How SimCity Trains You to Be a UX Designer

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My favorite childhood games were Sim City 2000, The Sims, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and Zoo Tycoon. They’ve upgraded a little bit, but the principles are the same. These games relate to UX design because they are Management and Construction Simulations. I always found myself drawn to constructing virtual worlds and SimCity was my favorite.

Building the perfect SimCity is very similar to the UX Design process. It is all about problem solving. You do research to determine the needs of your citizens (users) and plan based on that data. Then you mock up designs and eventually build a city (web product) you believe will run efficiently and make your population happy. Finally, once people move in, you respond to real time feedback and even the occasional natural disaster!

The principles of a good city and the principles of a good web product are achieved through the same problem solving formula. Learn, design, build, and test.* First of all, you have to learn your user. Like a person in the real world, a sim has to eat, sleep, work, find love, and occasionally use the bathroom. You manage and design the Sims’ experience by constructing their town. When designing and managing their neighborhood, you must consider their individual needs. If your Sims need work, you may build a factory or office building for them. Roads and sewers must be planned accordingly as well.

LEARN l On the analytics dashboard, you analyze data, graphs and tables to figure out how users engage, flow and behave. You define key characteristics and demographics of your target users. In SimCity and in UX Design, you interview stakeholders, advisors, and users to find out what they need. You might also conduct A/B Testing to which one works better.

DESIGN & BUILD l After finding out what is missing, you start working on design. You sketch and create wireframes designing your favorite layout. After you carefully finalize the plans, you can start building. In SimCity all the construction is done automatically based on your wireframes, but in UX design we deliver the final design to the engineering team.

TEST l After everything is built and has gone live, it is very important to monitor your user’s feedback. Even though you spent plenty of time learning about your users, you can’t assume you are always making the right choices. All products have shortcomings, and every SimCity has CAT5 Tornado. Mistakes are natural, though not always as disastrous. It’s important to be humbled by nature and remember there is always room for improvement. If something doesn’t go the way you planned, you can always repeat the Learn-Design/Build-Test steps again.

To be able to purchase the structures your people want, you must generate revenue. Cash management is a top priority to maintain a stable local government. As the mayor in SimCity your goal is to meet your population’s basic needs using your cash flow efficiently. To become a successful mayor, you will need great attention to detail in your budget and your layout. Doing research will help you to find a comfy balance of residential, commercial, and industrial regions. Citizens will also demand education, transportation, healthcare, utilities, and public safety facilities nearby. In order to build these facilities in as many neighborhoods as possible, you need to manage your money and your space wisely. Even though people may want a school and police station in every neighborhood, you simply can’t afford to do that.

As a UX Designer, you also have to work within the budget and web real estate to meet your product development needs. You must understand that users’ goals and business goals may conflict. For example, A business may want to set up a paywall, but users may be outraged by that proposition. A new featured post or banner ad might change the layout and confuse people, but will also increase profit by 10%. You have to weigh the pros against the cons of each design decision. Analyzing feedback will help you make the best decisions for your product.

If you ever dreamed of becoming a UX Designer or Product Manager, try playing SimCity! You can download the SimCity BUILDIT app for free. Sims and users both interact with you in the virtual world, and there are many other parallels. The best thing about using SimCity as an experience design learning platform is that the money isn’t real, and neither are the people. So if you piss everyone off and lose all the money, you can always start over. If you do decide to become a UX Designer or Product Manager though remember that developing apps, platforms, and software costs a lot of money and you will have to hustle to meet deadlines and satisfy stakeholders. 

Thank you EA, this game inspired me to write this post.

*The concept of Learn-Design-Build-Test is from Jim Webb’s lecture. You can find his free lecture “UX Fundementals” on Aquent Gymnasium.