User Interface and User Experience inside VR

Thinking about our users and building our game systems with them in mind is just a small part of the overall process we need to go through to ensure that our game is an enjoyable experience for the widest range of players. Human-Centered Design (HCD) is just the first step in the greater design process called User Experience (UX) design. When we think about the whole user experience, we are really looking at not only the people who are using our game, but also at what we can do to improve how they use it. By thinking through the lens of UX, we hope to build a game that addresses all of the player's needs, is easy to use, and that the player never wants to put down.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• What is UX design?
• The seven aspects of UX
• User interfaces in VR
• Designing the UI for Server 17

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What is UX design?

The term UX design is not a new term, even though its use has become more popular in recent years. Coined by Don Norman during his time at Apple, it is an umbrella term for the many ways in which people interact with machines. It also refers to the idea of seeing things from the user's perspective. In the game industry, UX tends to go hand in hand with user interface design since players often interact with a piece of software purely through its interface. Yet the development of virtual reality and its ability to give players a large amount of choice in how they interact with a game world has led companies to rethink how they view this field. How do you think about the user experience in a game when the player can interact with the world without a traditional UI? This is where the UX designer really comes into their own.

A UX designer is a designer who...

User interfaces in VR

As we have seen, interaction in VR goes beyond what we are used to in traditional applications and video games. The player has near total immersion in the game world and can reach out and touch many of the objects they wish to interact with. This ability to interact directly with the environment opens many avenues for interface design while also presenting several challenges. One such challenge is that HUD elements that are displayed along the edges of a screen appear distorted and out of position in VR. Such elements can also break the immersion of the VR experience, depending on the story and setting. To solve the interface problem, most VR developers have moved away from these interfaces in favor of using information elements embedded within the game world. These can be broken down into the following three categories:

• Diagetic
• Spatial
• Meta

Let's...

Designing the UI elements for Server 17

Taking what we now know about user experience and interfaces, let's apply that knowledge to creating some UI elements for Server 17. For our first-time VR user, our interface elements should probably be diagetic for both ease of use and to preserve immersion in our Sci-Fi environment. We need to display our level timer so that the player knows how much time they have left. We also might need to rethink how the tools station is used to streamline the station interface. As always, remember to test with your user group along the way along the way and remember that you are designing the game to maximize their enjoyment!

Displaying the level timer

Let's start by designing the level...

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about user experience and how HCD is just one small part of this much larger field. We explored the field of UX design and how VR has caused it to expand beyond traditional interface interactions. We also learned about the seven aspects of user experience that are important. From there, we took a look at the different types of user interfaces and learned what works best in virtual reality. Finally, we applied our new knowledge of user experience and VR-ready interfaces to design and create the interface widgets for our level.

In the next chapter, we will discuss how to create eye-popping visual elements for virtual reality games. Like gameplay elements and user interfaces, art for VR games has different requirements than art created for traditional video games. Optimization is key to keeping performance high and our player comfortable. We will...