There are various different forms of UI that appear in games, which players can use to interact with different parts of a game's interface. There are four main types of UI, which each have examples.
Non-Diegetic UI
Non-Diegetic UI is something that the player can see, but the character you're playing as in-game cannot see. This is something like a scoreboard, or health bar on a HUD. However, there is an exception to this rule. In games like Halo, the characters in-game all wear helmets that could supply them some of this information, such as a mini-map or health bar.
An example of an actual Non-Diegetic UI would be various RPG games, but also Action-Adventure games such as Twilight Princess, which have a HUD sometimes including a map, and also a health bar, weapons menu.
Meta UI
Meta UI is easiest to spot in narrative-centric games. This is similar to Non-Diegetic UI, but it isn't apart of the HUD. This could be prompts on how and where to interact with an environment.
This can also be things such as rain or blood dripping down the camera. An example of this is in Dead By Daylight, which shows blood on the screen when injured, and frames the HUD when heavily injured.
Spatial UI
Spatial UI doesn't necessarily have to interactive, but can be. It is most commonly things like partical effects or shaders in the game, which may respond to the character walking towards them or away from them, such as an arrow pointing in the direction of the goal might do.
An example of Spatial UI is in Sky: Children of The Light, by ThatGameCompany. There are sections of the game that involve following a trail of particals around, which are visible in-game, and can be seen by other players in the area. Spatial UI isn't always visible to the in-game characters, and can be things like players getting each other's attention through sound (a game mechanic in Sky: Children of the Light).
Another example of this would be a mechanic that allows the player to track something moving in the game, which could leave a trail that both the player and in-game character would see.
Diegetic UI
Diegetic UI is the opposite of Non-Diegetic Ui, meaning this type of UI would be visible to the character in-game as well as the player. This means that information is given to the player through in-game items and not displayed on a HUD.
Many games such as Overwatch and Human Fall Flat have elements of Diegetic UI (Overwatch tells the player the status of their weapons, which the characters would also know), but going back to the point made in the Non-Diegetic UI section above, Halo is a good example of this. This is information that the in-game character could have given the setting of the game.
Each of these UI types are used in different ways, but they can all link up. Much like the example of Halo's HUD, many of these are closely linked together. For the game I've created a Game Design Document for, only two types of UI will be needed. The first is Non-Diegetic, which would be for the Help/How to Play, Settings and Quit Buttons, and the second is Spatial UI, which will be used to shadow everything else apart from the modifiers when the player reaches that step in the game.
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