From Gaming to UX: How I got into UX Design

The Beginning

Gaming has always been a strong interest of mine ever since I was a kid. It was always amazing how well the gameplay kept me intrigued for hours, my interest only waning after I had my fill of one of my favorite past times.

Video games have the uncanny ability to immerse the user in an entirely different world, whether it be fantasy like one of my favorites the Final Fantasy franchise, or horror like Resident Evil, there’s plenty of room to explore, be in awe of realistic 3D graphics, and resonate with a well written character story.

Learning about the process behind a product

Once I got to high school, I decided to major in game design. After getting accepted into my alma mater, and after taking a few of my major classes, I quickly learned that a lot goes into creating a product that will go above and beyond a users expectations.

Working on games early on in my undergraduate career made me realize that it is a long and actually quite fun process to take an experience from idea or inception to a finished product. I worked on teams spanning from 2 to 10 people during the creation of a few mobile games. There were also times where the team had to recruit others outside the team, such as a sound design student, to work on the sound effects for a game.

This was also a time where I learned to wear several hats. During both my junior and senior years, I juggled being one of the main 3D environment artists who created nature and indoor environment assets, programmed a few environmental changes in the Unreal engine, met with potential users to play the initial version of a game and get their feedback, lead a few team meetings, created early sketches, and several other tasks.

An iterative process builds enjoyable experiences

While working on these projects, there was always a consistent and clear process that was followed. My favorite part of this process was meeting with users, observing them use a product, and finally speaking with them about their experience. The good, the meh, and the “please remove that immediately” of a product.

Also, the word iteration was used on a steady basis. Utilizing an iterative process while creating a game, a fun and engaging game at that, was very important as iteration ensured that we were doing the due diligence to consistently meet users needs. We, as a team, would usually go by the following steps in game development:

• Planning
• Pre-production
• Testing
• Pre-launch
• Launch
• Post-launch

Many steps within the process would be repeated such as the testing phase so that users could be an integral part of the development and their needs and wants are kept at the forefront.

The transition to UX for all products

After working on a few games, I decided to work on a concept idea that was outside of the gaming world. I wanted to take what I’ve learned and utilize it in other industries. This particular project was closely aligned to the healthcare community and would help deaf patients with their use of sign language.

Working on this project, and seeing a process behind the development of something that could potentially make a great impact on people, was the catalyst to me wanting to start doing UX for other fields. During my time on all these different projects, I saw the dedication to creating a great experience, and realizing that these great experiences take time, doing some things over and over until you reach a desired outcome, and ultimately viewing a finished product that the people can use on a daily basis.