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Hi UI & UX gamedev twitter hivemindWe have to talk.
Every game studio should have a UX department that collaborates with art, code and design.
We need a dept that is there to serve the user and by doing so allows products to perform better.
Thread below...
Making a game is a very messy business and studios are split between these big neat silos of art, design, code, production and UI and UX have for decades struggled to find a way to fit this departmental divide.
Most of us have to juggle between art, design and code and...
Most of us have to juggle between art, design and code and...
... whoever we report to sets the bias for what the UI/UX needs to be. Either art prioritises visuals over design and UX and you get poor usability, design prioritises feature requirements over art and UX and you get bloat and lack cohesion. Its a constant tug of war and the...
... user is the one that loses every time. Many game studios have UI Artists (or some version of the title) under art, UX Designers under Design and they try their best however this segmentation results...
... in communication issues, politics, egos flying high and everyone is focussed on their craft. Artists make beautiful looking graphics, designers create beautifully intricate systems but it does not serve the user. Some studios that have hired...
... UX directors are given the impossible task to wrangle all the departments resources and battle against each depts bias/needs. The game industry is just failing so badly overall with this problem and its such a monumentally huge problem that most of us that work in UI and UX..
... rather avoid the problem entirely and do our best but we can do so so much better.
We need to grow up. We must evolve.
The user must come first. ...
We need to grow up. We must evolve.
The user must come first. ...
This is my hope for the game industry:
- UX should be its own department
- We follow the software industry and abolish “UI Artist” as a title and use “UI Designer” instead. “Visual Designer” if they only do icons/illustrations...
- UX should be its own department
- We follow the software industry and abolish “UI Artist” as a title and use “UI Designer” instead. “Visual Designer” if they only do icons/illustrations...
..- Visual Design is a subset of UI Design and UI Design is a subset of UX. The UI Designer and UX Designer share responsibilities with usability, interaction and information architecture. A UX designer deals with hypotheses, ..
... analysis etc and they feed into parts of the game that is not just UI that serves other goals/needs of the user and the business needs of the product. ...
...- I’d imagine the reporting structure for such a dept to be something like this:
UX Dept
— Director of UX
—— UX Team
—— User Research Team
—— UI Design Team
I’d love to open this as a discussion to all the lovely UI and UX folks out there. ...
UX Dept
— Director of UX
—— UX Team
—— User Research Team
—— UI Design Team
I’d love to open this as a discussion to all the lovely UI and UX folks out there. ...
...My observations above is formed from 15 years of experience working in software, web and games as both a UI Designer and UX Designer.
Some of you might know historically I defended UI not being a subset of UX but I’ve since changed my mind.
...
Some of you might know historically I defended UI not being a subset of UX but I’ve since changed my mind.
...
The world of UI and UX is a confusing one even for someone with my experience. Its constantly evolving but we’re at a stage now where gamedev is just seriously lagging behind. Maybe because as an industry we’ve dug ourselves so deep. Still hopeful of a better future!
