I love Mass Effect 2. Story wise it’s great, and the UI is much improved over the last game. However the interface is not perfect, it seems while it looks great on an HDTV when it comes to SD televisions the onscreen text shrinks and is unreadable. I wish I could say this shocks me, but having played both Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I can’t say I’m surprised by a BioWare title once again having problems with it’s interface. When it comes to UI their titles constantly been plagued with poor design decisions. Mass Effect 2 was a nice step in the right direction for them, but this SDTV issues have caused a pretty big reaction within the community. It’s a shame that such an amazing title is now shadowed with what really is an easily avoidable problem.

It’s simple, UI designers need to constantly be mindful that not everyone is playing a game on a top-of-the-line system, half of gamers still have standard definition TVs. Half. That’s a big enough percentage that we need to keep the lowest common denominator in mind. Ignoring them is abandoning half your audience. The mobile market is one of the few time where we can guarantee players are going to be experiencing a game the same way as everyone else. When it comes to consoles or PC gaming variables are introduced. Screens change in size, resolutions fluctuate, it should be common place to design around that.

A successful interface, be it menus or the HUD, needs to do two things: 1.) display relevant information, and 2.) do so in a way that the player isn’t pulled out of their experience. An “enhanced” UI can look great on a HDTV but if it doesn’t scale properly, causing information displayed to be unreadable then you haven’t done your job as a UI designer. That’s the truth. No amount of “design choice” can change it.

In a video interview earlier this month, Molyneux said players would be “pissed” to hear about one of Fable III’s features. What’s the scoop? There’s no health bar, he said. In fact, there’s no heads-up display elements on the screen at all.

“Look at the screen!” Molyneux gushed, gesturing at the monitor like Vanna White. “It’s completely clean! Why do we need the fucking health bar?”

Instead of having a bar to show the player’s remaining health, Fable III will take cues from action games, not RPGs, and have environmental graphic changes that show that you’re close to death.

What, I asked, about other such menus and gauges?

“The 2-D parts of Fable 1 and Fable 2 were rubbish,” he responded. “That’s why people didn’t change their clothes, or change their weapons.” In Fable 3, he said, he’s looking to make that character-customization busywork “part of the game.”

In an interview earlier this week with Matt Peckham from PCWorld, Molyneux was quoted as saying: “I’m really scared that when I go out and tell people what it is, they’re going to get super pissed off. They really are. But it’s the right thing to do man, I’m sure it’s the right thing to do.”

This is twice where he describes a fan base getting angry over the removal of traditional HUD elements. I don’t get it. I’m not sure why he fears this choice will cause some sort of backlash from players. It’s become a staple for Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty series. I’ve brought it up twice where it was tackled by EA Sport’s Fight Night and again when Double Fine took a similar direction with Brutal Legend. If you can pull it off well, a player won’t notice. Simple as that. If you do a poor job, they’ll complain. Trying to drum up drama where there isn’t any seems silly.

You can read more over at Wired.

Split Second integrates the typical race HUD in a rather ingenious way.

There’s no doubt you haven’t heard of Black Rock Studios upcoming racing game Split/Second. A lot of interested has been bubbling with the recent videos showing some pretty impressive gameplay. The game flips some of the traditional elements you’d see in a typical racing shooter by adding destructible environments and special abilities that allow for some intense fast paced gameplay.

As seen in the screen shot above Black Rock has rather ingeniously introduced a integrated HUD into the mix. Instead of the typical direction with HUD elements located on the periphery Black Rock has clustered it all near the rear of the players vehicle and angled it in a way it feels like it’s apart of whats happening on screen. This not only puts relevant information right where the players are looking, the  center of the action, it does so without interruption.

Black Rock takes it a step further by adding effects to the HUD making it feel just as much apart of the action as the exploding buildings, crashing cars are. The HUD flickers and fades, glows hot and shifts around compensating for the moving camera. This adds to the action and these small but important effects serves to not only pull a player into the gameplay but still deliver important contextual information. When you see Split/Second’s clustered integrated HUD in action it really feels cinematic. It’s rare when a HUD can ads to the drama of the gameplay experience.

Be it be ammo readouts located on a weapon like some modern shooters have done, or health displayed on a playable character model similar to Dead Space. HUD integration is a good way to draw a player deeper into the experience. I encourage you to check the video after the break to see Split/Second’s HUD in action.

Avatar isn’t going to just be a new movie from Titanic director James Cameron; it’s also going to be a new video game developed by Ubisoft. It’s gotten a significant amount of press for a movie tie-in, even dominating a sizeable space at PAX for a booth featuring a replica of the cockpit of one of the flying machines starring in the movie… er… game.

As this video posted on Kotaku shows the graphics are impressive, however I’m not awed by Ubisofts choices for HUD layout. Persistent elements are thrown in every corner, and numbers and icons fade in and out. I understand the idea of keeping action the center of attention, but with a display this scattered it takes a lot to check health, know where you’re going, what you’re fighting with, how much XP you have, and if an ability is ready to use.

Here’s my take, I’d group things differently and focus on making it easy for the player to get the information needed without spending too much time looking away from the action. There are four persistent elements on the screen, a combo health meter and ammo meter, an XP bar, a mini map, and a radial menu for abilities. Randomly things like weapon ammo, selected weapon, target’s heath and hits, will pop in and out as well. These could have been grouped in a much nicer manner giving the player one location to look at as opposed to scanning all edges of the screen to get the important information.

Grouping elements at the bottom

This example sets the grouping together at the bottom of the screen. The selection weapon is displayed below, and the users aren’t forced to scan every edge. The nonpersistent elements could easily be displayed between the radial menu and the Minimap, or above the various bars on the left or the right. I’ve done one other thing as well. I’ve grouped action related elements, ammo, health, abilities, on the right side of the screen, and bigger picture elements: mini-map, XP on the left. This gives the user one place to look for action and combat information, and a second area that can be ignored until needed during more exploratory moments.

Grouping elements on the sides.

Similarly Ubisoft could opt to group each set on the sides. This unclutters the bottom and provides the user only two locations to look at as opposed to four or five. Again as in the above example, I’ve split the grouping between necessary action related elements and more bigger picture elements.

The goal with any HUD design is to blend so seamlessly it’s unnoticed as a player interacts with a product. A few quick changes and a scattered HUD can be streamlined allowing an easier play experience. Easier play means more immersion and more immersion allows for better storytelling and ultimately a more memorable experience. With a few changes and Ubisoft could be well on their way to creating that memorable experience.

The hot bar dominates MMOs when it comes to management of abilities and skills. Increasing popularity of these games along side massive successes like World of Warcraft have started a trickle down effect. Similar UI/UX is managing to spill into other genres as well. It doesn’t matter if you are playing a wizard in an MMO or a space marine in a RTS, sooner or later everyone will be subjected to the hotbar.

In most games there is little problem with this system in the beginning. A low level or starting character usually knows and owns little within the game world. Until a player reaches higher levels they won’t really see the inherit problems with the system. After a certain point, the hot bar ceases to be functional and becomes a nuisance. Tens if not hundreds of icons swim before your eyes each displaying status, recharge times, amounts and many other functions.

A hardcore gamer would chock this up to skill, claiming that the rote memorization required to play each class is part of the learning curve. I would disagree with this on principle. Requiring memorization starts to seep the fun out of a game for a casual player. A leisure activity becomes work, and a large portion of the audience, won’t want to memorize icons for their entertainment.

Don Norman once said, “Complexity is not bad. Complicated is bad.” He’s right, as long as a complicated system is organized in a clear and concise way a new player won’t be put off from interacting with the environment.

How do we allow users to take this one step further and make this complicated system easy to use? How do we move beyond the messy hotbar and streamline the system into something simple and more functional?

I have a few ideas and I am sure the community does as well. I intend “Solving the Hotbar” to be an ongoing series for discussion among the community. Is the hot bar truly broken? What would you as a user or a designer like or dislike? Send in your thoughts to: kmalexander at inglorio.us or drop a comment.