Tic Tac Toe Loader

Minimax algorithm I use for this simple Tic Tac Toe game (see my last shot, mate) makes over 200,000 calculations to decide which move is the best (for both a user and the algorithm itself). It’s pretty a small number for modern smartphones where the game will be launched. Nobody won’t notice that there is any delay during a smartphone’s calculation.

Despite a high speed of calculation I decided to add a loader for AI ‘s moves.

Why did I do that?

To improve UX. It seems like as designers we should increase a velocity of work with an interface in order a user could do their task fast.

Not always.

We can create delays artificially to give a user a specific feedback.

In the game, I use the loader to say a user: "Friend, your move was so smart. I need some time to think about it."

So, if a user makes a good move, we show them that they were good (actually the AI unbeatable a bit. In the best case the user gets a tie) by showing a loader animation. It looks natural.

AI behaves like a human and, I guess, makes the game UX better because it brings an emotional layer to a relationship between a user and the algorithm.