A well designed interactive menu has an obvious purpose and its behavior is predictable.
An interactive menu must have:
- Title to describe purpose, e.g. game name or sub menu category
- Symbol to indicate current selection, could also be a border / reverse highlight
- High contrast text, (and easy to read)
- Concise, keep your labels short and meaningful
A couple of examples:
The almost good
Light yellow text is hard to differentiate from white text
The poor features of this design:
- The current selection (start game) is not clear enough, an indicating symbol is not present
- Light yellow text is hard to differentiate from white text
This menu could be easily improved by adding a reverse highlight or a symbol next to the current selection.
The Verge menu does have some nice features; it’s concise, and the sound and music states are clearly indicated. Verge by Kyle Pulver.
The awesome
Current selection is clearly highlighted
The right way, an example from Brutal Legend, clear and obvious.
The menu interface was designed by Joe Kowalski – see his design in action.