Hello everyone, this is Hama from the Promotional team!

FFXIV Backstage Investigators is a blog series that shares behind-the-scenes stories from the team members who work on all aspects of FFXIV.

The subject of our thirteenth interview is...

Game UI Designer Kei Odagiri!

FFXIV's UI (user interface) team is involved with an impressive range of FFXIV's development, from its structural systems to its immersive menus!

Also, FFXIV is currently hiring game UI designers! If you're interested, please check out this blog and recruitment listing.

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Hama: Mr. Odagiri, could you start us off by sharing what it's like to work as a game UI designer?

Odagiri: Sure thing.

People tend to think of game UI designers as artists, but it's more of a technical profession. When an update calls for new content or features, we create a list of specifications based on their menu windows; namely, what features the menus will need and how they should be designed for navigation. From there, we discuss and decide a course of action with other relevant teams, then work in tandem with our programmers and artists to get everything implemented. That basically sums up the UI team's main duties.

As for me, I mainly work on many of the system-related elements that form the fundamental parts of the game. I'm in charge of player input-related features such as camera and movement controls, control system features for UI customization elements (like the Configuration menus), reviewing the necessity of platform-specific features for PlayStation®5 and PlayStation®4, and more.

In addition to those fundamental aspects, I also oversee the features which derive from them, such as group pose, performance, and most recently-adventurer plates.

Hama: Sounds like working on UI encompasses far more than we might expect!

Could you tell us more about what the UI team does when new content is being added to the game?

Odagiri: After our game designers finish their proposal for a new piece of content or feature, they ask us to work on its interfaces. We have a detailed discussion with the person in charge to make sure we're on the same page regarding the intent of the proposal or the key points of the content.

From there, we narrow down the necessary requirements and functionality for each feature, gauge how difficult they would be to implement, then assign a game UI designer to the task before moving on to the finer details of the specifications.

One example would be variant dungeons, which were introduced in Patch 6.25 and encompass a wide variety of different features. When you look at the V&C Dungeon Finder menu, there's a feature for duty registration, another for selecting variant actions, as well as an expedition log feature which unlocks entries upon duty completion. There's also one that switches the menu to the higher-difficulty criterion dungeons, which reveals yet another feature that allows users to select matchmaking criteria.

We begin by identifying these kinds of essential components and organizing them into features that players would presumably need. Then we request our UI artists to create the visual designs and layout data, and our UI programmers to implement the actual features.

With the V&C Dungeon Finder, the basic features, such as duty registration and variant action selection, were designed to look like the standard system UI, while the expedition log window was given a more stylized look.

Hama: The fancy expedition log window and having the duty registration feature outside of Duty Finder certainly stood out to me at the time.

Odagiri: Our game designers were the ones who provided the framework of the variant dungeon system, whereas we worked with our artists and programmers to flesh it out into actual UI features. During that process, we made suggestions based on in-game immersion, usability, functionality, and other factors.

It's worth mentioning how the UI team is often working on the next patch to be released. While most other teams are planning and creating development environments for patches far into the future, the UI team is typically occupied with the most immediate patch based on those upcoming plans. So, for us, it's a never-ending battle with "the next patch." (laughs)

Hama: I've also noticed that your team sometimes goes back and revamps systems that were implemented in the past.

Odagiri: That's right.

While it may not have made much of a difference for veteran players, in Patch 6.4, we added a feature that allows players to carry over their class's hotbar settings to their new job, such as gladiator to paladin.

▲ One of the many system-related updates implemented in Patch 6.4.

Prior to this feature, when a player advanced from a class to a job, they had to place their actions on their hotbars all over again, which wasn't exactly intuitive for beginners. It was a situation we wanted to address for years, and we were finally blessed with a timing where the task could be prioritized by our staff members.

Developing UI for new content may be our primary job, but we're always looking to address small-but-worthwhile changes and bringing features up to current standards, even if it's in small steps at a time.

Hama: There've been times where I've been surprised by how tiny some changes were, but now I understand your intentions behind them.

Odagiri: We do make miniscule adjustments that might make you go, "I can't believe they're going that far with the UI!" Everyone in our team pitches in with ideas for improvements, which are tracked as a list and worked on whenever we have time to spare.

Our conversations go something like, "Wouldn't it be better like this?"

"Oh, that seems feasible."

"I think it'd take about three days."

"Sounds good, stick it on the task list!"

Hama: Another major change in Patch 6.4 was the ability to display job icons next to nameplates.

I remember when you appeared on the Letter from the Producer LIVE in 2020, you explained how it would be hard to implement immediately but would be kept in consideration. So when I saw that update, I was glad it had finally came to fruition.

Odagiri: That was quite a noticeable change to the UI, wasn't it?

The circumstances regarding nameplates are still mostly unchanged from what I explained during that Letter LIVE. Since only one icon can be displayed at a time, simply overwriting that slot with a job icon would mean online status icons (In Queue, Mentor, and Disconnecting, etc.) would no longer be displayed.

With this in mind, we managed to make it work by assigning a display priority to online statuses so that, depending on the situation, certain status icons are delegated to the text part of the nameplate instead.

A key aspect of UI is how it's a collection of various elements that were built up over time. There isn't really a state where it can be considered "complete," since we're always piling new things on top of everything that's been made or modified so far.

As a result, as time goes on, it's inevitable for some aspects to become distorted or limited in certain ways as a result of something we previously implemented. We're talking about the development side of things, of course; our players have nothing to do with these matters. But because even a single issue can involve a tremendous number of hurdles to address, I'd be grateful if you could bear in mind that our improvements will often be implemented in small steps.

Something I strive for is being able to explain the intentions and processes behind an implementation. Having a firm knowledge of the causes, reasons, and limitations may eventually lead to the ability to improve the situation in the future. With that in mind, even if a problem doesn't have an obvious solution, I make it a point to try and find a workaround.

Hama: My first thought was, "Sounds like an endless amount of work!" (laughs)

Odagiri: We'll never run out of things to do, no matter how hard we try! I can't deny that we're essentially digging our own graves by making more work for ourselves (laughs) but making our players happy is our biggest source of motivation.

Hama: Last but not least, do you have anything you'd like to say to our players?

Odagiri: As I previously mentioned on the Letter LIVE, UI is something that players often take for granted, so my impression is that UI teams are usually met with criticism and little praise. However, FFXIV players shower us with compliments, which I'm truly grateful for. Of course, we also owe it to our fellow Development team members who work alongside us, but I also think it's due to the feedback we receive from our players and the improvements we make based on that feedback.

There will inevitably be discrepancies in how quickly we can address requests from our players, but the UI team will continue working hard to create an environment that makes the game more playable. Our players' reactions are truly a big source of motivation. We're always keeping an eye on the official forums and social media, so we'd really appreciate it if you could continue to share your feedback with us!

On a different note, we're currently hiring Game UI Designers! We could use a few more hands to help us expand the world of FFXIV, and we would love to receive applications from Warriors of Light who've played FFXIV and are familiar with its in-game features. It's a very rewarding job where we receive a lot of feedback from our players due to the relatively short intervals between updates.

I would highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves meticulously going through the game settings before starting their playthrough of a new game! If you are interested in UI development for FFXIV, we would love to hear from you!

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Sounds like we can count on our UI team to continue taking in player feedback and elevating FFXIV's UI to new heights! Thanks for joining me for another issue of Backstage Investigators!

Hama
- Promotional team

Previous Editions of FFXIV Backstage Investigators