Bad Design: Pokémon Go's Battery Draining Map Interface

One of the biggest issues with Pokémon Go is its drastic effect on battery life. Combining constant location tracking with fully rendered 3D models will do that. However, there are basic design principles being violated that contribute to this battery drain. For starters, my avatar is constantly being fully rendered both on the map and in the corner. I see many problems with this. Let's talk about this corner first. My avatar has this breathing effect in this corner. Why? Having a full 3D model here doesn't add anything to the core game. It's not something I would miss. Instead, why not have a function that would let you choose a pose for your avatar and set that there instead. In my render, I just use a blue icon as a placeholder. The buddy Pokémon would be embedded in the profile screen instead of on the main interface. XP, level, and the notification badge can stay. It would be a still image, akin to a passport photo. This would also be in line with some of the more recent mainline Pokémon games, where you can choose a pose for your trainer's identification. It would certainly give your trainer more personality and less like a hollow, soulless shell. In addition, add some hair styles to pick from. These characters are so bland, there's no point in charging for new clothes for them. Finally, I removed the research menu button from the bottom right corner of the screen. I always hit this when I'm looking for nearby Pokémon. I feel this would be much better suited in the Pokéball menu in the center. Finally, if I zoom out, my trainer is still being fully rendered. A slightly lower-poly model should be used to save battery and resources. I'm not going to notice my trainer's socks or every spike of their hair when I'm fully zoomed out. And if I did, I wouldn't care. When the render distance for streets on the map is as pathetic as it is, why dedicate more resources to my trainer's hat than a gym right down the street? My render isn't super detailed, but when paired with this commentary, I think the point should get across. Pokémon Go wastes a lot of resources on things that simply don't matter.

Bad Design: Pokémon Go's Launch Screen

Pokémon Go is being slowly revitalized in popularity to its former glory. It has also been heavily acknowledged at some of Apple's events and on the App Store. Yet despite this, Pokémon Go breaks numerous industry-standard design conventions, including some recommended by Apple.

Let's start with the launch screen. Each app is required to create a launch screen for each optimized device, such as iPad, iPhone, iPhone X, etcetera. Most developers will make sure that the launch screen fits each device well. Niantic however just slapped the same resized image on each device. This is most noticeable on iPhone X and iPad, where ugly black bars take up a considerable amount of the screen. On iPhone X's OLED display, a better design choice would've been to make the Niantic logo white and the screen black, which saves power and looks great on an OLED display. See the images below for what I mean.

Pokémon Go has plenty of issues. That's no secret. So what better way to combat a slow news week than by making a series of blog posts on the issues with this game with my mockups and suggestions on how to make this game better? Stay tuned.