It’s right after the deal. You have two cards. One card is face-up on the dealer’s side. The dealer’s hand is unresolved. Something is still uncertain. Already the game asks you to act. You look at the card on the dealer’s side and the cards you have, and, with limited information, imagine what the dealer may have and what is likely to happen. You decide to hit, stand, double, or split. All of this happens before the dealer turns another card face-up. Then, finally, something happens in the game. Blackjack is made up of many sequences, of which the most important is the relationship between the uncertain, the decision, and the outcome. This situation naturally occurs in every game of blackjack. Most of what the player sees on the game screen is related to this critical situation, and is usually arranged to provide information about the betting surface and the options the player may take. Because the player acts first, the situation must be structured to provide the player the opportunity to act.
Blackjack is a unique card game where players are continually faced with choices. The design brief for blackjack at Betinia NJ challenges the designers to think about information architecture and structure. This includes determining how much time is sufficient for players to make a decision, what types of feedback are provided to players after a decision has been made, and the order in which decisions appear. Designers focus on interface hierarchy and timing. As one of the few games where players are faced with choices as part of an open-ended game, Blackjack presents unique challenges for designers. Player choices should not be guided by anxiety and concern. This creates a design challenge that transcends the gaming world.
Infinite Blackjack from Evolution Gaming
The incomplete hand
There is already asymmetry in the dealing of the first two cards. The player can see both cards, while the dealer only reveals one. This creates an incomplete picture for the player to work with. In addition to this structural asymmetry, there is also a functional asymmetry. The player always acts first. If the player’s total goes over 21, the hand ends immediately, before the dealer plays out their hand. The loss is settled regardless of what the dealer would have drawn. The same concepts hold true in an online casino. The user interface (UI) shows the two cards of the player, one card of the dealer, and displays the options available to the player. The rest of the UI is irrelevant. The goal of the UI is to minimize the cognitive load of the player. The UI has to effectively emphasize the cognitive aspects of the decision: the player’s cards, the dealer’s card, and the available options. This information needs to be quickly communicated in a format that enables the player to make an informed decision. The design should accomplish this goal for every hand dealt.
Buttons that read the room
Set within the virtual environment of an online game, button design in blackjack illustrates how user interface design can implement contextuality to further enhance functionality. During the betting phase, the user interface is designed to blur the online chip tray and foreground the user’s betting chips aligned with the game table. Once the user interacts with the deal button, the chip tray retracts and the interface functions, buttons and commands relevant to the next user action (hit, stand, etc.) become available and prominently displayed. Unlike traditional button design which is often user initiated and operates independent of the game’s state, functionality in blackjack is often dictated by state, rules and cards dealt. For example, the option to split is available only when a pair is dealt and grayed out (unavailable) for the remaining user actions for the turn. Similarly, the double down option is available only for the initial two-card hand and is grayed out for the subsequent user actions. In addition to implicitly providing game rules and functionality, the interface also shows the user the actions available for a given state. A user dealt a pair of eights is prompted by an available split action, depending on the dealer’s up card. Actions which are grayed out reduce cognitive load for the user.
Designing buttons
How buttons are placed on a user interface (UI) and how they are positioned relative to other buttons play a critical role in determining their importance. There are actions which are applicable across all user hand configurations. Among these actions, there are some which are more predominant than others. Usually, “Hit” and “Stand” are the predominant actions. “Hit” is a potentially risky action, and once taken, is irreversible. Therefore, from a visual design perspective, it is justified to give more emphasis to the “Hit” action button compared with the “Stand” action button. “Stand” is an irreversible action which completes the current user hand configuration. “Double” and “Split” are lesser used options, usually prevalent only in specific game conditions. Similar to how visual design treats “Hit” and “Stand”, it is justifiable to design “Double” and “Split” options in a similar fashion. These buttons (along with “Hit” and “Stand”) are presented in an action-oriented manner using appropriate colors and are strategically positioned to focus player attention on the options which facilitate the next player action. Designing the user interface in this manner helps players to quickly identify the available options without wasting valuable time scanning the entire game display.
More experienced players will usually make the correct decision based on basic strategy, even if the result is still unknown. For instance, if the dealer’s card is a 10, and the player’s hand totals 16, the player will want to Hit in most cases, regardless of what card comes up. The program just has to provide the player with the option to Hit.
Constantly counting the seconds
The existence of a time limit at blackjack tables certainly changes the vibe. The time limits help move the game along, and discourage players from taking too long to make a decision. Taking too long can definitely slow the game down. The time limits serve their purpose, but give a sense of how quickly a decision must be made. Some time limits change speed as time runs out. Others stay the same speed. Some even use different colors to convey the same information. These time limits aren’t separate from the decisions. They help communicate the abstract concept of time running out. A format of the game called Speed Blackjack reduces the time a player has to make a decision. It reduces betting and decision times by seven seconds compared with the standard live format, resulting in a pace 30 to 40 percent quicker than regular live blackjack. These time limits create an overall faster game. This format suits players who are adept at blackjack strategy because they generally don’t need a long time to make a decision. If the player hasn’t made a decision before time runs out, the game applies a default action. If time runs out, and a player has a hand worth 12 or more, then the player stands. If time runs out and a player has less than 12, then the player is forced to take a hit. The game is designed so the other players at the table aren’t negatively affected by a player taking a long time to make a decision.
All players act simultaneously
Simultaneous-decision blackjack systems are relatively new to the world of live dealer blackjack, and systems like Speed Blackjack illustrate the potential of these designs. Traditional blackjack is relatively rigid, with dealers moving from left to right. One of the main tenets of Speed Blackjack is changing that. Each player gets their two cards, as normal, and then, once all the cards are dealt, players get to make their decision at the same time. Once a player makes their choice, they receive their card. A player at seat six can receive their card before a player at seat one if they decide faster. For over 100 years, players at a table have made their decisions from the dealer’s left to right because that was how physical casinos worked. Having each player make their decision concurrently is a departure from traditional blackjack design. However, the Speed Blackjack designers have left the mechanics of blackjack unchanged. Instead, they have altered how decisions are made. Essentially, they have changed the concurrency of the decisions available to players.
Infinite Blackjack, released by the same developer in 2018, focuses on a different variant of the same core concept. Traditionally, blackjack tables are limited by the number of seats. However, Infinite Blackjack gets around this limitation by dealing a single communal hand, and giving players the opportunity to make decisions based on this hand. Since players make decisions based on the same hand, there is no limit to the number of players that can take part in a single game. Like other innovations in live dealer games, Infinite Blackjack integrates a Game Control Unit (GCU) to facilitate the processing and transmission of data. The GCU provides the live feed and synchronizes the physical and digital elements of the game. While Infinite Blackjack and Speed Blackjack are by the same developer, each represents a creative way to structurally change the pacing of the game while retaining its essential elements. The core of both games remains Blackjack; players need to make decisions based on the cards dealt. However, the focus is on reducing the amount of time players need to wait before taking their turn.
Feedback is a reply to your input
Making a decision in Blackjack doesn’t end with the button press. It ends when the outcome of that decision is revealed. We think of the design of the feedback phase as the closure or the final beat of the decision making process. Card animations are an opportunity to create an engaging and satisfying experience for the player. It is important for the design of the feedback phase to slow the game down and to provide the player an opportunity to absorb the outcome of the decision they’ve just made. Consider the design of a card animation that encapsulates the outcome of a player hitting. What is the new total? Is the card a face card? An animation’s primary goal is not to provide an answer to these questions; however, it may assist the player in quickly identifying the outcome. A feedback phase that incorporates result overlays and win and bust animations helps to reinforce the outcome of the hand. Unlike a number that represents the outcome of a hand, feedback animations that incorporate chip movement give the player a concrete response and help convey the outcome of a hand. A design approach that incorporates varying elements to create a rich and engaging auditory and visual experience helps to bring a game interface to life and to create a space that feels like it is interacting with a player as opposed to a sterile and unengaging design.
A window in the game opens up for the player to make a move. How the game responds to the player’s move is what creates the player’s experience.
The black rectangle of a game window
A crucial element of interaction design, which can be found in many different situations and which is applied in blackjack in the form of a decision window, is that the player must make a decision on the basis of incomplete information in a limited period of time. The outcome of the player’s decision is determined by how well the game interface assists the player in focusing on the relevant information and filters the rest. Blackjack is a design case which deals with asymmetry, and the design must work with the constraint. Solutions to this kind of design problem can be found in other areas of design as well. For example, the state of a button can represent information, or feedback can be delivered to the player as soon as a decision is made. The overall idea in design is to get to the essential element of a decision by the player as quickly as possible. Everything which does not serve that purpose is irrelevant and can be removed. A good design frames the essential element of a decision by the player as quickly as possible.
