I'm a UI programmer by trade, so people often ask me a very difficult question: What does "good" user interface (UI) design look like? The problem is that we only notice a game's UI when it is counter-intuitive or grating to use, thus ironically making good UI practically invisible. So let me take SteamWorld Dig 2 as an example of what I think makes for good UI design.
The game is about digging down the earth, collecting minerals, and upgrading your steambot. It's a lot of fun, and the UI never gets in your way. It does that by answering the immediate questions you have when playing the game:
- How am I doing?
- How many resources do I have?
- Where do I need to go?
- What just happened?
- What tool am I using?
- How many resources have I gathered?
Good UI design helps to fill in the gaps of the senses you're lacking when playing the game. Yes, you can see the world just fine and hear it too. But you can't feel the weight of the pickaxe in your hand and feel the reverberations of the rock as you strike it down. You don't notice the weight of the precious minerals on your back or the water in your steam tank running dry, causing you to naturally reconsider before diving deeper into the mines. Instead, the game must surface these missing senses as elements on the screen, or the game logic would become inscrutable.
Another thing that SteamWorld Dig 2 does really well is that the user interface is used to enhance the fiction of a New Frontier-style world run by steam-powered robots. The menus look printed on stained paper, but they're ornamented with brass elements. The text also has purposeful imperfections to mimic the shoddy printing processes of the late 1800s. The brass recurs at the top of the screen, encasing a notched glass bar to indicate your progress to the next level. It's easy to overlook these small details because they add up to a picture that looks like it couldn't have been done any other way. I guarantee you most people would be able to discern the general vibe of this game just from the shop menu. It's masterful work, honestly.
And finally, I wanted to talk about this game because I'm sick to death of people holding up Dead Space as the shining example of "good" UI design. It was certainly a triumph of diegetic design principles, in which the user interface is integrated directly into the character and the world instead of put on the screen as floating elements. But as an article on GameDeveloper.com titled "Game UI Discoveries: What Players Want" puts it:
One could easily imagine all Dead Space's interface elements as traditional HUD elements. Dead Space could also be criticized for only translating traditional interface solutions from non-diegetic to diegetic, without making any real improvements to the traditional designs.
