UX lessons from video games

“Video games” are simply interactive experiences in immersive environments. They need to be crafted meticulously for an elegant user experience, just like any other software product. Over the years, game design has evolved and grown into an art form of its own.

There are some guidelines of game design which will not seem obvious at first glance. For example, giving the player the most powerful items in the game very early-on during the playthrough. This seems counter-intuitive. Don’t we want to make the players work towards obtaining the most valuable items towards the end of the game? Nope.

Turns out that giving players the strong weapons and outfits early allows them feel like they can keep it in their back pocket and use it when they need it. This way, they get more playtime out of those items rather than only using it for two or three endgame missions.

Half-Life 2 pulls this off well by giving players the gravity gun at the very beginning of the game, which players then choose to use almost exclusively over the other weapons in the game due to its creative gameplay mechanics. Fallout 4 also seems to be following in its footsteps, giving players the incredibly powerful and heavily sought after Power Armor during one of the game’s early quests.

“Visioning” is another prime example of setting the mood not just for the game, but also for the team working on it. Before any design or development begins, concept artists are commissioned to create a wide range of mixed-media artworks for the game. Various soundtracks and scores are composed as well. Posters of the art are hung up all over the walls of the offices, the in-game music plays in the backdrop of a slideshow showing off the art.

The whole point of that visioning is to set the tone for what the team will be creating. Everyone needs to know what the overall mood and setting of the game is. It’s much easier to visually see and audibly hear the emotions that the player will eventually feel when they play the game, and then attempt to capture those feelings through the game during the development process. It’s surely a lot more relatable than looking at a spreadsheet of requirements and features that need to make it in before a deadline.

There’s a lot of UX lessons hidden inside this that can be applied to any creative process. Take apps for example. Instead of shoehorning in a freemium model into the app where certain features are locked away until the user pays for them, give users a free trial of the entire app with nothing locked away. The user can test out all of the power-user features before deciding to make a purchase. Once it’s gone, they’re going to miss it. But they don’t know what they’re missing out on if they haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.

Say you’re at an industrial design agency trying to create a new iteration of an internet-of-things product. Instead of creating documents upon documents of user stories and use cases, try to envision your users actually using the product. Put up product sketches all over the walls. Get the team together and draw scenarios of all the situations where they can picture the user using the product. Prototype some sound effects and play with which ones provide the right sort of feedback to trigger the proper emotional response. Believe it or not, this stuff does a much better job at keeping everyone informed about what the product is trying to be, as opposed to reading through unnecessarily long email chains.

At the end of the day, video games are designed intentionally by a team of people just like any other product. In many ways, it’s significantly more complex to create an enriching experience in a video game than it is with other kinds of software or hardware, due to the added variable of continuous user interactivity. Many game studios such as Naughty Dog, Bethesda Softworks, Rockstar Games, and Valve Software have earned a solid reputation for making compelling games by prioritizing user experience above all else. They’ve also left many lessons in their wake — from which other industries can pick and choose the ones that are most applicable to them. It’s up to us to make good use of it.