Designing a mobile MOBA interface

01

The three ideas this rests on

Projecting and smart-seeing — using external representations to think more actively, and reading cues to work out how to proceed.

Close-coupling — thinking actively while interacting with a dynamic system and an adaptive environment.

Gamers employ all three constantly. The question was whether an interface could be designed to demand them deliberately.

Research diagram mapping projecting, smart-seeing and close-coupling onto specific moments of MOBA gameplay. — Mapping the three cognitive practices onto concrete moments of play.

02

Approach

Design objective

How can we use smart-seeing, projecting, and close-coupling to design a mobile MOBA interface with a simple learning curve, while keeping gameplay complex and rewarding?

Research questions

MOBAs are character-dependent — is skill at piloting characters more important than overall strategy? (micro vs. macro)
What currently keeps players engaged through close-coupling?
Which features hold player attention in MOBA interfaces?

What we found

After playing across League of Legends, Wild Rift, Brawl Stars, and Clash Royale, three patterns held: MOBAs lean on repetitive tasks that dull over time, they offer little varied interaction because players employ so little close-coupling, and early games feel slow to newcomers.

Hypothesis

If more interactive and dynamic external representations are present, players will be more engaged — because close-coupling, smart-seeing, and projecting would actually be required to play well.

03

The proposal

A simple, comprehensible UI layout and control scheme
PvE elements accessible to every player, so the match isn't only a repeating battle setup
Basic tactical advice surfaced in-game, to give players a sense of learning
High incentives on high-risk objectives, so both the winning and losing team stay engaged — the golden snitch principle

Hand-drawn ideation sketches exploring mobile MOBA control layouts and HUD arrangements. — Ideation — control layouts and HUD arrangements.

The final mobile MOBA HUD concept: a character in an isometric arena with health bar, ability controls and tactical readouts. — Final concept. Character art by Jalene P; HUD design by me.

04

Findings — honestly, both ways

What it would gain

Matches stay competitive between teams for longer, which encourages players to keep progressing — and leaves room for close-coupling, individual skill expression, and theorycrafting.

What it would cost

The added PvE elements and supplied tactical advice would make early gameplay less competitive, and may hinder players from developing strategies of their own.

05

What I took from it

The research mostly illustrated how hard it is to build a MOBA for casual players. Cognitive practices help, but skill gaps never disappear — what actually matters is fair matchmaking against players of similar ability. That's a systems answer to what looked like an interface problem.

Our team came at this from very different gaming backgrounds, which is where the useful arguments came from. What stayed with me is distributed cognition as a design tool: most people in online spaces already know how interface navigation works, so consistency across design systems is doing more work than novelty ever does.