{"id":26959,"date":"2019-02-10T14:05:28","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T14:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/?p=26959"},"modified":"2020-02-28T13:24:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T13:24:52","slug":"what-ux-designers-can-learn-from-slots-designers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/popular\/what-ux-designers-can-learn-from-slots-designers\/","title":{"rendered":"What UX Designers Can Learn from Slots Designers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Think slots are basic? Well, that\u2019s kind of the point. Slots rake casinos in billions of dollars a year <em>because <\/em>they\u2019re 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\u2019t changed much since the mechanical one-armed bandits of the early 1900s!<\/p>\n<p>While you may think the average slot game has a boring UX, perhaps you\u2019re not the target market. Consider these slot designer tricks that you can incorporate into your next project.<\/p>\n<div id=\"thede-1457932358\" class=\"thede-proper-below-img-2-2 thede-entity-placement\"><div data-ad=\"thedesigninspiration.com_fluid_sq_2\" data-devices=\"m:1,t:1,d:1\"  class=\"demand-supply\"><\/div><\/div><div id=\"thede-1453703665\" class=\"thede-proper-below-img-2 thede-entity-placement\"><div data-ad=\"thedesigninspiration.com_fluid_sq_2\" data-devices=\"m:1,t:1,d:1\"  class=\"demand-supply\"><\/div><\/div><h2><strong>Forget subtlety<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Slots are always big, bright, and bold. Even if you browse hundreds of slot games, you\u2019ll 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t afford to be subtle when <a href=\"https:\/\/uxdesign.cc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">designing UX<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Familiar themes make users feel comfortable<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Notice how slot themes seem repetitive &#8211; 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\u2019ll see familiar themes across these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nodeposit365.com\/features\/best-designed-free-slots\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">examples of slots with great design<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is because players are drawn to what they know and like.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it\u2019s 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows\/win32\/appuistart\/-user-interface-principles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Windows desktop experience<\/a>. Learning and navigating a new system, even if it\u2019s actually better in the long run, can turn off users.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The fewer screens the better<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>With slots games, you\u2019ll have the reels screen, and perhaps one or two separate feature screens &#8211; or sometimes the content is simply overlayed over the top of the reels. Besides static help and information screens, that\u2019s it. The Keep It Simple Stupid applies here &#8211; and as it should in your work, too.<\/p>\n<p>Minimizing the number of screens displayed to a user helps them not to \u2018get lost\u2019 in a software product. Think about some of the best software products you\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n<p>This gets trickier on mobile, however, it\u2019s still able to be accomplished. Make navigation simple and limit screens.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Animations on actions inform the user of a change<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One design element of slots games that UX designers don\u2019t always incorporate is displaying a short animation after an action is performed.<\/p>\n<p>This also plays into the forget subtlety point above.<\/p>\n<p>If a user performs an action, you need to give them feedback that something has been accomplished, even if you don\u2019t want to change the display of what\u2019s on the screen (or just present a hardly noticeable change). Animations catch the eye &#8211; so the user always knows that something has happened.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Remember your audience<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>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\u2019s 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 &#8211; or have different casinos, all under the one company, with each casino targeted to a specific market.<\/p>\n<p>UX always starts and ends with your users. Don\u2019t let your manager tell you what the users want &#8211; or even your users\u2019 manager. Get out there and survey your audience like these\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycool.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">best paid survey panels<\/a>: learn what they\u2019re familiar with, their wants in a product, and their dislikes, too.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/universitymarketing.osu.edu\/blog\/audience-centric-measurement.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Audience-centric design<\/a> is critical to the success of UX in your project.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>See UX in everything<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Everything that\u2019s not naturally occurring in this world can be viewed from a UX perspective. Is that lamp\u2019s cord long enough to fit most living arrangements, is the light the right brightness and shade, is it the right height\u2026?<\/p>\n<p>Learning to view everything in terms of UX can help transfer over into your work. Even if it\u2019s something you may have considered basic, think of how it appeals to a certain audience and whether it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Think slots are basic? Well, that\u2019s kind of the point. Slots rake casinos in billions of dollars a year because they\u2019re basic (and because people love to gamble, of course).&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-popular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26959"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27013,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26959\/revisions\/27013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedesigninspiration.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}