Expandable Friends Panel for Multiplayer Game UI
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing online computer games lack an efficient and user-friendly way to manage social interactions and networking within the game environment, as players need to navigate between in-game actions and social networking features, which can obscure the virtual environment and complicate user experience.
Innovation Solution
A selectively expandable panel within the game display that provides social networking functionalities, allowing players to switch between a collapsed condition for unobstructed in-game viewing and an expanded condition for detailed social interactions and messaging, integrated with a graphical user interface that includes a friends panel and messaging mode.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If social networking features are displayed in a fixed panel, then social interaction functionality is provided, but the virtual in-game environment is obscured
Solution Approach 1:
The panel is designed to be dynamically resizable and repositionable by the user, allowing it to transition between collapsed and expanded states. This dynamic behavior enables the panel to adapt to different viewing needs, providing full social networking functionality when expanded and minimizing obstruction when collapsed, thus resolving the contradiction between functionality and visibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The social networking interface is segmented into collapsible and expandable sections, allowing users to access only the necessary portions of the social features at any given time. This segmentation enables the interface to provide comprehensive social functionality while maintaining visibility of the game environment by showing only relevant social information.
2Adaptability or versatility
If a comprehensive social networking interface is provided, then social functionality is enhanced, but the user interface complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The interface employs dynamic collapsing and expanding mechanisms that allow users to reveal comprehensive social networking features only when needed. The panel can be collapsed to a minimal state showing only essential information, reducing perceived complexity, and expanded to full functionality when the user requires detailed social interactions.
Solution Approach 2:
The social networking interface uses a nested structure where comprehensive features are contained within collapsible sections. Users can access detailed social networking capabilities by expanding nested panels, while the default collapsed state presents a simplified interface. This nesting allows comprehensive functionality to be provided without permanently increasing interface complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure generally relates to systems and methods to provide graphical user interfaces in computer-implemented multiplayer games. The graphical user interface includes a friends panel that is operable between a collapsed condition and an expanded condition. The friends panel provides friends information display functionality, social network management functionality, and/or messaging functionality both in the collapsed condition and in the expanded condition. In the collapsed condition, the friends panel may comprise a friends bar that shows a row of friend cards or chiclets associated with respective friends of a host player associated with a displayed game instance, the friends bar being clear of a view of a virtual in-game environment shown in the game display, while the expanded friends panel may comprise a grid of friend cards or chiclets that functionally obscures the in-game environment.