Imagine you're boarding a Boeing 747 and as you board you are able to glance through the open doorway of the cockpit where you notice that the entireity of all controls for the plane include one button and a knob.

I've always been thrilled by the huge, SINGLE PLAYER, open worlds Bethesda serves up. Plenty of free-form exploration, unique character development, loads of quests, lots of NPCs, and loads of items to pick up and use or equip.

But over and over again, we get the equivelent of a Boeing 747 with one button and a knob to manage it all. Please, Bethesda, in your next game, give players the proper UI tools to properly manage the immense amount of data and items that are available during play. Obviously we don't need as many controls as a 747, but we need enough controls to properly and quickly manage the large quantities of items and information in TES games.

Items
I need an inventory system that makes the best use out of every square pixel of available screen real estate. Items should be separable into meaningful categories and each category should be 'filterable.' One no-brainer category should be a 'Quest Item' category. When an Item is both a quest item and a non-quest item (such as when, say, an alchemy ingredient is a quest item and also a plant) such items would show up in both categories of 'Quest Item' AND 'Ingredients.' I'd also enjoy having a 'New Items' category where, say, the last 30 items you have acquired show up in that category. Even better, let the user define how many items show up in the 'New Items' category before they 'scroll away.' Also, please let us drop ANY items we want at any time. Go ahead and warn the player that dropping a certain item may prevent the completion of a quest, but don't force us to hold items we no longer want. I can't stand inventory clutter. I only want to carry stuff that I intend to use.

Search
Somewhere in the UI, there should be a search box where I can type in text to search on. The results could be links to inventory items, quest log entries, books, and information your character has acquired or learned. In this day and age where you can google the most obscure things in real life and find tons of info on the subject, this should translate into large open-world games where anything your character has acquired or learned can quickly be recalled.

Quests
Quest design needs to include the ability to abandon quests. Between 'forced quests' and 'broken quests' the end result is a quest log full of quests I will never do. Take a que from MMOs where abandoning a quest *may* allow you to start it all over again and perhaps even avoid a bug that broke that quest the first time around.

Spells
Spell management needs a lot more UI controls like Inventory Items. I need to be able to get rid of spells I no longer use. If this is possible in Skyrim then I haven't figured it out. I want spells to show up in an order that I can define within their category. There should be some kind of indication of spell ranking. Some kind of indicator of spell duration should be on the main screen when a spell is 'in effect.' I should be able to hover my mouse 'or pointer' over the indicator to get information on the effect. This should be the same for debuffs. I shouldn't have to go through a series of clicks or button presses just to see what buffs or debuffs are affecting me.

In general, the UI should offer the proper amount of tools and controls so that the player can quickly do whatever it is he needs to do in the UI and get back to playing.