I'm converting a post I made several months ago : https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/forums/169-game-design-and-ideas/threads/48014-ui-ux-suggestion-to-improve-the-city-s-panel-construction-queue?page=1#post-350923


So far, I could figure out 2 ways to improve the city's construction queue usage :


1 - Adding a button to expand the construction's queue


Here's an attempt to draw/materialise the suggestion, with the current available UI, the expand button would open the construction queue with as many rows as there are items in the queue. Minimizing the queue would bring back the construction queue with the horizontal slider :



The expanded queue should probably be limited to 4-5 rows at maximum, in order to still diplay the constructions and completed tabs in the city's panel, with its vertical slider.


Ultimately, this would really help moving the construction items around to place them in the desired order.


2 - Placeable item in the construction's queue


When an item is selected in the constructions tabs, it remains above the queue, until you place it at a specific slot in the queue.


Example :


It would act like the "reorganise by selection", where you grab an item, and move it up or down, in the construction queue. The item would be placed in the queue by the player, in the position the player chose.

In case of an already long construction queue, the "unslotted" item would appear on the visible part of the construction queue (either beginning, middle, or end of the queue).


A unit has been selected in the Unit tab, it appears above the current construction queue, waiting the player to position it in the queue :


The player would then have to move first the construction queue scroll bar, in order to be able to place the item in the desired position.


In a city with a long construction queue, the player first move the queue to the desired position, then select the item in the related tab, and position it in the queue :


It would probably need a sort of information/notification/feedback to remind the player to actively place the item in the queue, since currently, any movable item will be queued at the end of it when clicking out of the construction queue. Something like a red notification above the item : "move the item to place it in the queue".

This could be very helpful for districts/quarters specifically, since the player have to place their templates first on the map, before queueing them.