Let’s see if the game Lily’s Garden has a UI accessible for older adult gamers.
This post is going to focus on UI design in the genre of the puzzle game. As many of the games of this genre include a player-set pace, and a core gameplay built around cognitive versus physiological challenge, they have the potential to be more playable for older adults. In fact, when looking at statistics on the games that older adult players play, the puzzle genre is typically listed in the top three of favorite game genres for that demographic (Entertainment Software Association, 2019; Nelson-Kakulla, 2019).
That being said, it is still possible for puzzle games to make choices with the user interface design that could make a game more challenging to play for older adults than was intended. The game being focused on in this post, Lily’s Garden: Design & Relax (LGDR), has some choices in user interface (UI) design that could help to support playability for older adult players, and some choices that do not. The first thing to consider is the font style and font size used throughout the game. The size is inconsistent, depending upon the screen the player is on, on some of them the font seems too small to support the older adult player attempting to complete different actions or choose different options (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). On the screens where font is a larger size, it tends to be either notices of contact, reward, or for advertisements, the color scheme and font choice also changes on these screens, which is potentially problematic for players in terms of consistency and ease of interaction and navigation (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019).
Placement of text is another issue to consider. Key notifications are often, though not always, found at the bottom of the screen, with a green element under white font that stands out on most of the screens with the tan backdrop, but runs a higher risk of blending in on the title screen (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). It is still more visible than the internet warning on the main screen, as having small white text on an image background that is visually busy will likely be missed by older adult players, or any players with vision issues (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019).
The special event notification pop-up menu has a similar issue, where very small font is placed over a busy, image-based background (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). In both the opening screen and the in-game HUD there is a common design choice made, to have buttons and icons around the edges of the screen, leaving the center uninterrupted (Tactile Games, 2019). This is not ideal for older adults, who have a narrowing of their peripheral vision typically as they age, making them more likely to miss small things placed in the edges of the screen (Finn & Johnson, 2017). For example, looking at the in-game HUD, all information about lives, in-game currency, and stars earned are left very small on the upper left, while the setting icon, a pale gray cog on the busy backdrop, lives on the upper right with a tiny icon that links to other Tactile (2019) games, as well as an icon for any special event going on. The placement and size of these elements makes it more likely the information will be difficult to see, and changes will be easy to miss (Finn & Johnson, 2017).
The elements on the bottom of the screen, both on the left and right, are key to accessing gameplay, spending stars to progress the story, and accessing levels to earn stars accordingly (Tactile, 2019). Tactile (2019) made the decision to leave these icons, the task clipboard and bright green play button, much larger than other icons, making them more noticeable, which is a good choice for older adults (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). The size of the task clipboard and play button has another possible result, which would be making it easier for an older adult to accurately target and tap the intended icon, accommodating the changes with targeting accuracy that often happen with age (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). The daily bonus screen could also benefit from bigger icons, but since tapping on or near will only unlock the applicable day’s bonus there isn’t really any harm in a mistaken tap (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019).
There are a few places where the use of larger icons would be helpful to make the game more playable for older, and since the settings menus and pause menus have plenty of empty screen space available around each button, it’s unclear why the icons were made so small, and placed so tightly near one another, making mistaken taps more likely (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019). The issue of icon size could even be problematic for vision and for targeting of aim in the gameplay itself, as when the larger the field of play becomes larger, the icons become smaller, making it possible any player, but particularly an older adult player who has less motor coordination, might tap the wrong element (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019).
While this may seem like a minor issue in a game without a time limit, and one with levels that can be replayed when they’re lost, it could still contribute to frustration, which could cause a player to give up entirely. (Finn & Johnson, 2017; Tactile Games, 2019).
References
Entertainment Software Association. (2019). Essential facts about the computer and video gameindustries [PDF file]. https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-Essential-Facts-About-the-Computer-and-Video-Game\Industry.pdf
Finn, K., & Johnson, J. (2017). Designing user interfaces for an aging population [eBookedition]. Morgan Kaufmann. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/designing-user-interfaces/9780128045121/XHTML/B9780128044674000025/B9780128044674000025.xhtml
Nelson-Kakulla, B. (2019). Gaming trends of the 50+. AARP Research Issues & Topics:Technology. https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00328.001
Tactile Games. (2019). Lily’s garden: Design & relax.(Version 1.68.1). Tactile Games ApS. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lilys-garden-design-relax/id1437783446