This is the first article in a series. Part 2 is here.

Real life is like a game that has amazing graphics and terrible status indicators.

This article is the start of a series looking at how video game status indicators could be used to make a better real life experience.

(Note: I’m aware that many other people have explored the video-game-like nature of life.)

Status Indicators

Status indicators are visual elements that show the player what’s going on in the game. Let’s look at three particular kinds of status indicators:

(1) Condition indicators tell you something about your character’s status. Life meters are a commonly used condition indicator.

(2) Option indicators represent available actions. Option indicators invite the player to make a choice. Selection menus are a commonly used option indicator.

(3) Progress indicators show how close you are to achieving your objective. The dungeon maps from The Legend of Zelda use a white dot and a red dot to show your character’s position in relation to the end of the level.

Status Screens

Games often place many status indicators together to create a “status screen”. Status screens are designed to put all of the information the player needs in one convenient place.

If you could pull up a status screen for yourself in real life, what kinds of status indicators would you want it to have?

Challenges With Using Status Indicators In Real Life

A lot of the status indicators that are helpful in games don’t translate well to real life. Here are some reasons why.

Real Life Isn’t Combat Oriented

Many video games focus on combat. Since combat isn’t part of day-to-day life for most people, many of the character traits that figure prominently in games aren’t relevant in real life. We’ll have to figure out which characteristics matter in real life in order to come up with condition indicators that are relevant and helpful.

Human Characteristics Aren’t Numeric

In real life you can’t represent your health with a number like, say, “235 HP”. Health is a combination of all kinds of factors, and many of them aren’t quantitatively measurable.

The same is true is true for experience, strength, intelligence, or pretty much any other meaningful human characteristic. So how do you design condition indicators that reflect the non-numeric nature of human characteristics?

Level Of Detail

In real life you make decisions at vastly differing levels of detail, from tiny little actions (like, say, how you hold a spoon) to big-picture plans (like setting career goals). To design useful option indicators, we’ll need to figure out how to present options at an appropriate level of detail.

Ambiguous Objectives

Video games typically have a clearly defined goal: defeat the big bad boss, save the world, etc. (Yes, I’m aware that this doesn’t apply to games like SimCity.)

In real life, though, there isn’t a single clearly defined objective. We’re often working towards several objectives simultaneously, and each of those objectives have varying levels of importance. How can we design progress indicators that reflect the complexity of real-life objectives?

You Can’t “Win” At Life

Games end, and you win or lose (again, ignoring SimCity). In real life, though, there isn’t a point where you’ve “won” the game. There are certainly important milestones like, say, getting a job or getting married. Even then, though, these “wins” aren’t necessarily permanent. How do our condition indicators and progress indicators depict success in a world where there is no ultimate “winning” or “losing”?

Next Steps

These are the kinds of problems I’ll look at in this series. My hope is to address each of these problems and, at the end of it, present a useful framework for designing real-life status screens.