Interaction Design 2d Game App Animation

Is UX Design a separate practice from Game Design?

Distinctions between these two practices can be helpful in the development of Games as a unique medium.

With increasing competition among brands and products, the demand for a more user-centric and sophisticated design of experiences continue to grow. UX design has surfaced as one of the few widely discussed topics in the field of Interaction Design.

The top 10 technological companies, such as Microsoft HXD studio, Facebook HCI Lab, Oracle UX lab, Tencent's ISUX and IBM CX Lab to Banking, Hospitality, and Healthcare industry are now more invested in experience design than ever before due to its unique function in bridging the goals of the company with the experiences of the consumer.

User E xperience Design , though established in the web industry and existed as early as the 1950s is curiously, a relatively new and emerging practice in the video game industry.

Digging into the GDC archives, you will find that the earliest mention of UX design was from a talk given by former Ubisoft producer, Simon Davis, in 2012 — The Wonderful World of UX: How We Can Make Games that Resonate Better and Learn from Approaches to Music.

While it is surprising that we have as an industry started talking about UX just seven years ago. It is, however, encouraging to see a growing number of game studios investing in UX development and expertise. There is an increasing number of conferences, resources, and interests revolving around the topic of UXUI design in games around the globe.

So, you may ask, why does it matter that developers understand what UX is and its role in the development of a game?

Well, it depends on what your relationship is in the multidisciplinary practice of the game development. Before any discussion can occur, perhaps I can first offer what I think UX is.

A discussion about UX

An image of a cup with the word — Photo by Cody Engel on Unsplash

" In order for two people to have a conversation about UX, both people [SIC] need to be clear about what exactly they mean by the terms. Simple enough you might say, but not as simple as you think." — Brian Sheridan, FluidUI.com

As an emerging field in game development, UX design is often either a mystery to developers or simply misunderstood. ("They just make wireframes all day, no?"). In some cases, it requires an extra effort in convincing and stressing about the importance of it in game development. In other instances, UX design in video games is either an afterthought or a "luxury" on the team. You could ask several people what UX design is or what is the difference between game design and UX design and chances are you get varying definitions.

I hope, with the help of some worked examples that this article can help to provide some clarity to allow for more productive discussions.

A short description of each design practice in the field of interaction design:

A visual chat drawing the connection between CX, UX and UI. — A visual model of where CX, UX, and UI exist relative to each field.

Customer Experience Design (CX):
You may have heard of the term, CX design. Not to be confused with UX.

CX refers to designing the customer's experience with a company or brand, at every interaction with the brand.
CX maps the (target)customer journey at every touchpoint, sometimes even before the customer decides to buy a product or service. "What is this person searching?" "What are the choices the customer have?" "How can our product and brand be the first that comes to people's minds?".

User Experience Design (UX):
To consider every interaction between a user and a product; to design the user's experience leveraging on UX design methods and tools, making sure that the experience is a pleasant and delightful one.

User Interface Design (UI):
Using visuals (images, graphics, and motion design) to communicate, to deliver information with clarity, and to support UX design, ensuring the success of the intended UX design of the product and service.

UIUX in video games development

A playstation four controller in mid-air, dropping onto a hand. — **UX is the bridge between game design and players.** ( Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash | Icons from The Noun Project)

Traditionally speaking, the UX designer's role in game development was a combination of game designer, user tester, business analyst, and many others. As games get bigger with deeper and more complex mechanics and systems, new roles such as UX designer emerge. A new job title may have been created; most UX designers in the game industry were once game designers or came with a game design background. The result of this transition, as you guessed, adds to the ambiguity over the differences between game design and UX design.

Let's see if we can gain some clarity over what is UIUX, and what is not (using examples from Overwatch and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege).

Note: Following examples do not represent the scope of all UX work in game development; they highlight just a very small part of what UX design does in defining the flow of interaction and feedback design within the feature such as a character's ability in a game.

OVERWATCH, Hanzo Ultimate Ability

Game Design (Not UX) —
Hanzo fires an arrow that, after traveling 10 meters, becomes a pair of dragons that spiral around each other while flying forward and continue forward forever. Dragonstrike does 150 damage per second, per dragon with a casting time of 1.4 seconds (initial animation); the arrow remains for 0.6 seconds before transforming into the dragons.

Hanzo's from overwatch, character's stats. — Hanzo Ultimate Ability Stats. Source: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Hanzo

UIUX —

Screen capture from a video of Hanzo's using the Dragonstrike, Hanzo's ultimate ability. — Top image source | Bottom image source

UX defines the beginning-to-end flow of the micro-interaction that the player experiences. In this example, it is crucial for the player to know when Hanzo's ultimate ability is ready to be activated, who (yourself or enemy team) uses the ability, and what kind of feedback (visual + audio) to include that is informative, attractive and satisfying to look at and listen to. Last but not least, the player needs feedback to understand when the ability ends, and the flow mentioned above repeats.

UX defines the flow of interaction and feedback. UI refers to all the visual design and animation you see in this example.

UI design refers to all the 2D visual design (texts, icons, colours, and animations) on the interface to give players the necessary feedback on statuses, overall match progress, and team information.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege — Dokkaebi's Phone Call

Game Design (Not UX) —
Unique Weapon, Logic Bomb X 2.
What it does: "Uploads a virus that forces enemy devices to emit a loud noise, thereby compromising their position." — Source

An image of Dokkaebi from Rainbow Six Siege and her character's loadout information — Dokkaebi's Loadout. Source: https://rainbowsix.fandom.com/wiki/Dokkaebi

UIUX —

Using Dokkaebi's Phone Call as an attacker

Receiving a phone call from Dokkaebi playing as a defender

UX —
Playing as the attacker (orange) in Rainbow Six Siege, operator Dokkaebi deploys "Logic Bomb" to make a phone call to the defender team, attempting to distract or track the opponent team's position. A 3-seconds animation sequence (Dokkaebi selecting the persons to call) plays, followed by the character saying "Yes! Let's see who's nearby".

Now, imagined we replaced this feedback with a piece of background audio and use plain texts to indicate that the phone call has been made, the experience would have been very different and a lot less immersive.

On the defender team, when the phone rings, a vibration sound can be heard. A red headphone icon pops up at the bottom left of the screen at the same time. If the defender player decides to turn off his/her phone, an animation (same 3-seconds duration) shows the defender switching off the phone.

It is also a UX decision on what HUD (head-up display) UI elements are crucial to be on-screen at all time while keeping the other UI pieces contextual to avoid over-cluttering the screen.

UI-
All the 2D visual design (texts, icons, colours, and animations) on the interface to give players the necessary feedback on statuses, overall match progress, and team information.

Conclusion

UX design is not game design. However, it is a critical part of the game development process.
Game design defines rules, creates mechanics, balances gameplay, design toys, activities and things to do in the game etc; UX is the bridge between game design and the player.
UX think about player's journey, it maps out the flow of interactions (from the beginning onboarding moment to the "endgame"). It is a player-centered design process, the UX designer work closely with the user research team to gain insights on usability; it manages sign and feedback, decides on what, when and how the player receives information at any given time etc.
UX is also responsible for accessibility.

A successful UX design in games balances well between delivering a smooth, enjoyable player experience and maintaining the right amount of challenges for the player to keep the game fun, engaging and entertaining. UX does not make a game "too easy".

If you are new to UX and looking to be a UX designer in the game industry, I hope this article has shed some light over the definition of UX in games. Do check out the links below for further readings and references. If you are a game developer having trouble understanding UX, I hope this article is helpful in providing some form of clarity.