the right of the screen whilst the users item list appears on the left.
furthermore, perhaps allowing a "confirm" option that can be clicked after all items to be bought/sold are highlighted (akin to the morrowind system)

14a:
crafting: when you wish to craft the same thing multiple times (e.g. leather ->leather strips) it is quite annoying that the "are you sure windows" can not be giving an "accept" with the same keypress that initiates the craft (and causes the confirmation window to appear)

15:
the 4-point menu has magic on the left and items on the right. often though i will end up clicking on the right arrow wheni want magic, because the magic list/window is displayed on the right of the screen when open.
the same is true for the item window - i often click on the left point when i want items.

16:
navigating the skills/perks is very difficult on the keyboard. it's too easy to end up on a star of an adjacent skill when you are navigating the stars of one skill tree, and in some cases it's near impossible to select/highlight a star in particular depending on how they are laid out. I feel that it would be much easier to use if the clicking with the mouse would highlight directly

17:
Being unable to sort the inventory by weight/value/attack/defense is detrimental to long term gameplay, when you wish to compare these factors, especially when deciding what to drop and/or to sell in order to get below the carrying capacity.
It'd be nice if there were also a 'by type' as well so that all necklaces/amulets end up together (as opposed to near opposite ends of the apparel list due to A and N)


18:
when trading, sometimes clicking on a submenu will cause the trade session to end (e.g. if you are in your weapons list and click on (your) apparel, the trading session will almost always be terminated)
[end edit]

[edit2]
19:
inconsistent buttons when moving gear between yourself and a hireling(pressing E or left click on a hireling's gear moves it to you, but you have to press R on your own gear to give it to the hireling, otherwise you will try to use/equip it instead)


20:
controlling the horse in skyrim feels strange, in that the keyboard presed directions cause the horse to move relative to camera angle rather than relative to the horse's orientation.
[end edit2]

other (non-UI) issues:
- overly long intro sequence that is not interruptable
- being unable to name save files (making it easier to manage multiple characters)
- lack of a "quick start" option, letting you bypass the tutorial
- lack of a "are you sure you're happy with the options you chose" query after the tutorial section is over
- special kill animations don't add anything to the game, and are not even user executed, but instead appear to be randomly triggered by the killing blow. for all the work that was put into animating them, this feels wasteful. such animations are a lot more satisfying if the user had some (reliable) control in them being triggered. AKA,let me choose if i want to finish them with flair and coup de grace
- if anything the special kill animations hurt the gameplay by taking the control away from the player in the middle of an intense piece of action. for me at least whenever they trigger i actually feel bewildered at the sudden loss of control and will briefly wonder how i died in the first few moments of the animation (which is usually what happens when the camera pans out and you lose control of your character in midcombat), prior to realising what is going on.




overall, whilst i'm sure the game was adequately tested by focus groups and playable demo events, these were all for the console version, and it appears the assumption was made that if the gameplay is fine on one platform, then it will be fine on another one so long as the program is stable
for the next major title that is released on multiplatform, i would highly recommend that the UI design be rethought when applied to a different platform.



When it comes to UI I feel that the fewer button clicks needed the better.
Furthermore, functionality should be as loosely bound as possible so that the user has the freedom to set up the interface in a manner that is most comfortable to them (see point 1)



[edit]
addendum:
i also wish to mention that some of these issues are not going to be PC only.
multi-character save games and the lack of clarity when trading with an npc for example are probably causing the same problems on the console versions as they are not input-centric issues.
[end edit]

Nice post, I have to admit I find they keybinds problem, and overall, the E for both grabbing/moving objects the worst.
But...for going unarmed you don't really need 5 button clicks, just fav your two weapons and just hit their respective fav button, like 1>2, to unequip them, and there you go. Unarmed in 2 cliks. Not that I don't think there should be an unarmed fav for itself.

The UI in this game is absolutely wretched for the PC. It's very obvious that Bethesda made this game for the XBox and other gaming platforms, and did not put much effort into translating the controls for the PC. I've spent about 2 hours playing it so far, and I can say that most of that time was spent looking at the screen, then the keyboard, then the screen, then the keyboard... trying to figure out what controlled what. Sometimes the mouse works in a menu, sometimes it doesn't and I have to use the arrow keys. I can't even play the game with one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard, I just have no idea what's going on half the time with the controls.

The fact that they put so little effort into creating a workable version of this game for the PC makes me wonder why they even bothered. Bethesda themselves said that the "PC is a headache." Basically, they threw the UI together for the PC and obviously didn't take any time to test it with REAL USERS. Sure, you can do pretty much the same stuff you could with an XBox, if you can move the mouse, click E, click W, the up arrow, click ~, right click, hit Ctrl L, etc. That basically describes what it feels like to do ANYTHING in this game. I don't care if the graphics are pretty, I've barely spent any time actually looking at this supposedly magnificent world. Instead I keep opening up a new menu, then looking around to figure out which keys are controlling what.

I've had this less than a day and I'm already sick of it. That's pretty pathetic, considering all the hype this has gotten for months and months. Seriously, if you're going to make an XBox game, just make an XBox game and don't be greedy for PC income as well. The crappy user interface has completely taken any kind of enjoyment out of what I hoped would be a magnificent game.

You're right, i hadn't thought of that, but that won't de-equip the spell/shield/weapon in your offhand.

try to stick with it, the visuals are very good, and from what i've seen so far, the NPC interactions are pretty nice. (and best of all, it seems that the game isn't as intensive on modern systems as oblivion was when it released. my PC's running surprisingly smoothly on the high end of the graphics fidelity and it's over 2 years old)
although i will agree with you about not trying to sell a game for a platform that hasn't had enough attention to testing. testing is as important to a product as the programming or the art, sadly it's usually cut short due to tight deadlines.

Well done. Thank you for posting such a detailed look at those issues. Much better said than I could have done.
I agree.

Very well said, and in a nice calm manner too

I am loving the game and really the only downside to the whole experience is the UI and kb+m hotkeys issue (I cannot use a 360 controller because I have arthritis in my thumb joints and it hurts a lot to use one!) Keyboards have 300+ key combinations (with shift/ctrl/alt + other keys), a little bit more effort put into allowing people to remap their keyboard controls and use hotkeys for weapons or armour combinations, to go straight to a particular stats page without having to go through an intermediary menu, or open/close a container using the same key, would have been greatly appreciated - as it is, it's a bit of a struggle and requires more key presses than ought to be the case.

Having said that, I still think this is the best new release I have played in the last few years, but just a little more attention to ease of use for the bog standard keyboard and mouse would have gone a LONG way in eliminating a bit of frustration that some of us are feeling about the controls

Nice summary, makes me glad I did not pre-order. And after reading about the pc UI screw-up, I think I'll likely wait for a half price sale before I buy the game.

No ability to name saves is almost a deal breaker for me - there is just really NO EXCUSE for that laziness/disrepect to the pc users

I'm in a similar boat with gamepads. although for me it's simply that i'm left handed. but even if i wasn't, a product released on a system should meet the standard interface of the system. (imagine if the PS version required an XBox layout controller or viceversa)

the saving issue is legacy from oblivion i believe. i was surprised at it then and i'm surprised at it now even more so.

Well said; I agree. If Bethesda is going to look at any of the "the UI svcks" posts, I hope it's this one.

well i'm not actually outright saying that the UI svcks. I can see the advantages it possesses from the console standpoint, where a mouse or similar peripheral is not easily available.
and whilst it doesn't do anything for me, i admit the being able to rotate items in a 3d view in the inventory is a nice touch. (though personally i much prefer being able to see my character in the inventory screen like in the previous two titles).

Bethesda has decided to be like the teacher that instructs at the level of the slowest student. It's frustrating and a waste of everyone else's time.

One tester given a day with the game would have found these issues. They did not even try, nor do they care to. Remember, the gamers that kept this company afloat are a "headache" to design for.

I'm sure that will continue to be the attitude if current industry predictions are accurate and PC sales exceed console by 2014. We'll see them do the same to the console players and expect us not to remember.

Great post! I hope they will fix all the points, but I really hate number 2 :unsure2:

unlikely. it's quite easy to port from pc to console relatively speaking. as you're moving onto a well defined system. there are also links between the attitudes of the playerbase towards games (UI or artstyle or other) and the console in question (and this is probably also true to a lesser extent for PCs).

originally i tried re-binding left and right, and it worked great when using spells and 1 handed weapons.

unfortunately though when the block is added (shields or 2-handers), things got all messy again. i've actually chosen to completely ignore using spells/weapons in the offhand because of this fact.

Yeah, they KNOW that pc users want to be able to name save files, and Bethesda JUST DOESN'T CARE what pc players want

i'm not sure that's entirely true, i mean they have said on numerous occasions that the graphics quality on the PC version is superior to the console versions when people cited worries that the game was catering to consoles over catering to PCs. I believe that they simply have focused their development on the loudest complaints.
think back to oblivion for example: that adding of horses AND fast travel, whilst excluding mounted combat. these features were both added because they were two of the loudest things being cried for by the community. as a result we ended up with horses becoming redundant in the game.
a more important issue to work on i think would have been to change how guards react to crime (as in a guard shuoldn't know you've had a crime unless he's been personally told by a civilian or another guard, rather than the psychic guards of oblivion).

edit: another example is "marriages" - this is something people cried for (i believe it was mainly from people who'd finished fable2 and wanted more of the same though that's purely hypothesising on my part) and in my opinion is not something that adds significantly to the game. (although i'm sure there are those who find it to be a major plus point)

in short, when people are happy with a game feature they rarely respond to it in volume or in numbers in any way similar to the numbers and volume that complaints can generate.
(case in point, the UI issues of skyrim have raised a lot of ire in the PC gamers of skyrim)

It works fine if you use WASD / QER. Takes a bit of getting used to, but you can move around it quickly once you do. The only place this doesn't really work is on the skills star map thing- navigating between perks requires the mouse, else you end up switching constellations too often. So it's not perfect, and takes a bit of getting used to, but if you go with it rather than fighting against it things will get better.

If you want a new interface, then you're VERY LUCKY because you're playing on the PC. You'll be able to change it with mods. You'll be able to change virtually everything you find 'console-ified' or distasteful with mods. You can't do that on the console The PC version is still the one to get.

I also notice there's at least one person on the thread- namely mrmike_49- who hasn't got the game, and is still slagging it off. Play the game before you decide to have an opinion on it, please.

there's only so much that mods can change. the basic shape and form of the menus won't be changable with mods as these things are hardcoded into the game (otherwise there'd be an oblivion mod that would mimic the menu UI of morrowind)

problems for me thati've highlighted stem from inconsistency. example being: i'm holding a mace in the right and a spell in the left, i want to zap something/one with my spell, so i instinctively press the left mouse button, only to find my character enter a swing animation (and whilst not overly long, when it wasn't your intended action, waiting for the animation to end so you can fire the spell is definetly annoying and frustrating)

This is a very well formed original post. No ranting and well thought through. The sort of post that developers should take on board and respond to. I believe the op has hit the nail on the head perfectly with the points he made. This really should be stickied and posters should be encouraged not to rant.

On the issue of naming saves, I assume you guys know that you CAN name saves via the console. Type save (name of your choice). If the name has more than 1 word, you must use quotation marks (ie, save "my savegame name"). If your save is just 1 word, no quotation marks are necessary.

You could do this in Oblivion, by the way.

Stannie

two more things. its the only two thing besides grab that bothers me greatly.
1. icons to tell when your buffs run out instead of having to go to your effects page.
2. a way to tell how many charges are left on your weapon and a way to tell how many charges a soul gem has.

you can remap this. I did. its in the controls area

And then the right click is the attack for 2 handed weapons...

The UI needs improvement... There are many small issues that add up to impaired functionality, let alone that the entire design concept is not friendly to the mouse and keyboard.

Thanks for the comprehensive list- all of which I have experienced. Would be great if Beth put in the time to improve this, but, as boggling as it may seem, precedent suggests this is unlikely, at least as far as design concept.