After a taking a brief hiatus, we are excited to announce that our Reader's Corner is back in action! You can look forward to seeing a lot more engaging and thought-provoking content from our staff through the remainder of 2018. In this week's issue, we are keeping up with a very "visual" theme, featuring articles related to designing video game UIs, creating a hands-free platform for developing iOS games, and the historical progression of color theory over the years.
Into the Breach's Interface was a Nightmare to Make and the Key to its Greatness
Source: Rock Paper Shotgun
Takeaway: An interview about balancing interface approachability with information density. There was one specific story I liked: The game creators chose to adjust the in-game tutorials/guides to show different unit icons depending on which one was active. This is one of those UI tasks that requires extra labor to achieve but which results in a much better experience for the user. A similar example is Dropbox’s download instructions: Rather than show generic UI or just use the most popular one (probably Windows), Dropbox took screenshots for every platform and shows you the one that matches yours. It’s only a slightly different result, and it required extra work and management, but as a user, it made things better.
Tags: #UI, #Craft
Coding Without a Keystroke: The Hands-Free Creation of a Full Video Game
Source: Ars Technica
Takeaway: Rusty Moyher has combined assistive technologies into a custom hands-free development platform which he has used to create and ship a complete iOS game.
Tags: #Programming, #Accessibility
Color Wheels
Source: Infographics for the People
Takeaway: Color wheels are a staple of design classes, from the early days of analog printing through the digital mediums we all know and love today. While the gamut of colors we see remains the same, how theorists decided to divide and arrange them has changed over the years. In a recent blog post John Grimwade provides examples of analog color wheels from the late 18th century through the turn of the 21st century, as well as some current digital representations.
Tags: #Design, #Color
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