Profile of Shigeru Miyamoto

"Miyamoto said he wants the game players and the developers to have [the feeling of a shared experience called] kyokan: for the players to feel about the game what the developers felt themselves."

This is an excellent piece of advice to keep in mind when developing an interface. An application is certainly a tool, with features X, Y, and Z, but at the same time there are experiences that go along with the usage of those features. Miyamoto likens it to telling a joke or writing a mystery novel: timing is key. You mustn't overwhelm the user with too much information nor leave the user wondering where to go next.

Miyamoto's games are excellent examples of Donald Norman's affordability. In some of his newer games characters may give a long speech to the player via a modal dialog box, but the keywords are highlighted in certain colors to denote that they are either important people, places or actions; and after you have talked to character, walking past him may cause a small non-modal speech bubble to pop up with some small blurb summing up the info given by that character, e.g. "Find the key to unlock my friend!" so that you don't have to go through the longer speech again.

What really sets his games apart from many others is simply the attention to detail and the amount of polish. When once asked about the delay of a certain game he replied, "A delayed game is eventually good, but a bad game will stay bad forever."

What fascinates me about Miyamoto is his tendency to allow form to follow function. Whether it's the design of Mario (to maximize visibility), the choice of music to suggest the nature of a stage or the instant recognizability of an enemy (spiny - don't jump on it!), his background in industrial design shines through.