Okay, so I stumbled upon this thing called Electronauts. It’s a game, yeah, but not just any game—it’s like this music-making virtual… um, experience, I guess. Imagine you’re a DJ, but without the whole “actually needing to know how to DJ” part. Perfect for someone like me, who can’t play an instrument to save my life.
Anyway, it’s been around for, what, seven years now? And people are still talking about it. Apparently, the interface design is super smart. Like, “designed by geniuses” smart. Or maybe just really clever. I don’t know. But I do know that it’s got three main things going for it: ease-of-use, hierarchy, and flexibility. Let’s dive into that, or at least try to.
So, ease-of-use, yeah? They give you these drumsticks in the game. Makes sense for a music game. But here’s the kicker—they’re not just for pretending you know how to drum. They’re tools, man! You use them to, like, mess with the interface. Humans are pretty good with tools, right? It’s like, in our DNA or something.
Imagine using the drumsticks to hit a button in the game. Nope, not so simple. Instead, you poke the button with the drumstick and then pull a trigger. Why? Because, without physical feedback from a real button, it’s easy to miss or mess up in VR. This setup makes you feel like you’ve actually done something. It’s almost like foolproof, or at least fool-resistant.
Now about hierarchy. Everything’s got a place. The game has these cube thingies, and each one is like its own mini app. You want to do something? Stick a cube on a pedestal. You get three cubes at a time, so no getting lost in folder-ception! Ever tried finding a file in a folder-in-a-folder situation? Ugh, right?
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, Electronauts. If this sounds like something that could teach us a thing or two about making interfaces less of a headache, well, maybe it is. And maybe it’s just a fun way to pretend we’re cool DJs. Either way, it’s a neat little piece of VR history.
