What games can teach us about developing software.

Well, here is my first post. I hope I can fit in with this group of excellent thinkers.

I was sitting on my couch thinking of a topic to write about. Not having much luck, I picked up my PSP and stated playing Patapon, a new rhythm fighting game. It is quite addictive and keeps one wondering what the next screen will bring. This got me thinking about some of the projects I have worked on in the past. Mostly typical stuff; allowing the user to enter data into the system, bring up various reports, optimizing business processes, etc… Fairly boring stuff. I got to wondering; just because the task at hand is not exciting, does the flow through the software need to be boring? I do not consider myself a great UI designer. I would probably fall in with most software engineers as mediocre. But I want to be a better UI designer. So this got me thinking, can I borrow some of these gaming ideas to make the user experience better?

The first idea that came to mind was the percent complete statistic some games have. A lot of games get rather monotonous toward the middle. I have notices that I am more likely to plow through the slow sections of the games with the percentage complete statistic than the ones without. It lets me know I am making progress. This can be used with any fixed process that take many steps. Turbo Tax does this very well and helps me stick with my tax preparation.

Another common game construct is the score. The higher the score the better you are doing. Some of the software I have developed in the past could have used this idea. One of those programs allowed the users to move advertising around to maximize revenue, but not breaking any advertiser conditions. One could run a report to get the current revenue for the day, but wouldn’t it have been nice to have a running total, giving immediate feedback.

The cleared level is one way a game gives the user a sense of accomplishment. Many monotonous tasks is business software could take advantage of this also. Lets use a scheduling program as an example. The user can mark off a period of time or an item being scheduled as complete. As they do their work the user can see progress.

Games also give the user a reword for accomplishing a task, often a cool cut scene. This can also be used in regular software. Turbo Tax does this with a congratulation banner when the tax form check succeeds.

Games are kind of an interesting software product. Most software allows us to accomplish tasks, like balancing a check book, modifying pictures, scheduling meetings, etc… The software is just a tool to an end. So if we want to remove the red eye from a photo we are forced to go through the process. Video games on the other hand are only there to be used. If the game is not interesting, people will not use it. This makes UI design very crucial. So why not borrow some of their ideas for you next project? Just some ideas that have been running through my head.