In the video game XCOM:
Enemy Unknown, from Firaxis Games, the user navigates through the 3D space
of the game by controlling each member of their squad through the different
levels. With this game, I imagine that the navigation problem that had to be
overcome was balancing between movement and actions. When the player moves a
character they can move within a large area split into two zones, the first
zone being where the character can move and still perform an action, and the
second zone shows where the character sacrifices their action in order to move
a greater distance. This means that unless the two zones are made visually
distinct, the player will not know where one zone ends and the other begin.
This problem was easily overcome by highlighting the zones that each squad
member can move during their turn and shows you the path they will take with a
luminous blue line that leads to the highlighted spot that the player wishes to
move to. When a character begins their turn the first zone is shown outlines in
blue, and beyond the blue zone is the yellow zone. Another problem that the
user may encounter while navigating the environment is defensible cover, where
the user can move their characters in order to protect them from damage. However,
this problem is also easily resolved by the use of a shield symbol which shows
which direction they are protected from and how much protection the cover
offers. If the shield is blue than they are protected from attacks from the
direction behind the shield, but if it is red then that spot is not safe. This
allows the user to navigate through the 3D space easily while being aware of
their surroundings.
In this comic strip, from the web comic Penny Arcade, the user navigates through the panels by both
following the speech bubbles and following the panels. Some big problems for
users reading comics are when it is confusing who is saying what, and when the
speech bubbles are not presented in the correct order because it would cover
important parts of the image. The main reason that this would occur is when the
artist either does not keep in mind the space needed for the bubbles or when
the artist is unaware of how much text will be present in each panel. In this
comic strip, however, the creators solved those problems in a very simple, three
part way. First, and foremost, they left enough open space at the top of each
panel for multiple speech bubbles so that they did not cover up the characters
faces. Second, they connected speech bubbles to limit the number of arrows
pointing to the speaker. Third, and most important to the understanding of the
dialogue, they made sure to order the speech bubbles in order of when the
dialogue is to be read. This means overlapping speech bubble borders and
stretching the bubbles’ arrow to ensure that it is clear who the speakers are. This
comic assumes that the reader knows to read it from left to right and up to
down, and it orders its texts and panels to move in that direction as well.
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