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When it comes to User Interface (UI) in games, there are a lot of questions we need to ask ourselves as designers. Such as, "How am I presenting my UI in this game?" and "How much information do I need on screen?" etc etc. There are many ways to present UI in games. In this blog, I'll be talking about the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic UI elements, as well as spatial and META elements.
For a piece of UI to be considered diegetic, it essentially needs to exist in the world of the game, and the player character is able to see it. These could be ammo counters on guns, speed-o-meters in racing games or anything on a charactes phone. Spatially represented UI elements are generally in the world of the game, but only for the sake of players. Examples of this are seen in MMORPG's as the names above other players heads, aswell as health bars and damage counters. they exist in the 3D world, but are only for the player. UI elements that use the meta approach to representation include things like blood appearing around the edges of the screen when a character is injured or heavy panting when a character is out of stamina. Non-diegetic representations are the most common when it comes to UI, and they simply refer to buttons and information on screen and on HUDs.
Tom Clancy's: The Division (2016) Ubisoft.
The above picture shows an example of a UI element that is normally represented non-diegetically, but here is presented as a 3d holographic map the character projects onto the ground. The character most likely owns a device that projects his current location and the surrounding map onto the ground, making this representation diegetic.
Let's look at another example
Watch_Dogs (2014) Ubisoft
The information on screen about the ticket scalper is diegetic, as the character is reading that information from his phone. However, the dialog box in the corner is non-diegetic, as it's not presented in the game world.
Now that we all know the meanings of big words, let's try a little food for thought...
Tom Clancy's: Splinter Cell: Conviction (2010) Ubisoft.
Is the above example diegetic or not? It's represented in the 3D world, but the character can't see it. It's purely for the player. Now scroll up and look at the pretty matrix at the start and prove you've learnt something.
