[IGDA Mobile-SIG List] Hi

[John Bridges]

"A presentation at Mobile Monday comes to mind
where a DChoc product manager with a development background designed the
UI."

You make that sound like a bad thing ... a very provocative statement.

1. How many usability designers are there with mobile UI backgrounds ?

2. Surely Nokia must use professional UI designers, yet (IMHO) many of their recent phones have stunk.

3. Many of the usability issues surrounding mobile games are actually out of the hands of the developers - e.g. first encounter on a Symbian 2 or 3 Nokia - download game, save game ... um where did it go ? Applications ? My Own ? At the bottom of some random menu ?

4. There are probably issues around designing your own interfaces - but budgets for most mobile games are so limited they can barely afford the developers. There will be a budget for a games designer, who will hopefully have some experience designing for the mobile platform. 

5. Sometimes UI design is driven by market example - even if its an inappropriate interface for mobile keypads. Same as Windows - not necessarily the best interface in the world but once people are used to it ...





Wendy Fischer wrote:

> I've been working on mobile games for over a year, and I've been doing

> mobile interface design for a couple of years. 

>

> I think there's a couple of things - 

>

> 1) What the state of user interface design and usability in the mobile

> gaming industry?  From my observation, while usability and user

> experience is a big concern, there doesn't seem to be a lot of industry

> support for user experience design and usability in the mobile software

> development process.  The focus is on shipping ASAP, not taking some

> extra time, following a user centered design process, doing usability

> testing and shipping later.

>

> 2) Are mobile gaming companies employing UX designers? Most demos I've

> seen of products seem to be designed by a developer or a product

> manager, not a designer. A presentation at Mobile Monday comes to mind

> where a DChoc product manager with a development background designed the

> UI.

>

> 3) What are companies currently doing to improve the user experience of

> mobile games?

>

> Obviously there's many design issues and factors associated with mobile

> games, with multiple phones, multiple mobile OS's, porting, multiple

> development platforms, variations on the network experience (Verizon vs.

> sprint, for example) that can impact game design for multiplayer

> games.....I can go on -- there's so many, that impact the design of the

> game that it makes it difficult to design one usable user experience

> that can be utilized across all the phones and carriers.

>

>

>

>

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