How video games use UX principles and UI heuristics to create the ultimate user experience

From the archive. First published July 2020.

In a time when video gaming has reached record-breaking heights, due to so much time spent indoors, gamification has more of a place now than ever before.

Gamification is a process originally derived from video games, where reward systems are built into software with the sole purpose of ensuring player retention and engagement, rewarding players with micro-interactions and gold stars. If we use a project management platform as an example, selecting the 'completed task' button triggers a short, purpose-built interaction or animation, scientifically designed to release a micro dose of endorphins.

But how do video games specifically use UX techniques that can serve as inspiration? Having recently completed the main quest in Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4, I took note of how a well-developed AAA video game demonstrates good UX-driven practices and models, which allow seamless focus on the gameplay itself. Great job, Guerrilla Games.

I made note of the key features that successfully tap into the heuristics and principles of UX and UI.

Usability

Recognition over recall

Accessibility

Help and documentation

Value

Player control and freedom

Credibility

Diagnosing and recovering from errors

Findability

Consistency and standards

Usability via recognition over recall

Early on, the player is taught that botany plays a huge role in the game. The player is encouraged to collect flowers via in-game tutorials whilst roaming the open world, and flowers are used for crafting provisions. The red flowers, however, are consumed by the protagonist, Aloy, upon collection, and help the player regain health. An obvious colour choice, but why is it obvious? Because humans are conditioned from a young age to memorise red as the universal colour for health.

The use of colour is strong in video games. Apart from dressing characters in darker tones to indicate evil, Horizon Zero Dawn also teaches the player to instinctively look for contrasting colours during an initial tutorial. A dash of yellow on a grey wall indicates an interactive element: subtle enough to blend into the 3D decor, yet noticeable enough to draw the player's attention. The recognition of colour ensures good usability. The balance of colour to indicator succeeds in having the player memorise a pattern of colours, allowing fluid gameplay through the usability of interactive elements within the open world.

Accessibility via help and documentation

Accessibility is clearly at the forefront of navigating the UI and menu. Players can easily access resources by pressing their controller's touchpad, which opens a full-screen menu. Within it are horizontal categories (skills, inventory, crafting, map, quests and notebook), each paired with vertical subcategories. The purpose of the menu is to allow modification to suit the player's style of play.

Is the player a prowler, a brave or a forager? To ensure the player understands each weapon and skill upgrade, a space within the UI, usually on the right-hand side of the screen, is dedicated to video snippets documenting an in-game scenario of how each item performs. This is a perfect solution to the problem of educating players about the plethora of available modifications. The video placement ensures the player's attention is always on the form (the skill or weapon) followed by the function (the snippet preview).

Value via player control and freedom

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world game. The freedom of roaming the open world is a by-product of the story's key objective: to save the world from evil takeover by ancient machines. Quest progress runs the gamut of settings, from snow and desert to jungle. Aloy endures battles with majestic machines of prey, fighting them off using tripcasters, traps, bows, arrows and her primary weapon of choice, the staff. The player makes full use of the free-roam aspect, climbing cliff drop-offs with parkour-esque agility. Visual cues support the freedom of play by guiding direction, for example through deliberately designed, eroded paths, adding value as Aloy uncovers hidden ruins circa 2060.

Underneath the hood of the beautifully designed game are game mechanics, and game mechanics drive player actions. Each battle connection and each movement while climbing a cliff face is individually produced to enhance the player's overall freedom of movement, driving home the open-world style. Each movement is communicated to the controller with dynamic vibrations, executed so well in Horizon Zero Dawn that the player falls victim to exploring the beautiful open world instead of focusing on the target objective. This win-win adds value to the player experience: the more playtime the player has, the more they can memorise the in-game controls.

Credibility via diagnosing and recovering from errors

Games are one big problem just waiting to be solved. The core problem is split into hundreds of mini problems, much like a kanban board. The game is littered with collectibles and rare items hidden at various points throughout the open world. To access one of these seldom-seen objects, the player must decode a set of four wall-mounted digital combination locks beside a door. Graffitied on the door is a list of four numbers.

The onus is on the player to use their critical thinking and diagnose the problem in two parts: first, what the sequence actually means, and second, how to apply the sequence to obtain the reward. How would the player interpret a pattern of 1200, 1500, 1600, 2200? It is 24-hour time. This forces the player to tap into one of the brain's cognitive motor skills, procedural knowledge: the recognition of patterns rather than the recall of specific data. The player lines up each rotating lock with the angle resembling each timestamp. It is credible because of its social value, prompting players to learn something they may not already know.

Findability via consistency and standards

Within the weapons inventory is a circle split into quarters: top, bottom, left and right. Each segment is a weapon slot, and the position of each slot in the full-screen menu directly correlates to the player's in-game weapon dial. Assigning a weapon to each slot forms a mental model, which the player subconsciously memorises.

Thanks to this consistency between the resource and in-game menus, the player's experience is enhanced, and on-the-fly weapon changes can be made mid-battle. Our brains require less cognitive load when mental mapping through consistent models. As an example, Player X may have an affinity for the left slot over the top, bottom and right slots, so they assign their main weapon to the left. As we go deeper into a world where tech is becoming an extension of our body, the degree to which we can personalise our tech is paramount.

This begs the question

Other than a reward system, what else can the software, tech and design industries learn from immersive video games like Horizon Zero Dawn? On the surface it can appear that the next generation is wasting its brains on video games. Wrong. The future of UX is in the hands of a generation subconsciously studying neurological thought processes through critical thinking, mental models and procedural knowledge. Players continuously draw on cognitive function to navigate through games, developing a familiar feel for good UX practice. Those practices will be more relevant than ever when we face finely tuned virtual and augmented reality norms in the years to come.

Horizon Zero Dawn is developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

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