User Interface Designer. If a project includes user interface design as a separate role, it’s performed by one or more people responsible for designing the layout of the screen in the various gameplay modes of the game and defining the function of the input devices. In large, complex games, this can easily be a full-time task. An otherwise brilliant game can be ruined by a bad user interface, so it is a good idea to have a specialist on board. (See Figure 2.7 for a notorious example.) Large developers are increasingly turning to usability experts from other software industries to help them test and refine their interfaces.
Figure 2.7. Trespasser: Jurassic Park was an innovative game ruined by an awkward and buggy user interface.
User Interface (UI) Design focuses on anticipating what users might need to do and ensuring that the interface has elements that are easy to access, understand, and use to facilitate those actions. UI brings together concepts from interaction design, visual design, and information architecture.
Terminology
Before reading further in this article there is some terminology you need to be familiar with.
Diegetic: Interface that is included in the game world -- i.e., it can be seen and heard by the game characters. Example: the holographic interface in Dead Space.
Non-diegetic: Interface that is rendered outside the game world, only visible and audible to the players in the real world. Example: most classic heads-up display (HUD) elements.
Spatial:UI elements presented in the game's 3D space with or without being an entity of the actual game world (diegetic or non-diegetic). The character outlines in Left 4 Dead are an example of non-diegetic spatial UI.
Meta: Representations can exist in the game world, but aren't necessarily visualised spatially for the player; these are meta representations. The most apparent example is effects rendered on the screen, such as blood spatter on the camera to indicate damage.
Terminology from Fagerholt, Lorentzon (2009) "Beyond the HUD - User Interfaces for Increased Player Immersion in FPS Games". Master of Science Thesis, Chalmers University of Technology
Diegetic (below = I found very Interesting) Found at thewunderlust .net
Diegetic user interface elements exist within the game world (fiction and geometry) so the player and avatar can interact with them through visual, audible or haptic means. Well executed diegetic UI elements enhance the narrative experience for the player, providing a more immersive and integrated experience.
Many games get away with using Diegetic patterns because their narrative is set in the future, where UI overlays in daily life are commonly accepted. This is the case for the latest version of Syndicate. If the story was set in a different time period the UI elements would be probably be considered Spatial (explained in detail later in this post) instead of Diegetic.
Assassin’s Creed manages to use a lot diegetic patterns even though it’s set in a historical world because the player of the player is using a virtual reality system in the future. So the story is in fact futuristic rather than historical.
There are cases when diegetic UI elements aren’t appropriate, either because they aren’t legible in the geometry of the game world, or there’s a need to break the fiction in order to provide the player with more information than the character should or does know.
Meta
Sometimes UI elements don’t fit within the geometry of the game world. They can still maintain the game’s narrative but sit on the 2D hub plane — these are called Meta elements. A common example of a Meta UI element is blood the splatters on the screen as a form of health bar, as in. Blood splashing on the screen within the 2D HUD plane to tell the player that the character is losing health
Interacting with the phone in Grand Theft Auto 4 is an interesting example. It mimics the real world interaction — you hear the phone ringing and there is a delay before the character and player answer it. The actual UI element itself appears on the 2D hub plane though, so it’s actually a Meta element, though the start of the interaction is Diegetic. The character is answering the phone but the actual UI element is placed within the 2D HUD plane that only the player sees Spatial Spatial UI elements are used when there’s a need to break the narrative in order to provide more information to the player than the character should be aware of. They still sit within the geometry of the game’s environment to help immerse the player and prevent them from having to break the experience by jumping to menu screens. The closer these follow the rules of the game’s fiction the more they can help immerse the player.
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