With basis in a qualitative player study, this paper presents different player attitudes concerning user interface elements. The paper focuses on how the game user interface influences the players’ involvement in the game, and how the players navigate between different sources of involvement. We argue that there is no necessary connection between a transparent interface and involvement, and that in many cases, overlay interfaces are preferred due to the clear information they present.
With point of departure in Ermi & Mäyra’s (2005) view of player involvement as a complex phenomenon, and Jørgensen’s (2010; forthcoming) research into the relationship between game user interfaces and the gameworld, we discuss how players in our qualitative study see involvement with respect to how the game UI is presented. This framework also enables us to discuss user interface design as a balancing act between aesthetics and mechanics, as the choice between transparent or superimposed interface features is a way to represent system information within the game context.
This preliminary analysis demonstrates that the idea that so-called “immersive” or minimal interfaces that strive towards including all system information into the gameworld environment and explaining it as part of fiction are not necessarily a goal to pursue. Although players often see the minimal UI as aesthetically attractive and an elegant way of representing system information, they always prefer to have relevant and sufficient information that allows them to interact meaningfully with the game mechanics and the gameworld. But as we have shown, meaningful obviously means different things to different players. However, once the players receive more information than they need, superimposed UI elements become annoying and for this reason they may risk ruining the sense of involvement.
We have also touched upon some of the shortcomings in the current understanding of involvement in games, emphasizing that involvement is important for all players, regardless of what aspects of the game they find most attractive. We have stressed Ermi & Mäyra’s point that involvement is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that is dependent not only upon the nature of the specific game or genre but also upon player preferences and what they find attractive about games.
All of this has consequences for UI design. First of all, regardless of whether one is designing a minimal or a more extensive UI, the designer must always make sure to present gameplay relevant information in a sufficiently clear and precise manner. The information should be consistently communicated , also when it is integrated to the gameworld. Also, UI designers must be conscious about what kind of game experience they want to create, and reflect on how this can be achieved through specific approaches to the UI. They must understand what it means to move the health bar from a detailed overlay meter showing the exact number of hit points, to a system that shows damage through covering the screen gradually in virtual blood splatter. A minimal UI that seems natural to the game environment is not the best way to present information that is critical, or that needs to be gauged on a continuous basis.
