What's your process for prototyping game UI and UX?

Prototyping game UI and UX is a crucial step in game development, as it allows you to test your ideas, get feedback, and iterate on your design. In this article, you'll learn some tips and tools for creating effective prototypes that can help you improve your game's usability, functionality, and appeal.

1 Define your goals

Before you start prototyping, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your game UI and UX. What are the core features and mechanics of your game? How do you want your players to interact with them? What kind of emotions and experiences do you want to evoke? Having a well-defined scope and vision will help you focus your prototyping efforts and avoid unnecessary complexity.

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Angel Doyle

UX Designer, Writer, and Game Designer striving to create intuitive, engaging, and memorable experiences.
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I think of UI and controls as I design mechanics: Overcomplexity without a system to mitigate it can make readable UI or intuitive controls impossible. I tend to start with keeping in mind the high value buttons on a controller and areas on the screen, for example the spacebar for keyboard users. What core gameplay features are important and urgent enough that players need to access them at a moment's notice? In action games I tend to build around the health bar in UI and attack +whatever action the player uses to avoid damage in controls, be it a block, parry, or dodge. From there I go to secondary priority elements and actions, like mana or ammunition, and as I brainstorm ideas I question where they fit in the controls and UI.

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2 Choose your tools

When prototyping your game UI and UX, you can choose from a variety of tools depending on your goals, budget, and skills. The simplest and cheapest way to sketch out ideas is with paper and pencil. This allows you to create wireframes, mockups, or storyboards that show the layout, flow, and functionality of your game UI and UX. You can also use paper prototypes to test your game mechanics and interactions with physical objects or cards. Digital tools are software applications that allow you to create interactive prototypes that simulate your game UI and UX on a screen. These can be high-fidelity prototypes that look and feel like the final product, or low-fidelity prototypes that focus on the basic functionality and usability. Examples of digital tools are Adobe XD, Figma, Unity, Unreal Engine, or GameMaker Studio. Hardware tools are devices or gadgets that allow you to prototype your game UI and UX on different platforms or with different input methods. Examples of hardware tools are smartphones, tablets, gamepads, Oculus Quest, or Kinect.

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Angel Doyle

UX Designer, Writer, and Game Designer striving to create intuitive, engaging, and memorable experiences.
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Personally, I start with whiteboards for testing out different UIs. There's a lot of motion, micro-adjustments, and animation to consider when making them. I like to mock up a UI layout on a whiteboard and then ask my team to close their eyes as I modify some information on the UI, then see how quick and easy it is for them to recognize that you're low on resources or one of your allies is in danger, etc. If it's hard to notice, maybe change the color of the health bar as it gets low or make some elements larger. It might sound a bit cheesy, but it helps a lot with getting a better mental picture of the UI in action before proceeding to higher-fidelity prototypes.

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3 Test your prototypes

Once you have created your prototypes, you need to test them with your target audience and get feedback. Testing your prototypes will help you identify and fix any issues or flaws in your game UI and UX, such as usability, accessibility, readability, responsiveness, or aesthetics. You can use various methods to do this, such as user testing, heuristic evaluation, and analytics. User testing allows you to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of your game UI and UX by observing and interviewing real users. Heuristic evaluation lets you check the consistency, clarity, feedback, visibility, affordance, or error prevention of your game UI and UX against a set of established principles or guidelines. And analytics lets you track the usage, engagement, retention, conversion, or monetization of your game UI and UX by collecting and analyzing quantitative data on user behavior and performance. All these methods can be conducted in person or remotely using the appropriate tools.

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Angel Doyle

UX Designer, Writer, and Game Designer striving to create intuitive, engaging, and memorable experiences.
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It's important to create a realistic environment with UI testing: you can't do it in a vacuum. Players are often distracted while Information is changing on the UI, and that's when the flaws become the most clear. Depending on what game you're making and what stage of development you're in, you might want to try overlaying your UI on a similar game or over some other activity. If you have a playable prototype, make a test room where the player has to engage with a hectic situation. The test has to be for if players can gain the information they need from the UI when they can't afford to give it their full attention.

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4 Iterate on your design

Based on the results of your testing, you need to iterate on your design and improve your prototypes. Iteration is the process of making changes, additions, or deletions to your game UI and UX based on feedback and data. This is essential for refining and polishing your game UI and UX, as well as validating your assumptions and hypotheses. To do so, you should analyze the feedback and data you collected from testing to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your game UI and UX. Then, prioritize what changes you want to make based on the impact and effort they require. Implement these changes using the chosen tools and repeat the testing and iteration process until you reach a desired level of quality. Prototyping game UI and UX is an iterative and creative process that can help you design engaging and enjoyable games. By following these tips, you can create effective prototypes that can help you test ideas, get feedback, and iterate on your design.

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5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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What's your process for prototyping game UI and UX?

1

2

3

4

5

1 Define your goals

2 Choose your tools

3 Test your prototypes

4 Iterate on your design

5 Here’s what else to consider

Game Development

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What's your process for prototyping game UI and UX?

1

2

3

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5

1 Define your goals

2 Choose your tools

3 Test your prototypes

4 Iterate on your design

5 Here’s what else to consider

Game Development

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