Introduction

With the Xbox One now being available without Kinect for $399, I’ve wondered how the Xbox One will function and navigate without having the powerful voice commands (which I LOVE).

So… being the gamer, UX/UI Designer and Xbox fanboy that I am (I have two Xbox Ones… not sure if I should be proud of this or not) I decided to take it upon myself to take a stab at an interface that takes some of my favorite features from the 360 and Xbox One and kept it mind a UI that would work with both Kinect and without Kinect.

While not perfect by any means, I think it’s a step in the right direction that addresses some of the issues I have with UI.

New Xbox One UI Quick Hub

When inside a game/movie/tv, you can hit the Xbox button and get a quick glance of frequently used options. The center Xbox icon would appear and the other boxes around it would flip out, in a smooth transition that is akin to the slick transitions already implemented in the current UI.

You can navigate and select using the right stick to select which options/applications you want to open up:

In this case, I want to select to see who is online so I flick my right analog stick to the left to open up my the….

…New and Improved Friends Panel.

In this screenshot, I can select my one friend and Send Invites, Join, View Profile or Mute (if applicable).

I also have the ability to select multiple friends, like so:

Messages

One of my pet peeves is seeing notifications, invites and messages in a completely different screen while I’m in the middle of a game. Usually I get these notifications whenever I am playing a game, watching a movie, or watching TV. By accessing messages through the Quick Hub, I can quickly pull my messages but still keep in context to see what I was doing (gaming, watching movies/tv, etc.)

Final Thoughts

While I know this doesn’t solve all the problems (nor is it perfect) and with this approach, the whole Xbox UI experience needs to be thought through a little more, I think this (for me anyways) addresses the UX concerns I have with the Xbox as well as creating a UI that works with or without the Kinect.

I love my Kinect solely for all the power in voice commands (“Xbox, Record That” is by far my favorite) so this was kind of me taking the time to reimagine the Xbox UI without Kinect.

I’m a huge Xbox fan and I know the folks up there are hard at work on continuing to improve the Xbox experience, but I hope somehow this finds the Xbox team and spark some new ideas. I wish nothing but the best for the smart fokls up there and I look forward to the bright future the Xbox One has.

See you online.

Cheers,

Dennis Estanislao (Gamertag: UUDDLRLRBABA)