Unreal Engine 4 Overlays

The 7 Stages of Action

There are seven stages of action needed to take into account when talking about usability. Listing all seven stages Goal, Plan, Specify, Perform, Perceive, Interpret, and Compare I will explain how they relate to my health bar and my blood splash in my Unreal Engine 4 prototype. 

Goal

The goal of my prototype was to develop a creative idea for a crazy themed FPS game. The need for a health bar and damage overlay is essential in an first person shooter, how else will the player know their health unless told by the game in some form. So I created, instead of blood, laughing that pops up on the screen the more you take damage. Furthermore creating a my version of a health bar, a craz-o-meter, which when taking more and more damage will turn bar starting in green more towards the yellow, orange, and finally to red. 

Plan

The action of my prototype is to display how taking damage effects the player. Now since this is only a prototype there isn't many other actions/things the character can do or take, though ideally in a flush out game the player would be able to heal themselves or recover health in some way. Additionally there would be a way most likely to revert the craz-o-meter, or have it reset. 

Specify 

Here I am a little confused on the meaning of specify in the seven stages, though from what I can gather from The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, "When I am still learning how to do it, determining the plan, specifying the sequence, and interpreting the results are conscious" (Norman 40). From what I can gather from the book and the internet, its the in between thought of what has happened and how to do I execute my choice. 

Perform 

How the player would perform these actions, is by their character taking some form of damage whether it be environmental, from another player, or self-inflicted. That would cause the damage overlay to be seen as well as getting more and more pronounced as the player took more damage. The health bar (craz-o-meter) would increase proportionate to the damage taken.

Perceive 

In the state of the world, the player has taken damage of some form therefore triggering damage indicators to be alerted to them. Though its not permanent the player will be able to revert their health to full and get rid of the overlay.

Interpret 

What the damage overlay and health bar mean to the player is that of their life. They need to ensure they don't take too much damage, which in turn makes the craz-o-meter rise. In believe that health systems and damage indicating systems are usually very easy to understand though there are some that are better at giving you the information than others. Some are too simple, meanwhile some are too complex for the game type.

Compare 

The outcome of this is that when the player takes damage, the laughing damage overlay will display itself along with the craz-o-meter increasing. The goal is exactly that and had been achieved in the prototype. For a prototype I'm quiet happy with what I was aiming for and what I produced, its a good vision of what I was picturing.