Prima Foosiripong
The Worst UI
Play through the daily quest of the game that has UI design so bad it's good.
Genre: Puzzle
Development Time: 4 month
Role: Solo Dev
Engine: Unity 2D
Inspiration
This is a project for the UI designer capstone class. I love to create experiences, to make people feel strongly about my game. This time, the feeling I want them to have with my UI is...
infuriating rage
Research
Before coming up with the game concept for the most rage-inducing UI ever exist, to create that type of feeling, I started by researching the UI-based games that would fit into that genre.
Game Concept
After some research, I have decided on the
Daily Quest of a live service game with the worst UI ever exists
Why live service?
1. Required several steps to enter the game: Such as the title sequence, the login page, term and conditions, etc.
2. One of my favorite game genres
3. Ads aspect: There is nothing that makes a player rage quicker than a game with annoying ads that will pop up in their face 24/7.
Target Group
Primary Persona: Bobby
25-year-old office worker
“Hardcore” & Masochistic Gamers
a hardcore gamer who has been playing games since he was 12. He has high patience. He doesn’t only play the game to finish, but for the achievement as well. He yearns for the game with fresh mechanics.
Pattern & Behavior
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Chronically online
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Easily rage but never quit
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High patience
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Play several games in different genres
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Play game for 1-2 hour each night.
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Introvert
Pain Points
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Bug: Alex hate when the game is actually broken
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Cheap/Repetitive Trick: Alex have play several game before. He know several way that the game is going to trick him. He want “smart stupid” tricks.
Goal
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Aha! Moment: Alex like when he can figure the solution of a puzzle, or when he remember the boss fight pattern.
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Speed & Efficiency: After the first playthrough, Alex attempt to find the way to finish the game as fast as possible. He like to find tip and trick from the community online to min/max his run.
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Achievement: Alex like to collect all achievement in each game he play.
Content Creator/Streamer
Secondary Persona
Game Designer, UX/UI Designer
Tertiary Persona
Design Goal
Annoyingly Fun
Balance Fun and annoying, make it the main experience, but not to the point of frustration.
Heuristic Breaking
Utilize the player's common sense based on 10 Usability Heuristics
... and break them.
Style Guide
I am currently obsessed with apples, so I try to incorporate them into the design by using their color and their shiny skin into my design.
I chose Londrina Solid as my main font because of its organic, informal appearance that still maintains readability even in long paragraphs.
Scene Sequence
Even though the game is going to be rage-bait. I intended to make the development process as smooth as possible, so laying these out would help me in the long run.
Low fidelity
To break usability heuristics, I map out a low-fidelity UI to help me decide when and where to break them.
Implementation in Unity
Log In Page
Put input field description at the bottom and swap the username and password field to mimic typical login field at first glance
Loading
Add continue loading buttons at different locations and different usage to mess with the player's muscle memory.
Quit
Put the quit button at the primary focus to encourage players to click it instead of the play button.
Do you want to not quit the game?
Use wording that is confusing without making an attempt to highlight it to confuse the player.
Terms and Conditions
Rather than having only one checkbox at the end, I make the player click multiple checkboxes to accept the terms and conditions.
Retrospective
Scope
Designing the back-end of the UI alone turned out to be quite challenging yet rewarding. The time frame of this project took a different turn in favor of focusing on the core components rather than the aesthetics later on, thus making me late in implementing the high fidelity. But it helps me understand the framework and use this experience to indicate the scope for the upcoming project.