#1. UX and IA in card design

Written By Joel Kennedy

Recently I needed to do a complete redesign of the cards for my game 100 Nobles.

The game is a medium-weight hobby game and is more complex than what I usually design. The extra game complexity presented me with a challenge - how to present all of the information on the cards in a way that they could be quickly and easily understood by the players?

Here’s where I started:

Yes, the above uses some AI-generated art (I use it for many of my prototypes to help inspire me - although recently I am moving away from that step as it’s an uneccessary step).

For the redesign I started by doing a deep-dive into the information architecture (IA) of each card:

Firstly, I wrote down all of the elements that I could see on the current card layout:

  • An image

  • A card type

  • Effect text

  • Effect timing

  • A card border

  • A card value

  • A card reference number

    https://www.loom.com/share/8cc9698b8dc143d385dd1aa66c8344e7?sid=72c4737d-f8da-462a-8b1a-298499e545dd

Joel Kennedy