As the universe becomes more complex, more entities are vying for space on the HUD: notifications, Points-of-Interest, QT destinations, ships, mission markers, etc. What can be done to manage all of this information?

Zane says that when they have easily flexible layouts, they can start thinking more about how to make things smarter regarding when info is displayed. He brings up an example that CR has referred to previously this year: the "Target Box" which often just sits there saying "No Target", saying that if you don't have a target, why don't they just not have the box there at all. Typically that extends across all UIs too, such as the MFDs, where if you don't need to view something at that time, it can disappear out of view and reappear when they're needed, i.e. being more contextual. Simon adds that as they've been developing, they've been adding more and more things, so now they can take a step back and figure out what they want to show and how best to do that. They refer to the Chat box as an example of how it's almost constantly overlapping other UI elements when really it needs its own space on the screen, which Zane says is because the Chat box and the Ship UIs are on two different contexts, so they don't know about each other's sizes. He mentions how they're reworking the MFDs right now, creating a whole new system that's much more systemic, where it has a grid system "where everything kind of fits into each other and you can create different sizes of widgets", and suggests that that's probably how it'd be when they revamp the rest of the UI too. They want to be able to not have information repeated, such as being on the helmet visor as well as being on an MFD, as well as Players then being able to specify what information/HUD element they want on their visor. This requires building the foundation first into the overall design, which is something they're spending a lot of time working on right now as the tech is being developed in parallel. So they're building the tools to help them as developers to make really good UI, and then when that's done they can put the good UI into the game for everyone to see and use it, and hopefully to give feedback on it. Jared hints that the next quarter of ISC will show off some of this UI work that's in-progress.