ARTICLE SUMMARY: How about a show of hands, how many of you designers played pinball growing up? How many went to arcades to play video games? How many still play video games? A lot of us. We do love the classics, don’t we.
Now, how many of you designers look to the original video games for inspiration? We look at other websites, billboards, TV ads, you never know what will inspire us next. So why would you not consider the old video games.
As we look for inspiration Eric Karkovack is suggesting we look to the classics. In his article “Want UX Inspiration? Look To Classic Video Games” he points out some of the lessons we can take away from those games of yesteryear, lessons like
- Their usability and intuitive design
- The Challenges of Arcade Game Design and how they apply to today
- What do websites and video games have in common
It’s nice to reminisce how back in the day some game could take you to a galaxy far far away, and how sad it is that some will never experience going to an arcade, pumping in quarter after quarter going for the high score and then the thrill achieving it, but, there are design lessons to be learned from this experience.
And now Eric Karkovack, in the same spirit of game designers from back in the day reminds us that being a web designer means guiding user, that it’s about building an interface that takes people where they want to go.
As Eric tells us, “The details of the mission may be different. But the goal is still to get users on to that next level.”
This is a great article about what we can learn from our past experiences and apply it to design.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
