I wrote this on some general forum thread, but thought it would be better to copy over here. Also I revised it a bit after some thought.

Problems I have with the UI:

A) I preferred having the spells on the left side of the screen because that mirrors your hand placement making it more intuitive especially when learning the game. Having all the spells on one bar is not good because then its harder to single out at a glance. The addition of the passive button is nice however I don't see why you need to dedicate UI space for something that you cannot activate. After playing a hero the first time you will know what their passive is so it becomes even more superfluous.

B) I really hate the dedicated stat box, its an eyesore, for the amount of time you spend looking at stats it should not take up so much screen space.

C) You don't really need the stuff on the upper half of the screen especially now that there are large portions of unused space on the bottom. Another thing is that you have THREE personal health/mana bars on the screen, why do you need that many? Most of the time the only bar I look at is the one over my head.

My layout suggestions:

1) Make the ability buttons back into what they were in the old UI but just keep them below the "horizon" so they do not intrude into the main play area. Add a level indicator and put your experience bar underneath everything. Essentially this would be the "spell and level up area".

2) Combine the bottom health bar with your character portrait to the left of it, put all your teammates boxes under that box and size everything specifically so together they make one large rectangle. To the right of that make a mirror box that shows your enemy target information.

2a) When you don't have a target then the mirror box shows your item bar and personal statistics, two things that in my opinion you do not need to see 100% of the time so they would be much better this way.

3) The K/D/A window should be a little bigger, and it should be cut into two parts with the match time separated making it easier to see. I also think the gold counter should be up here was well making it stand out more and to save room on the bottom of the screen.

4) I think it would be a good addition to have portraits up for the whole enemy team somewhere on the screen with their level, rez timer, and death indicator. The information is available in the score window so I see no reason to not include it as part of the main HUD.

In closing I have included some awesome MS paint pictures, one with target one without.

Really nice job. Well thought out, smart layout.

I've seen the target frame next to the player's health before and I liked it then as well. I understand your points for ability placement, but I wanted to move the layout towards a more traditional place. Really nice idea, though. We will be adding in the ability to drag the target bar soon and you'll be able to end up with a similar layout (though not as awesome b/c it won't be full of frowny faces :P).

There are some ppl that want to see their stats even in a fight as they are being slowed or getting buffed so instead of covering them with the target, maybe you could thinly line them up horizontally in the space under the 2 frames.

Think I'll snag your idea for the menu buttons stacked vertically next to the mini-map so ppl don't accidentally scroll the map.

The exp bar and level up art is something we are working on right now. We know it could use some love.

Thank you very much for the effort and the well thought out constructive thread. These are the kinds of posts that will find their way into the game and make it a better product for everyone

I like this guy's UI layout. Use!

Something I just thought of, if its important for people to see their stats as they change then it could be added as a pop-up near your character like the damage numbers and disable warnings. Then it could say "stat +50" or "stat 425" or "stat 425 (+50)" depending on what kind of information you're interested in.

In any case, thanks for the positive feedback guys, its a lot better than the bunch of troll faces I was expecting!

I had a lot of fun thinking about this and making pictures since I'm a MMO UI junkie =]

I'd like to put some emphasis on the health bar layout since I support most of what he killggame says, he mentioned theres no reason to have three healthbars onscreen at all times. The top center of the bottom hud is prime real estate and imo the hp bar is the most deserving of that position. I also really liked the old huds style of enemy health, but I'm sure others wont appreciate the long eye travel time from the bottom of the screen to the top. If I could steal killings paint for a moment, I think this is a type of setup many people would be comfortable with.

On top is your hp, and on the bottom left would be your enemys. The smiley faces underneath enemy hp would be the enemy death timers. Nice and easy to find out if you just got nuked or not in a big 5v5 mashup, and it pleases the stat junkies too.

Hope I helped make the re-tuned ui amazing

I love it! my favorite thing is where you have the friendly portraits as well as the bad guys.

I think there should be a portrait for your current target as well, that is setup nice and neat like this UI is. Maybe above the map or something i feel looking up to see my targets stats buffs/debuffs/health etc..etc.. is not as comfortable for myself then to look down at the bottom right above my mini map.

About the mini map, this should be customizable so that users can re size remove it to fit their needs. Maybe add something like different shapes and looks to the mini map to get the user involved with the game. ~Different color themes to pick from/unlock for the UI~