Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
Hi Ivan,

To be honest it was a very close thing between your controller and this. I really liked what your controller offered regards it's hardware and what it would allow me to do with the machine. But if I'm being honest the thing that swayed my choice was the main GUI, I really didn't get on with it in simulation mode.

I found the screen confusing and cluttered with buttons and info I didn't need to see on the main working screen. Likewise things I would like to see where missing or not very obvious. It's not intuitive at all and this really lets it down for me.

I'm used to jumping from software to software using different Control software and hardware all the time and I know the fact that I struggled to gets to grip with it then new users will have a very hard time because it's just not intuitive enough with cluttered screen.

To give an example a forum member and new user to CNC recently posted asking questions about tool changing in Planet CNC controller. Now I've never used this software before but straight away within 2mins, the main screen made sense because it displayed everything I needed and was uncluttered with nice big displays for toolpath and G-code that could be dragged about and sized easily.
All the buttons for often-used functions or custom scripts etc are nicely layout around the edges and all buttons display a short description of what it does when the mouse is held over it. These little things make a big difference to user's experience, esp those who are not using their machines on a daily basis or even weekly basis like many weekend machinists do, so they don't retain what all the buttons, etc do and would spend lot of wasted time refiguring out how to operate your software.

I'm dealing with new users week in week out and I know your software GUI would cause me lots of wasted time answering questions about it because it's just not intuitive enough.

Now please don't take this the wrong way because I'm not pulling down your product and I think the hardware looks very very capable and I am going to try it very soon on my routers, I'm just very busy at the moment so couldn't do it justice.

I hope you take this in the manner it's meant which is feedback, I'm sorry it's negative feedback but hopefully, you can use this and turn it into a positive and improve your GUI because no matter how good the Hardware if the software lets it down then it just doesn't work for me and I know wouldn't for many other users, esp those new to CNC.

Edit: I'm happy to help with feedback or testing regards user experience and I have a lot of experience with dealing with new users so I've got a good insight into what they struggle with. So just ask if this helps.
Hey Jazz, thanks for the reply!

Right off the bat, I just wanted to say that any feedback (especially when it's as reasonable as yours) is always better than no feedback at all, so thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts. Regarding how intuitive the software is - I absolutely agree with you that a lot of machinists simply do not have the time to re-learn what all the buttons and knobs do, and when the screen is cluttered, that problem gets worse. Tooltips are a must - that's why we are just finishing up adding them to all of our profiles for all of our on-screen elements. We will be releasing updated application profiles as soon as testing is finished, but as of this week all the major parts of that system are in place and ready to go.

As for complexity of the GUI in general, it's pretty much a split right down the middle for our customers, with those wanting as little non-crucial info and buttons on the main screen as possible (some going as far as to remove the 2D/3D toolpath visualizations entirely), and those who want all the information and all the buttons, all the time. What we are learning more and more is that it's near impossible to satisfy both camps, so we are considering adding a simplified interface that retains only the most important software functions, and hides away all the information that is not 100% necessary.

The good thing is that myCNC is extremely customizable, that means it doesn't take us much time to create custom profiles, or to design a slimmed-down version of the software (and the same can be done by our users, should they want to do some screen editing). We'd love for you to take a look at our updated interface when it's ready, so we'll keep in touch and will hopefully have something for you soon.

Let me know if you end up testing myCNC on your routers!