Hexany Audio’s “cool” UI
A website I found in doing research for competitors for the bad websites we’re trying to think of solutions to fix was this one called Hexany Audio: Hexany Audio — Video Game Audio Company — Sound, Music, Voice Over. Obviously this one was far superior compared to Reflex-Studio, but I was not prepared for how dynamic and professional this website was. For starters, a neat feature I noticed was the contact info for their phone and email formatted to the top left corner of the UI, along with social media icons that light up according to their app color themes on the opposite side. I actually can’t recall ever seeing that style on other websites visited, it’s usually always at the bottom or primarily on a contact page. Below that, there is the rest of the homepage which is brief and straight to the point of what is to be expected from Hexany, complete with a dynamically animated banner providing glimpses of their portfolio. There’s a smooth slideshow showcasing the companies they’ve worked with and a few audio samples to get a taste of Hexany Audio’s work. This same style of dynamic animations and pleasant navigation continues to flow throughout the rest of the site, at least on home, about, services, and portfolio. I spent quite a bit of time on the portfolio and indulged myself with the video and audio samples they have on display.
After scavenging a bit for other game sound design studio websites to compare, I found one that has a similar style of a dynamic UI but to a lesser extent: Home — Somatone Interactive. It has a similar layout to Hexany Audio’s with a few pages setup differently, Like with the homepage functioning as the service page as well detailing what the studio offers. There’s also list of logos showing who they’ve done work for, a slideshow of their testimonials, a brief look at the blog, and ways to contact them at the bottom of the homepage. the portfolio page is similar to Hexany Audio’s with how it showcases its work, though a bit more compact. However, the full testimonial page has a bit of a problem, at least with my experience. The tab takes me to a gray title blending into the collage background and a full blank page till I scroll down and find more orange and grey text and icons links that get lost to the background. Besides that problem, at least the blog and contact page function. Overall, Somatone Interactive has a similar style to Hexany Audio’s animated UI though it does so sparingly. It also felt a little cramped at times scrolling down the pages, which I’m going to assume is because the tab bar is fixed in place whereas Hexany Audio’s shifts up a bit when I scroll down.
I’d go on with other websites I checked out to draw comparisons, such as Principle Sound | Video Game Audio Company | Sound, Music, Voice Over and DMC² Game Audio — Video Game Sound Design, SFX, Implementation & Composition (dmcsquaredaudio.com), but I think I got my point across to why I think Hexany Audio’s UI is so “cool”. The website features interactions that are present in other forms in the game sound design sites I linked, yet Hexany Audio feels so fun to navigate through, like I’m actually taking a tour at the head quarters. Nearly every element on each of its pages animates in some way makes the website feel alive while all the other ones use animations sparingly. Principle Sound comes the closest with its UI animations but Hexany Audio just feels more organized with its navigation. As to why no one else has such an animated UI that’s fun to navigate, as far as I’ve seen, I’m assuming it to being a difficult process getting a UI that dynamic to function properly. The process to making this UI might not be as complex as I’m making it out to be but out of all the other sites I’ve visited, Hexany Audio still lingers on my mind. In fact, I got the urge to check out their portfolio again; they actually have some amazing sound design I just want to continue to explore!
