Types of UI

Terminology

Before reading further in this article there is some terminology you need to be familiar with.

Diegetic: Interface that is included in the game world -- i.e., it can be seen and heard by the game characters. Example: the holographic interface in Dead Space.

Non-diegetic: Interface that is rendered outside the game world, only visible and audible to the players in the real world. Example: most classic heads-up display (HUD) elements.

Spatial: UI elements presented in the game's 3D space with or without being an entity of the actual game world (diegetic or non-diegetic). The character outlines in Left 4 Dead are an example of non-diegetic spatial UI.

Meta: Representations can exist in the game world, but aren't necessarily visualized spatially for the player; these are meta representations. The most apparent example is effects rendered on the screen, such as blood spatter on the camera to indicate damage.

Examples from games:Diegetic

Far Cry 3.

Fallout 3 Pipboy

Dead Space

Halo: Reach

The Hud is part of the game world because it's what the character can see with his helmet on.


Non-Diegetic:
Lost Odyssey

Mass Effect:

Final Fantasy VII:

Spatial:
Halo Wars:

Colour Blindness:
One way to accomodate colour blindness is to make sure that I don't rely on the clolours to show specific things and also make sure that the colours are much different as using colours that are too similar to each other would cause problems.

Crystal maze Mini-map: