游戲UX (GAMES UX)

Even though websites and games have matured side-by-side over the past few decades, games have a long and detailed history of user experience. Sure, it was scrappy and fairly rudimentary initially, but the only way you could tell if a game worked was by play testing it.

?VEN雖然網站和游戲已經成熟并排側，在過去的幾十年里，游戲有用戶體驗的一個漫長而細致的歷史。 當然，一開始它是草率的并且相當初級，但是您唯一可以判斷游戲是否有效的方法是通過測試游戲。

As games have developed to function more like services and platforms, instead of simply standalone experiences, UX has become a much more comprehensive part of the development process.

隨著游戲的發展，其功能越來越像服務和平臺，而不僅僅是簡單的獨立體驗，UX已成為開發過程中更為全面的一部分。

Both major and minor studios are crafting out separate UX departments, and there are entire conferences dedicated to the concept of UX in game design.

主要工作室和次要工作室都在建立獨立的UX部門，并且有專門針對游戲設計中UX概念的整個會議。

With good reason: games are among the most popular medium on the planet, and as e-sports continue to grow, they’re only getting bigger. This space is where you can find a lot of the most exciting work on how people engage with interactive design.

有充分的理由:游戲是地球上最受歡迎的媒體之一，并且隨著電子競技的持續發展，它們只會變得越來越大。 在這個空間中，您可以找到許多有關人們如何參與交互式設計的最激動人心的工作。

To that end, what can product and web UX designers learn from their counterparts in video games?

為此，產品和Web UX設計師可以從視頻游戲的同行那里學到什么？

As it turns out, a hell of a lot.

事實證明，這真是個地獄。

游戲中的用戶體驗設計師正變得越來越專業 (UX designers in games are becoming more specialized)

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, when games studios were taking off and many of the best-selling studios were only run by a handful of people, everyone had to jump on board and juggle multiple tasks. You weren’t just a game designer, you might be a developer or even have hardware experience. Gaming isn’t just an on-screen experience.

在70年代和80年代，當游戲工作室開始騰飛時，許多最暢銷的工作室僅由少數幾個人經營，每個人都不得不跳槽并完成多項任務。 您不僅是游戲設計師，還可能是開發人員，甚至具有硬件經驗。 游戲不僅是一種屏幕體驗。

Now, walk into a semi-professional game studio and, while that cross-pollination exists, you’ll see that most roles have been specialized including UX and with that maturation comes a huge amount of knowledge that can’t necessarily be found in web or product design.

現在，走進一家半專業的游戲工作室，盡管存在異花授粉，但您會看到大多數角色已經過專門化，包括UX，隨著成熟，隨之而來的是大量不一定能在網絡中找到的知識或產品設計。

Why? Well, because they’re doing two different things. Software and product design is all about removing challenges for the user, while game designers are trying to craft challenges that are engaging and, most of the time, delightful. In web and product design, crafting an experience is quite linear and binary: you design, iterate, and then, if it works, the user engages with the software with ease. While there are always optimization initiatives, the process is fairly straightforward.

為什么？ 好吧，因為他們在做兩種不同的事情。 軟件和產品設計就是要消除對用戶的挑戰，而游戲設計師則要努力設計出引人入勝的挑戰，而且大多數時候都是令人愉悅的。 在Web和產品設計中，制作體驗是線性且二進制的:您進行設計，迭代，然后在可行的情況下使用戶輕松使用該軟件。 盡管總是有優化計劃，但過程相當簡單。

But game worlds have so many more variables that UX is an essential part of design. Designers might observe players doing things in ways they didn’t expect to achieve the same, positive results. Or even more exciting ways that players can interact with each other.

但是游戲世界的變量太多了，UX是設計的重要組成部分。 設計師可能會觀察到玩家以他們未曾期望獲得相同積極結果的方式來做事。 甚至是玩家之間更有趣的互動方式。

As we all know, some of the best features happen by accident which is why multi-billion dollar studios like Ubisoft, EA, or Nintendo spend a huge amount of money on constant play-testing and UX research. Through that research, they’ve uncovered principles that any UX researcher in any discipline should follow. Here are just a few of the best.

眾所周知，一些最佳功能是偶然發生的，這就是為什么數十億美元的工作室(如Ubisoft，EA或Nintendo)在持續的游戲測試和UX研究上花費大量金錢的原因。 通過這項研究，他們發現了任何學科的任何UX研究人員都應遵循的原則。 這里只是一些最好的。

始終保持平衡 (Complete balance, all the time)

You’ve probably heard of (and may love) Starcraft. Within months of its release back in 1998, it became one of the most popular e-sports in the world. In fact, it was one of the only major e-sports at the time. It essentially set the stage for the market to come.

您可能聽說過(并且可能喜歡)《 星際爭霸》 。 在1998年發布后的幾個月內，它成為了世界上最受歡迎的電子競技之一。 實際上，它是當時唯一的主要電子競技活動之一。 它本質上為市場的到來奠定了基礎。

The publisher, Blizzard, released a sequel in 2010. It quickly became a massive phenomenon too, and with good reason, the game is a radically fun way to pit three different alien races against each other.

發行商暴雪(Blizzard)于2010年發行了續集。這也很快成為一種大現象，并且有充分的理由，這款游戲是讓三種不同的外星種族相互對抗的一種非常有趣的方式。

Yet that fun becomes chaotic when you have dozens of small aliens fighting each other, which is exactly why the design in Starcraft is so crucial. Creating bright, colorful units is essential to make sure that everyone knows where theirs are.

但是，當您有數十個小外星人互相搏斗時，這種樂趣變得混亂了，這正是《 星際爭霸》中的設計如此重要的原因。 創建明亮，色彩繽紛的單元對于確保每個人都知道自己的位置至關重要。

The result? Even if you don’t know what’s happening at any one moment, you can easily recognize where your units are among these massive frays. Dozens of games have copied Starcraft’s model of doing this, including current popular titles like League of Legends.

結果？ 即使您一時都不知道發生了什么，也可以輕松地識別出您的單位在這些巨大競爭中所處的位置。 數十種游戲都抄襲了星際爭霸(Starcraft)的模型，其中包括諸如《英雄聯盟》之類的當前熱門游戲。

Gamers of all ages want a quick and easy onboarding experience. Game makers have become extremely adept at finding ways to make two teams instantly distinguishable. Even items like icon or button designs need to become obvious when the player is using them over and over or needs to locate certain items within just a glance.

各個年齡段的玩家都希望獲得快速便捷的入門體驗。 游戲制作人已經非常擅長于尋找使兩個團隊立即脫穎而出的方法。 甚至當玩家反復使用圖標或按鈕設計之類的物品時，它們也必須變得明顯，或者需要一眼就能找到某些項目。

The lesson? Your product or page needs to be recognizable to users within just a few seconds. Good design often lends itself to visually distinctive work. Play a few games and find out why.

課程？ 您的產品或頁面需要在幾秒鐘內被用戶識別。 好的設計通常可以使自己在視覺上與眾不同。 玩幾局，找出原因。

一致的正面或負面反饋 (Consistent positive or negative feedback)

One of the great things about games with massive player bases is that UX researchers can get answers to meaningful questions extremely quickly by running A/B tests. Riot Games one of the few companies that have a dedicated data science team across the business makes a habit of doing this in big ways.

擁有大量玩家基礎的游戲的一大優點是，UX研究人員可以通過運行A / B測試來非常快速地找到有意義的問題的答案。 Riot Games是在企業中擁有專門的數據科學團隊的為數不多的公司之一，習慣了大舉這樣做。

For instance, Riot is famous for running tests that boot “toxic” players for insulting others, but it also runs tests on user interface changes all the time, even for something as small as a button or icon.

例如，Riot以運行測試來啟動“有毒”播放器侮辱他人的測試而聞名，但它也始終在用戶界面更改上運行測試，即使是按鈕或圖標之類的東西也是如此。

Another way game UX designers differentiate from other markets is in the way they receive feedback. We often ask users to review a product on the app store, or on a product review website. Sometimes we ask in-product as well, but we don’t often go far beyond that.

游戲用戶體驗設計師與其他市場不同的另一種方式是他們獲得反饋的方式。 我們經常要求用戶在應用商店或產品評論網站上評論產品。 有時我們也會詢問產品內的信息，但是我們通常不會超出這個范圍。

In Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, Ubisoft — a massive studio with massive UX support — took that a step further by asking users for a rating after each mission. This isn’t usually done in games as it can sometimes break the narrative flow, but Ubisoft used the findings to double down on areas players liked for future games.

在《 刺客信條:黑旗》中 ，育碧–一個擁有大量用戶體驗支持的大型工作室–在每次執行任務后要求用戶提供評級，從而進一步邁進了一步。 這在游戲中通常不做，因為它有時會破壞敘事流程，但是育碧利用這些發現將玩家喜歡未來游戲的領域擴大一倍。

The best feedback comes step-by-step, user-by-user.

最好的反饋是逐步，逐個用戶的。

Getting feedback from users shouldn’t necessarily be about the whole, but about particular parts which is where you can find massive gold.

從用戶那里獲得反饋不一定一定是關于整體的，而應該是關于特定部分的信息，在這里您可以找到大量的黃金。

角色(可以隨時更改) (Personas (which can always be changed))

We spend so much time creating personas but don’t always end up using them. They just sit there in the background, untouched.

我們花了很多時間來創建角色，但并不總是最終使用它們。 他們只是坐在背景中，沒有動過。

But games aren’t shy about telling you there are personas working in the very foreground of the game. They straight up ask: how good are you at games? Do you want a story-based adventure with very little combat challenge, or do you want something tough that’ll beat you down?

但是游戲并不會害羞地告訴您在游戲的最前部有角色扮演。 他們直截了當地問:您的游戲水平如何？ 您是否希望進行基于故事的冒險，而戰斗挑戰卻很少，或者您想要讓自己失望的艱難事物？

It’s worth keeping this in mind during your content design. We tend to hold our personas very tightly and secretly, but as games show, there’s absolutely no harm in putting them straight in front of the user’s face.

值得在內容設計過程中牢記這一點。 我們傾向于非常緊密和秘密地握住我們的角色，但是正如游戲所顯示的那樣，將角色擺在用戶的臉前絕對沒有害處。

不要害怕走尋常路 (Don’t be afraid to follow the uncommon path)

If you’ve spent any time reading about video games over the last few months, you’ve probably heard the name Fortnite. It’s the biggest game in the world right now and it’s made its creator Epic Games and publisher EA more than a billion dollars.

如果您在過去幾個月里花了很多時間閱讀電子游戲，那么您可能已經聽說過Fortnite這個名字。 它是目前世界上最大的游戲，其創造者Epic Games和發行商EA的收入超過10億美元。

It’s big business. Did you also know it’s something of a modification of a previous game?

這是大生意。 您還知道這是對先前游戲的修改嗎？

Well, sort of. Fortnite’s battle royale mode is conceptually similar to a game called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which is arguably the second biggest game in the world right now. The game affectionately known as PUBG pits players against each other in a fight to the death as the play area slowly shrinks.

好吧，有點。 Fortnite的Royale戰斗模式在概念上類似于名為PlayerUnknown的Battlegrounds的游戲，該游戲可以說是目前世界上第二大游戲。 親切地稱為PUBG的游戲會在游戲區域逐漸縮小的情況下使玩家彼此抗衡，以進行死亡戰斗。

That game originally started as a modification to a previous game. In fact, multi-million dollar games like DOTA 2 or Team Fortress 2 all started as fan-made modifications to existing games. [Just to be clear, Fortnite is not a fan-mod of PUBG — but it did borrow the gameplay concept and uses the same game engine. Ed.]

該游戲最初是對先前游戲的修改。 實際上，數百萬美元的游戲(如DOTA 2或Team Fortress 2)都是作為對現有游戲的粉絲修改而開始的。 [僅需說明， Fortnite 并不是 PUBG的狂熱愛好者-但它確實借鑒了游戲性概念并使用相同的游戲引擎。 編]

The lesson? Sometimes the best and most valuable decisions your users can make are when they ignore certain things within your design and only focus on the best parts for an entirely different purpose.

課程？ 有時，用戶可以做出的最好，最有價值的決定是，當他們忽略設計中的某些內容，而只為最佳目的而專注于最佳零件時。

If your users are constantly using a particular feature of your product, is it worth thinking about whether that feature should become a product in and of itself?

如果您的用戶不斷使用您產品的特定功能，是否值得考慮該功能是否應成為產品本身？

了解需要更改的特定變量 (Understand the specific variables that need to change)

One of the great things about games is that even the tiniest, smallest detail can have a massive effect on the game. For instance, check out a game like StarCraft or PUBG, they regularly add patches that change how much damage a weapon will do, or how long it takes to reload a weapon.

游戲的一大優點是，即使是最小，最小的細節也可以對游戲產生巨大影響。 例如，簽出《 星際爭霸》或《 絕地求生》之類的游戲，他們會定期添加補丁，這些補丁會更改武器的傷害程度或重新加載武器所需的時間。

These take months to test.

這些需要幾個月的時間進行測試。

Even delaying a reload time by 0.3 seconds can have a huge impact in gameplay. In fact, it might even turn a large portion of your player base against the game entirely.

甚至將重新加載時間延遲0.3秒也會對游戲玩法產生重大影響。 實際上，它甚至可能使您的玩家群中的很大一部分完全與游戲抗衡。

Games do this all the time, and as UX in games has gotten more comprehensive, they’re able to pinpoint the exact things that turn players off. Not just based on what they say, but on what they actually do.

游戲一直在這樣做，并且隨著游戲中的用戶體驗變得更加全面，他們能夠找出導致玩家關閉的確切原因。 不僅基于他們所說的話，而且基于他們實際所做的。

While not everyone in UX design has those types of tools at their disposal, it highlights a need for any UX designer to be super critical about even the smallest change. They can have the biggest impact.

雖然并非UX設計中的每個人都可以使用這些類型的工具，但它凸顯了對于任何UX設計人員，即使是最小的更改，也都必須具有至關重要的作用。 它們可以產生最大的影響。