Dungeon
Defenders

Situation

I was hired as a User Interface Designer for Chromatic Games, the company behind the best-selling Dungeon Defenders series. I was asked to redesign the user interface for the company’s newest game, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. The game had been in early access for about a year and had a loyal fan base, but the user interface was outdated and didn’t meet the needs of modern players.

Task

My task was to completely overhaul the visuals of the user interface, first and foremost. We needed to quickly and efficiently replace all “engineer art” in the game with a sleek, new interface that took what people loved about the original Dungeon Defenders while bringing it up to today’s standards. This meant most efforts to improve the overall user experience would have to take a backseat until this exercise was accomplished, as the visuals were the main complaint from our audience.

Action

To accomplish this task, I took the following actions:

1. Conducted user research to understand the pain points and needs of the game’s players. This involved conducting surveys and reading responses on social media, as well as spending time playing the game myself to get a feel for the existing user experience.
2. Identified all areas for visual improvement, such as the game’s navigation, in-game tutorials, and inventory management system.
3. Itemized the list of areas and pinpointed individual elements that can be reused across multiple instances, such as buttons, item frames, and tooltips.
4. Created a new user interface design that was cleaner, more intuitive, and easier to navigate. This design addressed the specific pain points and user complaints that I had identified through my research.
5. Iterated on the design several times to refine it and ensure that it was effective.
6. Worked closely with the game’s development team to implement the redesigned user interface.

Result

As a result of these actions, the game’s user interface was significantly improved. The players were thrilled with the changes, and the game’s developers were able to implement the new design without too much difficulty. This would free up time for us to focus on the game’s overall user experience and the company was able to continue to provide a high-quality experience for its players.