With the introduction of high-end games all over the world, there are great prospects to opt for a lucrative career in game UX design and development. Even though the road takes a lot of practice, it is quite thrilling and super exciting to keep growing and learning throughout the game designing process.
Want to learn how Neal Taparia, who created a few excellent brain training apps, managed to design and develop the best app UX just like I’m a Puzzle? If yes, we have got you covered! This guide will end your search for a comprehensive step-by-step game UX design as well as development here. So, without any further ado, let’s get started!
5-Step Journey to Game UX Design and Development
Check out all the steps to design and implement the best game UX in a systematic approach below:
1. Digging Deeper on the Internet
Research is considered to be the core of adding a touch of unique user experience. Thus, a UX designer should dig deep to share opinions, as well as get in line with the game’s domain, market as well as competition. For this, detailed collection from clients is done along with conducting relevant surveys. This is the ideation phase that includes sketching and designing your ideas based on the outcomes of what clients and surveys share. This step also helps in gaining insights into what the goals and objectives of the game are and how the design should be curated to meet that demand.
Don’t know how and where to start? Well, you can start with a client interview and seek necessary information such as the game’s details and any custom requirements that they require. Then, you can probe ahead to evaluate the market with surveys and talk to focus groups for collecting both qualitative as well as quantitative results.
2. Evaluating the Results of 1st step
Now that you are fully aware of what the client and focus groups expect, you can kick start the next crucial step of creating user personas and mapping the user journeys. You can use user personas for describing different target audiences by categorizing their age, gender, goals, needs, profession and behaviors. Remember: This step is super beneficial since every design decision relies on the user personas.
Once user personas are created successfully, it is time to draft user journey mapping. It showcases a step-by-step approach to how each user is going to interact with your game and other services. This covers a basic flow of the user’s journey once he lands on your gaming website. The map is created in such a way that all the interactions are outlined in their accurate sequence to help them visit all the pages in a structured manner.
3. Actual Designing
This step involves all the designing activities that will help in evoking a positive user experience for the customers. Game designing is a procedure that includes 3 steps.
The first step is sketching; it involves visualizing and jotting down all the UX ideas. From brainstorming about which design to select to sending the finalized ones to the client, everything is covered under sketching. The second step is about creating wireframes that are considered to be the backbone of a game. These wireframes represent a basic structure or blueprint of all the future pages that hold all the crucial elements together. They showcase the content’s position be it, images, buttons, or other features. They also provide a concise picture of users’ navigation from one page to another. All-in-all, they impart the best visual experience without even designing the product yet.
The third step revolves around designing a prototype or a first version of the game. Where wireframes described the look and framework of the game, prototypes help in witnessing the actual real experience. Thus, in simple words, it covers both the look as well as the feel of the game. In this way, you can easily analyze any flaws or discrepancies that may arise in the design or further development phase. It is also helpful in reviewing the game with your client to make sure that you are in the right direction. Once you get them to say yes, you can continue to work further to complete the game.
4. Testing
Now that the first version is out, testing becomes extremely crucial to ensure that the final game has no flaw at all. Whatever issues the client states or you point out while playing must be informed to the developers for correction. They will perform all types of testing to make sure all bugs are removed in time. Starting with user testing, in which the game is played by the target group to understand if it is perfect in terms of all aspects.
Later, a Beta launch takes place where only a limited set of people identify and fix the bugs so that the game is fully user-friendly. This is done just before the final launch. Finally, internal testing takes place and the game is then taken across the development team who then inspect every aspect to release the perfect final game.
5. Implementing and launching the game
As soon as testing completes, the designed prototype is converted into a final game product ready for production. It will be sent for marketing and public release after the UAT testing procedure. But still, UX designing doesn’t end here. With changing trends, you need to update the game as per the evolving market standards. As per user recommendations, new and exciting features can also be added for keeping the user engagement up.
Final Verdict
With this, you must have gotten acquainted with all the vital steps involved in completing a gaming project from scratch. This guide can act as your one-stop solution to help you whenever you decide to design a new game for your client. So, go through all the steps once you have understood the game theme and implement them all to get your design and development finished off seamlessly. Enjoy your game UX design!
The post A Step-by-step guide to Game UX Design and Development (From Scratch) appeared first on Design your way.
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