[game_edu] Game interface design class?

[Kim Blake]

Hi,
 
One of our designers is super-keen on the importance of UI design and he recommends this from his (not very distant) uni days:
 
Preece, Rogers and Sharp (2002) – Interaction Design
 
It’s got some great stuff in it, but I guess if you were buying it specifically I’d probably say get a cheapo copy since it has enormous swathes dedicated to various different ways of identifying your users needs, the principal of which is great, but the long long explanations of how to do them are not worth your up-to-date pennies.
 
Kim
 
 
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of David Farrell
Sent: 15 June 2011 10:38
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Game interface design class?
 
Hi,

Here at Glasgow Caledonian, I teach a class on game UI.  I put all my slides up on slideshare (anything tagged comu346) and you can download my coursework specification somewhere on the course blog ( http://comu346.com )

We had a similar problem in finding good resources online.  We ended up mixing in some non-game-specific UI stuff (traditional UI + some design focus from Norman's Design of Everyday Things, Duarte's Slideology and Tufte's work amongst other stuff) alongside the gamey stuff.  I couldn't find a single great resource for the game stuff and so ended up using traditional UI teachings and hunting for examples from games myself that used the technique in question.

The class goes a bit beyond game UI in the traditional sense and talks about data visualisation with the aim of promoting better ways of presenting data to players.

The course syllabus this year covered:


* Menus (using Brent Fox's book's approach to flowcharts)
* UI components (including using Krystian Majewski's excellent Mass Effect UI breakdown alongside traditional 'here is what a radio button is good for' stuff)    
* Use of text (fonts etc)
* Use of Colour (mixing game examples, some colourblind stuff and Tufte's work on this )
* Use of layering and separation (Tufte's techniques mapped onto games)
* Micro and Macro design (Tufte again)
* Immersion through UI (heavily based on Fagerhold's brilliant Masters Thesis on diegetic UI - as mentioned in this gamasutra article)
* Semiotics and Icon Design 
* Prototyping Techniques (wireframes / card-sorting / digital prototypes)
* UI evaluation techniques (heuristic evaluation / cognitive walkthrough / think aloud protocol)
* Platform constraints (use the iPhone HIG document - I tried to get a hold of the guideline docs for XBox and Playstation but couldn't)The coursework assignment last year was to redesign the Dwarf Fortress UI for XBox and this year the assignment was to redesign the UI for Solium Infernum for the iPad.  Both of these PC games have oodles of data and game verbs that the game struggles to present without resorting to endless menus.  

We use Flash for the technical component of the class and the student digital prototypes are a mixture of working Flash UI and static game screenshots.

If Jose (or anyone else here) has any ideas on how to improve this (beyond the links already shared) please share them.

HTH

David
On 14 June 2011 22:12, Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Thanks for the callout! I also addressed the topic in my online course from 2009 based on the book:
http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/level-17-user-interfaces/

The primary focus in that blog post is on the UI of nondigital games, not video games, but I think there are a number of overlapping concepts between the two.

- Ian
 


From: Dan <danc at narrativedesigns.com>
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>
Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 3:52:31 PM
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Game interface design class?

While not a book focused on UI, Brathwaite & Schreiber's "Challenges for
Game Designers" has a chapter on it. They write some excellent exercises in
their book and the ones on UI are definitely worth looking at.

That's the only resource that sprang to mind.

--Dan Carreker
  

-----Original Message-----
From: Jose P. Zagal [mailto:jzagal at cdm.depaul.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 12:30 PM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: [game_edu] Game interface design class?

Hi,

I'm currently developing a 10-week course on game interface design and I 
was wondering if anyone on the list wouldn't mind sharing 
resources/syllabi/assignments/etc. I'm surprised by the lack of 
resources I've found online...

thanks,


Jose

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