Whilst Readin’, wRitin’ and aRithmetic may have helped many people become the fine product members of society they are today, they generally don’t tend to appreciate being forced into doing such things in the course of learning how to play your game.

The first reason for this is the rather boring reality of attempting to read any reasonable amount of text on a television (even one of the lovely wall sized flat panel jobbies) is rarely enjoyable. If it’s any more than about six words or any smaller than around 1/10 of the available screen space in size then a lot of your users are going to either endure horrible amounts of eye strain, skip past as quickly as possible or just plain give up before they’re more than a paragraph into your amazing narrative.

Reason number two is possibly even more annoying but, none the less, just a true: People rarely read anything on a computer screen.

Oh sure they may read the stuff that they’re actively seeking or writing (such as the latest celebrity gossip or the Facebook message to the distant relative some far off land) but just about everything else is either ignored or feared. And it’s not just those luddites or generationally challenged members of your office or family either.

When was the last time you actually took the time to read a dialog window?
I mean *actually* read it.

It’s not that often is it?

Okay so if nobody is going to read anything we put up on screen, how do we inform them of all the good stuff like plot… or how play the game?

If it’s something that you want to the user to do then best way to teach them is the same way as we learn in real life: by doing it.

For example, if you want to teach the user that moving the left thumbstick moves their little avatar around the screen, why not show them the avatar on screen and let them experiment. Maybe provide a little short term goal to motivate them such as picking up an item or moving out of impending (but probably not real) danger?

If it’s something about the plot / narrative of the story that you wish top convey then text can certainly work… but it’s best used vary sparingly (think along the lines of a twitter message or less) and usually as back up for some other means such as a voice over.

Pick practically any really successful console game (from Mario through to Gears of War) and you’ll spot the signs. Very little text up on screen at any one time, Learning via experimentation and so forth.