Today we as players are offered more choices than ever before. VR, multi screen setups are some of them.
Designing a good and functional UI is not an easy task, and sometimes it can even pull a game in the wrong direction.
"Physical interaction methods and immersive technology such as VR headsets promise to challenge game UI design, allowing for a stronger connection between the avatar and character as both engage in similar actions at the same time. Technology provides an opportunity for deeper levels of interaction with the addition of audio and haptic elements. This will mean less use of non-diegetic UI." Source
In Elite Dangerous we are at the moment the ship, we are the SRV, therefor the HUD display is a part of our experience. In the future when we can walk around, we will need a different set of UI attached to the character.
It all depends of the type of game you want the player to experience.
"Game UI has a key advantage (or disadvantage from some perspectives) in that players are often engaged with the narrative and/or game mechanic enough for them to learn new interaction patterns, or forgive bad ones. This is likely the reason so many games have bad UI, as testing needs to encompass the core game mechanic while UI is seen as secondary." Source
There are two modes available in Elite, your character with the visor down or with the visor up / not wearing a helmet.
Visor down, will show a HUD like display, however when the character do not wear a helmet the UI design need to shift to a different UI system.
A complete Diegetic UI with no HUD elements to help to support the narrative, would be my first choice. Metro 2033 and similar games style UI is very immersive, and still gives the play all the information needed to play the game.
WIth the Engineers UI we experienced some UI parts that didn't amplified Elites ambivalent background or settings. In my opinion it pulled the game into a world set in another universe. The sliders, the "wheel" felt misplaced and just plain wrong. I know, it easy to point a finger, and a lot of time was sinked into that design, however that is how I felt.
So how could it be done? first I would not use the sounds used when the sliders are rolling the dice, they just enforce the gambling part of that mechanic. Secondly using sliders would not be my choice as it associate with gambling.
This example is a simple PC tweaking app, however the UI in Elite could have been done in a similar way, this way you get the impression that, this is a tweak and not a gamble.
[video=youtube;67O7uAjk9YA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67O7uAjk9YA[/video]
Designing a good and functional UI is not an easy task, and sometimes it can even pull a game in the wrong direction.
"Physical interaction methods and immersive technology such as VR headsets promise to challenge game UI design, allowing for a stronger connection between the avatar and character as both engage in similar actions at the same time. Technology provides an opportunity for deeper levels of interaction with the addition of audio and haptic elements. This will mean less use of non-diegetic UI." Source
In Elite Dangerous we are at the moment the ship, we are the SRV, therefor the HUD display is a part of our experience. In the future when we can walk around, we will need a different set of UI attached to the character.
It all depends of the type of game you want the player to experience.
"Game UI has a key advantage (or disadvantage from some perspectives) in that players are often engaged with the narrative and/or game mechanic enough for them to learn new interaction patterns, or forgive bad ones. This is likely the reason so many games have bad UI, as testing needs to encompass the core game mechanic while UI is seen as secondary." Source
There are two modes available in Elite, your character with the visor down or with the visor up / not wearing a helmet.
Visor down, will show a HUD like display, however when the character do not wear a helmet the UI design need to shift to a different UI system.
A complete Diegetic UI with no HUD elements to help to support the narrative, would be my first choice. Metro 2033 and similar games style UI is very immersive, and still gives the play all the information needed to play the game.
WIth the Engineers UI we experienced some UI parts that didn't amplified Elites ambivalent background or settings. In my opinion it pulled the game into a world set in another universe. The sliders, the "wheel" felt misplaced and just plain wrong. I know, it easy to point a finger, and a lot of time was sinked into that design, however that is how I felt.
So how could it be done? first I would not use the sounds used when the sliders are rolling the dice, they just enforce the gambling part of that mechanic. Secondly using sliders would not be my choice as it associate with gambling.
This example is a simple PC tweaking app, however the UI in Elite could have been done in a similar way, this way you get the impression that, this is a tweak and not a gamble.
[video=youtube;67O7uAjk9YA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67O7uAjk9YA[/video]
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