Modern user interface — useful, and then beautiful

At the XGamesDev conference, Vasily Shamray (Gameloft) made a presentation “UI/UX: a modern approach to creating a user interface“. Evgenia Pritula outlined the theoretical material and recommendations for creating a user interface specifically for App2top.ru

Input data

The UI determines how the game will “communicate” with its user. This is one of the most important components of development, which can both save and spoil the project. There is a possibility that when faced with a bad interface already in the main menu, the player will not get to the gameplay. An unfinished, inconvenient or complex UI can ruin the gaming experience. On the contrary, a friendly interface can become one of the best means of stimulating monetization.

Vasily Shamray

Both the artist and the game designer are responsible for its development. They should be guided by ergonomic and artistic values based on cognitive science — knowledge about human perception. An integrated approach will help to create an interactive system that can meet the user’s requirements during the gameplay. 

The starting point should be the player’s experience. The form always follows the task, and does not work on the principle of creating “beauties”. Perfect graphics will not save you if the user has not realized his needs in the shortest number of clicks. 

Presentation

Something has gone out of fashion

Initially, UI is an area of industrial design responsible for the organization of human—machine interaction. These relationships were based on a simple exchange: a person makes a request, a machine responds. The criteria were as simple as possible: convenient or inconvenient, understandable or difficult. 

In game development, the interface becomes an intermediary between the player and the game. The principles remain, but the approach has changed! The game needs not just to process commands, but to communicate with the player in an accessible form. The interface should be visually appealing, immerse users in the world of the game and at the same time often manipulate them to lead to purchases or interesting experiences.

Something fashionable

A good interface does not distract from the gameplay, but is its component that guides the player on the way through the game universe. The user does not want to wonder what kind of input data is needed. The intuitive interface allows the player to act exactly as he wants within the rules and conventions. 

The UI consists of images and sounds that provide the perception of the game, texts that create an interesting, exciting plot, and experience, for example, the pleasure of defeating the boss. The interface components primarily embody functions: beautiful music — not just pleases the ear, but also immerses in the right atmosphere, achievements not only decorate the profile, but also motivates to play more. Each element must serve a specific purpose!

Something is forever

The proposed approach to creating a game interface is based on the theory of decision-making. Each specific decision that a player (or game) makes acts as a basic block of a time-extended flow built on the following principles: 

• Sequence and branching: some decisions can be made only after others, the need to make third decisions can arise only with a certain result of the previous ones;
• a number of related micro-solutions (subtasks) can be understood as some macro-solution;
• the possibility to cancel an earlier decision — to go back a step — should be considered a separate decision.

This approach to the interface allows you to use certain tricks. For example, from the point of view of psychology, a person makes only one decision at a time, but if you bring some repetitive actions to habit and automatism, the player will solve such tasks unconsciously. This can help the developer manage user behavior.

Result

At the concept stage, take care of the organization of ergonomics. Then choose the mode of action and how to implement it using game mechanics. Only then proceed to the creation of expressive means. Guided by these rules, bring the conceived interface to life.

It is possible to achieve the desired result only gradually. Constantly conduct tests, create prototypes. Thanks to the experience gained, your UI will evolve and become high-quality.