Interesting insight here. It reminds me of a similar case in video games, namely traditional real-time strategy games like Starcraft. The UX design in these games is pronounced and inelegant, in part because it raises the skillcap of high level play. For professional RTS players, not only is your tactical decision making a differentiatior, but also your ability to manipulate the various UI menus as fast as possible.
> For professional RTS players, not only is your tactical decision making a differentiatior, but also your ability to manipulate the various UI menus as fast as possible.
Is it, though? What original StarCraft did right, and what was likely a big part of what made it popular as a pro game, was that you could do almost everything with the keyboard. Storing and recalling groups of units, selecting commands, abilities, moving the screen around, etc. - all of that was just one keypress away, and easily-discoverable one at that. About the only thing you need the mouse for in pro SC play is pointing and clicking to select units or target commands you've activated by keyboard. In particular, you don't navigate any "UI menu" ever.
