Comments on: Designing for understanding and user empowerment http://www.pamgriffith.net/blog/designing-for-understanding Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:01:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Pam Griffith http://www.pamgriffith.net/blog/designing-for-understanding/comment-page-1#comment-99 Pam Griffith Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:33:18 +0000 http://www.pamgriffith.net/blog/?p=76#comment-99 <p>Yes, thank you :) It does depend on the game, of course, a lot of games assume you already know the genre these days, but you reminded me of a <a href="http://jonoscript.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/a-tutorial-level-for-the-internet/" rel="nofollow">blog post</a> about that very thing. It mentions things like an impassable wall blocking progress to the right to teach players to try going left.</p> <p>Of course, I'd be really careful about introducing something impossible into an important interface--that particular feature requires a certain playfulness and willingness to explore that may not be appropriate for, say, a banking website. And you don't want the user to get stuck--I remember something similar in Super Mario world, where there was a cape and a pipe to run up; I didn't understand what to do and restarted the game.</p> <p>There's probably just as much to be learned from how *not* to do a tutorial, too, like the 6-hour-long intro to Kingdom Hearts II and all of its cute but irritating mini games that didn't really teach much in the way of gameplay. The lesson there is make the teaching relevant and brief, and not too tangential to the task at hand, I think.</p> <p>Anyway, yes, definitely game design methods are something to think about in terms of other sorts of user interface design!</p> Yes, thank you :) It does depend on the game, of course, a lot of games assume you already know the genre these days, but you reminded me of a blog post about that very thing. It mentions things like an impassable wall blocking progress to the right to teach players to try going left.

Of course, I’d be really careful about introducing something impossible into an important interface–that particular feature requires a certain playfulness and willingness to explore that may not be appropriate for, say, a banking website. And you don’t want the user to get stuck–I remember something similar in Super Mario world, where there was a cape and a pipe to run up; I didn’t understand what to do and restarted the game.

There’s probably just as much to be learned from how *not* to do a tutorial, too, like the 6-hour-long intro to Kingdom Hearts II and all of its cute but irritating mini games that didn’t really teach much in the way of gameplay. The lesson there is make the teaching relevant and brief, and not too tangential to the task at hand, I think.

Anyway, yes, definitely game design methods are something to think about in terms of other sorts of user interface design!

]]> By: Jim http://www.pamgriffith.net/blog/designing-for-understanding/comment-page-1#comment-97 Jim Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:20:38 +0000 http://www.pamgriffith.net/blog/?p=76#comment-97 One example: video games. Take a modern video game like some first-person shooter for xbox - they almost all start the player off with easy to reach goals, providing hints along the way until he/she reaches the point of becoming familiar with the controls, the concepts of the game and any idiosyncrasies that are new to that particular game - before offering gradually more difficult challenges and concepts. I'm sure you could find a ton of examples and then work on transposing them to fit the web development model. Hope this helps. -Jim One example: video games. Take a modern video game like some first-person shooter for xbox – they almost all start the player off with easy to reach goals, providing hints along the way until he/she reaches the point of becoming familiar with the controls, the concepts of the game and any idiosyncrasies that are new to that particular game – before offering gradually more difficult challenges and concepts. I’m sure you could find a ton of examples and then work on transposing them to fit the web development model. Hope this helps. -Jim

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