Todd Sumamno
Think slots are basic? Well, that’s kind of the point. Slots rake casinos in billions of dollars a year because they’re basic (and because people love to gamble, of course). Slots design has evolved over the years to incorporate new tech advances, style of art, and themes, however the basic overall design hasn’t changed much since the mechanical one-armed bandits of the early 1900s!
While you may think the average slot game has a boring UX, perhaps you’re not the target market. Consider these slot designer tricks that you can incorporate into your next project.
Forget subtlety
Slots are always big, bright, and bold. Even if you browse hundreds of slot games, you’ll notice the formats are generally the same, the spin and bet buttons in the same place at the bottom of the screen, bonuses always up the top, there’s some variation of the same old reels, and features are triggered on the same sorts of symbols or combinations of symbols. There are always animations on special symbols.
You can’t afford to be subtle when designing UX. If you go subtle, then you can frustrate or confuse users. Make buttons big. Clearly articulate subfolders. Design with separated elements in different (bright) color schemes. Make it big, bright, and bold, with easy actions and easy to navigate screens.
Familiar themes make users feel comfortable
Notice how slot themes seem repetitive – an Asian-themed slot, a cowboy-themed slot, a magic-themed slot, plus games licensed from TV shows and movies (or obvious rip-offs)? You’ll see familiar themes across these examples of slots with great design.
This is because players are drawn to what they know and like.
While you might have a brilliant idea about how to make user experience far more interesting and smooth in your design, it means that users have to get to grips with a new style of theme.
Instead, it’s usually better to go for the lowest common denominator, replicating an experience that users are familiar with, such as common color themes, actions and workflows on an iOS device, or a Windows desktop experience. Learning and navigating a new system, even if it’s actually better in the long run, can turn off users.
The fewer screens the better
With slots games, you’ll have the reels screen, and perhaps one or two separate feature screens – or sometimes the content is simply overlayed over the top of the reels. Besides static help and information screens, that’s it. The Keep It Simple Stupid applies here – and as it should in your work, too.
Minimizing the number of screens displayed to a user helps them not to ‘get lost’ in a software product. Think about some of the best software products you’ve encountered in the wild. How many screens do they have? Even complex tools often have a main window, with options all around the edges, and perhaps some different views to change the display in the main window.
This gets trickier on mobile, however, it’s still able to be accomplished. Make navigation simple and limit screens.
Animations on actions inform the user of a change
One design element of slots games that UX designers don’t always incorporate is displaying a short animation after an action is performed.
This also plays into the forget subtlety point above.
If a user performs an action, you need to give them feedback that something has been accomplished, even if you don’t want to change the display of what’s on the screen (or just present a hardly noticeable change). Animations catch the eye – so the user always knows that something has happened.
Remember your audience
While this might be super obvious, it bears repeating. Remember your audience! Slots designers know their target audience well when they are designing slot games. The style of art and animations they use depends on their target audience’s age, gender, and location. Slots houses are careful to offer a range of styles of slots so that they can cater to a wide variety of players – or have different casinos, all under the one company, with each casino targeted to a specific market.
UX always starts and ends with your users. Don’t let your manager tell you what the users want – or even your users’ manager. Get out there and survey your audience like these best paid survey panels: learn what they’re familiar with, their wants in a product, and their dislikes, too.
Audience-centric design is critical to the success of UX in your project.
See UX in everything
Everything that’s not naturally occurring in this world can be viewed from a UX perspective. Is that lamp’s cord long enough to fit most living arrangements, is the light the right brightness and shade, is it the right height…?
Learning to view everything in terms of UX can help transfer over into your work. Even if it’s something you may have considered basic, think of how it appeals to a certain audience and whether it’s working.
Brittany
