The UI as Art



The official Chronicles of Spellborn site offers up an article by
developer Niel Vredeveldt  on the art of the user interface
(UI), complete with screenshots of work in progress:

I’ll first take this opportunity to
introduce myself - my
name is Niel Vredeveldt. I have been working on this project from the
very beginning, first as an environmental artist and now as the
Interaction Designer here at TCOS. For the ones who are not familiar
with the term ‘interaction designer’, it has a lot
to do with usability. I try to make the game more user-friendly. As you
can imagine, the main tool through which people interact with the game
mostly is the User interface. It’s a daunting task to make
navigating TCOS a pleasant experience for everyone and creating the
actual GUI consumes most of my time. I also work on the movement
system, the combat system, player controls and all other combat
feedback.

Read
on!