Chapter 4: Second Alien UI design

What do we need to change about my Alien User Interface design to make it human friendly?

Now we know how a successful Real Time Strategy game applies these design rules to their User Interface
design. In step 4 we are going to have a look at how my User Interface has to change, with the information we
gathered in step 3. If you have made your own User Interface, you can read along and apply these following steps
to your own UI design.

So what exactly do we need to change about my alien User Interface design? At step 2, I had taken a
survey. With every question, I also asked the participants why they scored the features as they did. To find out
why the question scored so low or high, and to know what exactly needs to change. So I’ve summarized the
feedback that I have gotten from the participants to break down what actually needs to change.

Learnability: For Learnability was the overall result that the features didn’t look natural. It took them a long time

to understand what everything was or did. There was too much unnecessary information and details on the screen.

Efficiency: For Efficiency the biggest problem was the size of the user interface. It took up too much space of the

screen with unnecessary details. The command box was readable, but the placement and size were annoying.

Errors: The Errors scored a bit higher but was still not well received. Since the user interface is too big and take

up too much space of the screen, it’s easy for the player to click on wrong features. And it makes it difficult to
navigate the movement in the game, since they keep clicking on the UI. Other than that, it looks like the player
can’t make to many mistakes with this UI. This user interface has the problem solving like the starcraft II UI.
When you accidentally move a unit by clicking on the mini-map, you can click in game to stop that action.
Although with this user interface it is easier to accidentally move a unit.

Satisfaction: Satisfaction also scored a little bit better than the rest. The main issue was the size and placement

of the features. But the participants recognized the aliens in the design and found it aesthetically pleasing.
The design of some of the features are a bit too alien according to the participants. Especially the menu button
and the health bar were confusing and hard to read.

For the memorability design rule I send the survey participants another survey exactly a week later.

Memorability: Memorability score pretty decent in the survey. Because it is an aesthetic user interface design

it’s pretty memorable. But since the user interface was hard to understand, it still was.

So now we know what needs to change. One of the main things that needs to change is the size of the features
and the placement. The current user interface takes up too much space. Some features like the health bar and
the menu button should really change in appearance. The challenge here is to keep the design alien but also
readable. And now to apply it to make a new alien user interface design.

Image 6 - The new UI design

Above you can see the new user interface design. The main thing that I have changed about the features, is that
they are smaller and less in the way of the player. I also removed a lot of unnecessary details and information
so that everything is easier to read.

No. 1 is the mini-map. Here the player can see the allies and enemies.
This feature can also be used by the player to move units. This feature is not smaller but is placed more in the
corner, so it takes up less screen space. I have kept the radar design, because there were no complaints about
the design and it works well.

No. 2 is the feature that shows the unit information. Here the player can select units and see their status. This
feature has been changed the most. The alien designed health bar has been moved to the side, and the unit
information can now be shown in the black box.

No. 3 shows the player the currency that the player owns. It has been moved to the upper right corner of the
screen. Since it is Macro information it should be easy to glance over when playing. Because it is in the corner
without a big bold border, it is not blocking a part of the player screen.

No. 4 is the menu button. One thing I personally felt I had to compromise with. The alien symbol was just too
weird for human players to understand. So I accepted that this feature had to be recognizable and thus I have
changed it to an easy to recognize cogwheel.

No. 5 is the command box. The command box shows the player the owned control groups. Most player’s will use
this section to control their units. This feature also changed in size and is placed closer to the corner. A lot of the
unnecessary aesthetic details have been removed as well.

The overall look of the user interface is not a lot clearer. The user interface is less in the way of the gameplay
area, so it should be more satisfying to play with. I still managed to keep a little bit of the alien design in the
user interface, but the test results showed that that was less priority. Ultimately we want to design a user
interface that is actually user friendly of course. But my goal for this particular design is also the alien aspect.
I think that we have managed to achieve that with this second design, but to be sure we will have to put that to the
test.