We start with a kick off meeting at a dry erase board where the team builds consensus around the goals and basic vision. Everyone sketches their rough ideas. There is usually a lot of interrupting and apologies during this phase.
It’s good to fight for what you believe in, but it’s even better when you can negotiate to consensus.
In games, I believe that classic gray scale wireframes are insufficient at capturing the reality of designing for the Games UX/UI experience. With games, there are more more bells and whistles, more colors, more complex behaviors, and tighter real estate than conventional ux/ui screen experiences. This is especially true in mobile.
Though, I’ll be honest - it very well may produce better results to go through a proper academic UX process. Thing is, I’ve never worked on a project with budget big enough to actually do a proper academic UX process. (#LifeGoals) I have always worked in an “iterative development” environment, though it doesn’t seem very iterative when you only ever having enough time to do it once.
It is about pragmatic efficiency.
By having a solid visual library (the UI tileset) a wireframe can double as Alpha quality on the first pass. Not only is it more representative of the end product, it can also prove to be a tremendous efficiency boost.
Sample Below: Gumballs Gear System
Two concepts for a complex Gear System. These wireframes are from later in development, when we had 3D assets and a relatively mature UI tile set. It will always break my heart that this system never learned to fly.
