When you mentally track cards to determine the odds of the next card being favorable in blackjack, you’re working within the constraints of the game’s UI. When you use card calculators- just a UI enhancement- we call that something else entirely.

There are probably thousands of articles online about how to best display or setup any little portion of a Web site or a piece of productivity software. Yet there is seemingly nothing about this when it comes to games or their user interfaces.

I know there is some attempt at this in MMORPGs. There are reasons why these games use similar interfaces and it’s not just because every developer is out of ideas, but also because it’s what the average MMORPG player is supposedly expecting. At the same time, I think breaking these things down more and really looking into what “makes sense”, so to speak, would be a really good idea. I’d bet the result would be significantly different from what we use today.

Of course, I’m sure a lot of people would think the result sucks. Neilsen-Norman Group may get a lot of attention with usability standards, but there’s a reason why a lot of designers don’t seem to care for what his group says. It’s easy to fall in the trap where everything looks the same and is “dumbed down” to existing groups.

I guess I’m just kind of surprised that we never really hear that MMORPG developers have spent any time researching what works best from a usability standpoint. I would be interested in seeing a real study done on that… Maybe there has been one and I’m just unaware.

Okay, there’s this picture thing in the top left. It looks kinda like my character…oh! My name is next to it, so I guess that IS me. Then there’s a green bar…and another bar (which may or may not be filled in with some color). What happens when I click on the guy in front of me…another picture thing with bars! Still not sure what that green bar is though…why does this guy have a question mark on his head, anyway. I keep clicking on him, but nothing happens. Hmm, what else is there. There’s 3 buttons on the bottom left, but 7 are missing! Did the game not install correctly? There’s more missing on the bottom right, next to the bag button. Ans what’s all these buttons in the bottom center? A book? I heard this game has quests, maybe it holds them there? My friend told me about achievements, that must be the trophy. What’s this circle in the upper right? Has a circle, and a question mark like the question mark guy…I guess it’s a map. Hmm, what if I click the magnifying glass to zoom in…what’s this list? I just wanted to zoom! Okay, let me click on that red X to cancel…where’d everything go! AAAAHH!

I think you get the picture :)

There’s also the spiritual sequels: Emotional Design and the Design of Future Things if you’re left aching for more.

The Agency will be the first one to check, as it releases on PC as well.