Iterative UI Design
Today I’d like to share the process behind the development of a singular UI feature, in particular the part (equipment)-sorting implementation, which is a good example of taking a simple premise and working it one step at a time, examining the results of each new element added throughout the process until as a whole it satisfied (and even exceeded) expectations.
Inventory turnover is quite frequent in Cogmind (more on that here), and the result is almost inevitably a cluttered list of equipment in the HUD, especially later in the game when you can equip a couple dozen different parts, and especially with utilities, the most versatile category of parts capable of a wide range of functionality.
While playing I’ve found myself sometimes having to take time out to reorganize that list, grouping multiple parts with complementary effects like heat sinks, hackware, or other processors to better understand my build at a given time. And I know that some other players do this as well, as having a list of equipment that’s easier to parse facilitates rapid decision-making and avoids otherwise unnecessary mistakes.
With interfaces there’s of course the important question of how to present this feature to the player, but in this case I didn’t start there, having only a vague idea of how best to do that. Instead, it made more sense to start with something more fundamental--without regard for appearances, the first step was to simply make sure the sorting algorithm itself worked, and just display the final result.
