UI & UX Notes
Introduction to UX and Usability:
Usability
- Making games efficient, effective, and enjoyable.
User Experience (UX):
- Emotional and sensory experience of interacting with the game
- An example of good UX is breath of the wild, due to how easy it is to use the interface. Everything is clear, simple, and easy to understand.
- An example of bad UX is Cyberpunk, the interface is cluttered and unclear. For instance the dialogue is unclear on who is talking and what choices you can make. The bad UX design is
intentional however, as it is made to fit within the universe of the game. (Note: good interface is better than maintaining immersion IMO)
Diegetic vs. Non-diegetic
Diegetic: The characters can see it. Is within the game world. Ex. readable letters in Red Dead Redemption
Non-Diegetic: Only the player can see. Not being told in the story. Not in the game space.
- Spatial: Partially diegetic, like a waypoint that may technically be within the game world but isn’t necessarily seen by the characters.
- Meta: In the game narrative, but not represented in the game space. For instance in red dead, the player reads the UI for the letter instead of the letter itself.
Nielson & Molich’s 10 Heuristic Principles:
- Visibility of System Status:
The game should always be understood by the player. For instance, we always know when a door is open or closed by looking at it. Another example is the color of the portal gun by looking at
the UI of the blue and orange portals. - Match between the System and the Real World
Making the system understandable by using real world aspects. For instance, the pressure pad in Portal looks like a button to make it clear that it’s something that reacts to force being
acted on it (like putting boxes on it). - User Control and Freedom
Users often peform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked “emergency exit” so that they can leave the unwanted exit. - Consistency and Standards
Users should not wonder whehter different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. - Error Prevention
Designed to stop players from making mistakes that hurt the level design. For instance in Portal, making sure the walls are large enough for the portals and don’t conflict with the
design of the game. - Recognition Rather than Recall
It should be easy to know what’s going on. That is to say, an item should be immediately recognizable, the player shouldn’t have to sit and think and recall what the item is but should
immediately know. - Flexibility and Efficiency of Use
- Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
Interface should not have irrelevant information. Only maintain important information. - Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover from Errors
Error message should be expressed in plain langauge and precisely indicate the problem, and suggest a solution constructively. That’s why death states exist in a game, to make it clear that
the player has made a mistake and needs to approach the situation differently. - Help and Documentation
Best if a game doesn’t need extra words to explain how the game works, but they may be needed to help users understand how to complete tasks.
Affordances and Natural Mappings
- Affordances: Design cues for interaction (Ex. Glowing doors)
- Natural Mappings: Inherently intuitve that appears in the game (Ex. using triggers to shoot a gun, or a cracked stone to indicate you can break it)
HCI Principles in Games
How players understand game systems:
- Mental Models: Internal representations or expectations players develop about how a system or interface should work based on:
- Prior experiences (games they’ve played, real-world logic)
- Feedback from the game (cues, tutorials, mechanics)
- Intuition (crafting recipes in a game resembling real-life processes)
- Misaligned Models: Players’ expectations clash with how the game actually works, creating confusion, frustration, or disengagement.
Memory Interaction
- Working Memory: Actively holds and processes information for immediate tasks
- Short term Memory: Temporarily stores small amounts of
- Long term Memory: