Articles about UX - Nasty Rodent - Page 2

Question 1

What is UX design in games?

Accepted Answer

UX design in games is the discipline of shaping how players perceive, understand, and feel their way through a game — the menus, HUD, onboarding, feedback, and in-world signage between a player's intention and the game's response. The goal is to remove the wrong friction while preserving the challenge that makes the game fun. It's broader than UI: UI is the visual layer players see, while UX is whether that layer actually works under the pressure of real play. Good game UX is mostly invisible — players notice it only when it fails.

Question 2

What is the difference between UX and UI in games?

Accepted Answer

UI is what players see; UX is whether it works. UI owns the visual and interactive layer — menus, icons, typography, layout, and the HUD's look. UX owns the felt experience: the player journey, onboarding, feedback, and flow that the interface delivers. You can have great UI with poor UX (beautiful menus nobody can navigate) or plain UI with excellent UX (a spartan HUD that says exactly what's needed). The best interfaces are art-directed and legible at the same time — which is why the two disciplines belong in one conversation, not separate departments.

Question 3

What are diegetic and non-diegetic UI?

Accepted Answer

Diegetic UI lives inside the game world and characters can perceive it — like Dead Space's health bar on the character's spine. Non-diegetic UI sits outside the world for the player only — classic health bars, scores, and menu screens. They're two of the four UI types, alongside spatial and meta. The choice between them is a production decision, not a style preference: a diegetic readout gives the character model a UX function, changing the art brief, rigging, and camera framing. Picking the wrong type in the brief surfaces as expensive rework milestones later.

Question 4

How long does it take to design a game's UX/UI, and how iterative is it?

Accepted Answer

It depends on scope and the number of screens, but interface work is inherently iterative — expect several rounds of wireframes, mockups, and in-engine revisions rather than a single pass. As a rough market guide rather than a fixed quote, production can run from a few weeks to a couple of months depending on scope and screen count, preceded by a short alignment phase. The critical milestone is validating the HUD in motion, not approving a static mockup. A game interface can only be fully tested against engine state, so those revision rounds are where the real cost lives. Teams that test early in context spend them on cheap wireframe changes; teams that test late spend them on reworking finished art.

Question 5

Who owns the UI assets and source files, and how is the work protected?

Accepted Answer

In a standard outsourcing engagement, the client owns the delivered UI assets and source files, with an NDA signed early in the engagement before any material changes hands and IP transfer formalized through the service agreement. That portability is one of the reasons to scope interface work as a defined engagement. For an art director, the practical point is that you receive engine-ready, art-directed assets plus the style guide that keeps them consistent — so the interface stays on-brand even as new screens are added downstream. An engagement usually begins with a short alignment phase — typically around a week — covering style alignment and a small test scope before production proper starts.

Question 6

Why is UX so important for a game's success?

Accepted Answer

Because interface friction is one of the quietest causes of early churn — players rarely report a confusing menu, they just stop playing. Strong UX keeps players in flow and lets the gameplay, not the interface, be the thing they engage with. Caught late, weak UX becomes rework on finished UI art — redone polish passes at the worst possible time. For an art director specifically, the interface is the most-viewed surface in the game, so its readability and art-direction continuity carry more screen-time weight than any single hero asset.

Blog - Page 2

What Is UX Design in Games? The Player Experience Layer, Explained

How Player Psychology Shapes Every Game UX Decision

UI/UX Co-Development vs Outsourcing for Game Production: How to Choose the Right Model

How to Choose a Game UX/UI Design Studio: 5 Technical Checks Before Signing

Diegetic and Non-Diegetic UI in Games: Design Principles and Use Cases