Top Resources for UX Designers in Gaming
The beauty of working in user experience is that you can work in any industry, because the core skills are the same across the board. However, every industry has its own peculiarities, both from product and customer points of view.
Gaming and gambling have been around for a while, but design for gaming is a pretty young area, where there are not that many resources yet. Through working in the field, I’ve put together a list of useful resources that have helped me better understand the industry and the people I am designing for.
I’ll start with outlining the areas specific to gambling that can boost the understanding of the industry. I would loosely split the topics into 2 groups — focussed on behavioural psychology and purely on gambling. Here are the areas that are useful to have a view of as a UX or product designer:
- player types
- player psychology
- gamification
- working with lots of information
- game theories
- behavioural psychology
I personally find learning through books and articles the most efficient, so my recommendations will lean towards them. Let’s start with the books, that cover some of the topics:
- The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
This one reads like fiction — the story is gripping. Maria talks about poker, specifically about the importance of mental skills over game skills. Aside from being a fascinating story, the book offers examples of differences between real life and digital poker games, which is interesting when designing for players of both environments.
- Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte
A classic — the book is focused on working with data. It outlines various practices for working with stats and visualizing information, offering a variety of examples from different areas.
- Hooked by Nir Eyal
This book breaks down how to get the user to come back to your service, by introducing a trigger-reward cycle. In recent years it’s been widely quoted and used in companies far beyond gaming.
- Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou
An amazing book that unpacks gamification in the most unexpected way. Going beyond badges and leaderboards, the book can teach even the pros a trick or two.
- Gamer psychology and behaviour by Barbaros Baston
This one is more academic and mostly touches upon computer games rather than gambling, but if you are into your academic writing, give it a go.
- Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schüll
The book describes the evolution of slots and casino games, with examples from Las Vegas casinos. It provides a different context to fully online games and reinforces the feeling of responsibility and empathy towards players.
- Bartle’s player types — not a book, this one is an article that opens the veil on various player types. It is useful for understanding player motivation. It’s a good foundation for further reading and best to be paired with customer research and other resources.
Aside from books, there are a few online resources that are updated continuously and offer news and insights on customers and operators:
- YouGov research portal —useful for UK-based designers. The portal has ongoing research dedicated to responsible gaming and risks associated with gambling. It’s a good source not only to keep the ‘responsible’ angle visible — they often do studies about habits, behaviours, motivations.
- Gambling Insider — global online magazine, useful to keep an eye on competition and wider trends. The magazine itself has articles from industry experts, CEOs and regulators on a wide range of topics, from changes in the market to newest tech to summaries of regulatory space.
This is not an exhaustive list of helpful resources and there is lots more to learn every day, but it’s a good starting point. Please share in comments what you found useful when getting into this industry!
