7 obvious beginner mistakes with your game’s HUD (from a UI UX Art Director)
<p>A video game interface has an immediate and lasting impact on gameplay, production, and the bottom-line. So… where are all the guides and best-practices for <em>the </em>most important Art in the entire game? Shouldn’t there be a primer somewhere? Some kind of shorthand?</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:770/1*AjZlHAjJH1qA2t_v53c_fw.jpeg" style="height:702px; width:700px" /></p>
<p>The box art to the Atari cover of Star Raiders</p>
<h1><strong>Mistake #1 — You’re putting way too much information on the screen</strong></h1>
<p>If you are adding more confusion than clarity, you’re not providing much in the “Heads-Up” department. Let’s try a more tempered approach to throwing in the Kitchen Sink.</p>
<p>Some information can be opt-in; informing the player only as <em>they </em>need to know it. For example: prices inset on buy buttons, click-and-hold commands to read a full note rather than a snippet, complicated weapon stats distilled to a singular DPS value, etc. All information can be “rounded down”.</p>
<p>Some information, once learned, does not have to be <em>relearned </em>immediately. That means some widgets can fade over time, or never show up under certain conditions, for example: hiding combat UI outside of encounters, or giving tutorials a [Do Not Show Me Again] button.</p>
<p><a href="https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/7-obvious-beginner-mistakes-with-your-games-hud-from-a-ui-ux-art-director-d852e255184a"><strong>Learn More</strong></a></p>