Hail, Wanderers!
I'd like to start this design dive with a story that, at first glance, seems rather unrelated to game design. At the store where I currently work, we have, as one may expect, public restrooms. They're of the one person variety, with a locking door and amenities for one occupant. The door's the important part here, as we have some rather consistent trouble with the lock on one of them.
Now, the lock is perfectly mechanically sound. It's of the variety that has a small button that you press in to lock the door, and works without any issue. Yet at least three or four times a week, if not more, we have a customer come to us and complain that the door lock isn't working. The lock does in fact work, and we've checked several times to ensure that everything is as it should be, but still people are under the belief, sometimes even after we assure them that everything is working properly, that the door isn't locking. Why?
Well, when you press in the button to lock this particular door, the button goes in all the way then comes back out. The button doesn't remain pressed in, there isn't a real change in resistance between pressing the button in when its locked versus when its unlocked, there isn't a click noise when the button locks, you get the idea. The door doesn't provide enough feedback to, if it's not too much of a stretch to say so, give the user the experience of properly locking the door. Again, the lock does work, it just fails to indicate that it's been locked in a convincing way, leading to many people believing that the door is broken.
So why the story about the door? Because games can suffer from the same issues. Even if a game is working properly, if the player isn't presented with feedback that everything is working, they can be quite convinced (and reasonably so!) that the game is broken. Imagine a button, just a generic UI element, that has zero forms of feedback when interacted with. No visual change when selected or pressed, no audio cue, no visual change when the option is available, etc. Unless the effect of pressing the button is immediately apparent, the player may not be convinced that the button has worked at all.
The problem, I think, is most common with systems that don't have that immediate form of feedback. A button to close or open a menu maybe doesn't need to provide as much feedback from the basic interaction, as the presence or absence of the menu it's supposed to control is perhaps feedback enough. On the other hand, a button to save the game, or to send a message to another player, or anything that lacks that immediate visual feedback from the action itself can be vulnerable to this phenomenon.
As another example, I remember my sister used to save Word documents (I forget which version of Word this was, sadly) several times, out of a fear that it didn't "save properly". I admit that I sometimes do this as well, or at least used to, and though I understood that the document was, in fact, being saved every time I hit the save button or used the keyboard command, there wasn't enough feedback to really convince me that my work had in fact been saved.
With all that in mind, what's to be done? Visual feedback is a good first step. If it's not intrusive to do so, adding a quick text blurb or image popup to confirm that the action went through properly can remedy the problem by itself. It doesn't have to be bombastic either, as a small visual cue near the button itself can suffice. Audio cues are also solid, if less reliable as they can be turned off, or the player may be unable to hear them. Audio can, however, help make the act of pressing a button more satisfying, as, say, the sound of coins clinking together can add a bit of flavor to a shop interface. The Fate game series by WildTangent, for example, had a rather satisfying inventory system, partially because of the sound effects that played whenever the player moved an item from one grid space to another (I remember the wet slap the fish made was particularly satisfying).
And on that note, expect a quick update to the Dueling Game in the coming days to add a bit of visual feedback to button presses, especially in regards to players prepping actions in combat.
Oh, and later on I'm going to write up a part 2 on this topic discussing how good visual and audio feedback can help teach players how to play the game.
Until next time!
Charles
Update - 5/7/17
The UI update to the Dueling Game is done.
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