I've spent way too many hours tweaking pixels and adjusting anchors, so I decided to put together this roblox gui design tutorial to help you skip the frustration and get straight to the good stuff. If you've ever opened a game and felt like the buttons were shouting at you or, worse, you couldn't even find the "Play" button, you know how much a bad interface can ruin the vibe. Designing a UI (User Interface) isn't just about making things look "pretty"—it's about making sure your players actually know how to interact with your world without getting a headache.
Getting started with the basics
Before we dive into the flashy stuff, we have to talk about the backbone of any interface. In Roblox Studio, everything starts in the StarterGui folder. If it's not in there, your players aren't going to see it.
You'll want to start by inserting a ScreenGui. Think of this as the invisible canvas that covers the player's screen. Once you have that, you can start dropping in Frames, TextLabels, and ImageButtons. A common mistake I see beginners make is just throwing everything directly into the ScreenGui. Don't do that. It gets messy fast. Use Frames to group your elements together. If you're making a shop menu, put everything related to that shop inside one main frame. It makes it way easier to hide or show the whole menu with a single line of code later on.
The secret to making things look modern
Let's be honest: the default square white boxes in Roblox look a bit dated. If you want your game to feel professional, you need to use the "UI" objects that Roblox has added over the last few years. These are absolute game-changers.
Using UICorner and UIStroke
The fastest way to make a button look better is to add a UICorner. By default, it gives you a slight rounded edge, which immediately softens the look. You don't need to go overboard—sometimes a 4 or 8-pixel radius is all you need to make it feel "modern."
Then there's the UIStroke. This is how you get those clean outlines or "thick" borders that make buttons pop against a busy background. I love using a dark stroke on a lighter button because it gives it that classic "cartoony" feel that works so well in simulators.
Adding some depth with UIGradient
Flat colors are fine, but a subtle gradient can make a menu feel much more premium. If you add a UIGradient to a frame, try setting it from a slightly darker shade of your main color to a lighter one. It shouldn't be a jarring change from red to blue—keep it subtle. It adds a sense of lighting and texture that a flat color just can't match.
The biggest headache: Scale vs Offset
If there is one thing that ruins a roblox gui design tutorial, it's ignoring the scaling issue. Have you ever designed a perfect menu on your big monitor, only to open it on your phone and find the buttons are gone or overlapping? That's because of Offset.
In the Properties window, you'll see sizes written like {0, 100}, {0, 50}. Those zeros are the Scale, and the numbers are the Offset. - Offset uses pixels. If you set a button to 100 pixels wide, it will stay 100 pixels wide whether the screen is a giant TV or a tiny iPhone. - Scale uses percentages. If you set a button to 0.1, it will always take up 10% of the screen.
Always use Scale for your main positions and sizes. If you find it annoying to calculate percentages in your head, there are plenty of free plugins (like "AutoScale Lite") that can convert your pixels to scale with one click. It'll save you so much stress when you realize your game actually works on mobile.
Colors and fonts: Don't go overboard
One of the easiest ways to spot a "noob" UI is when there are seven different fonts and every color of the rainbow is used at once. It's distracting.
Pick a color palette and stick to it. I usually go to sites like Coolors to find a set of four or five colors that actually look good together. Use one color for your main backgrounds, one for your buttons, and maybe a "pop" color for important stuff like "Buy" buttons or notifications.
When it comes to fonts, less is more. Roblox has some great options now like Fredoka One for a bubbly, fun look, or Gotham for a more clean, corporate, or modern feel. Try to pick two fonts at most—one for headings and one for general text. If you keep things consistent, your game feels like a cohesive experience rather than a bunch of random pieces thrown together.
Organizing with Layout components
If you're making a list of items—like an inventory or a leaderboard—don't try to position every single box by hand. You'll lose your mind. Use UIGridLayout or UIListLayout.
These components automatically organize any children inside a frame. If you use a UIListLayout, you can just duplicate your item frame, and it will automatically snap it underneath the previous one with the exact spacing you choose. It's a massive time-saver. Also, check out UIPadding. It lets you add a little "breathing room" inside your frames so your text isn't hugging the very edge of the box. Small details like that make a huge difference in how professional the final product looks.
Thinking about the user's flow
When someone opens your menu, where is their eye supposed to go? This is called visual hierarchy. You want the most important button to be the easiest to see.
For example, if you have a "Cancel" button and a "Confirm" button, make the "Confirm" button a bright, catchy color like green, and keep the "Cancel" button a neutral gray. You're subtly telling the player what they should be looking at.
Also, consider how many clicks it takes to do something. If a player has to open three different menus just to change their character's hat, they're going to get annoyed. Keep it simple. If a menu doesn't need to be there, get rid of it.
Icons and images
Text is great, but icons are faster for the brain to process. Instead of a button that just says "Store," a little shopping cart icon makes it instantly recognizable. You can find tons of free icons in the Roblox Toolbox, but be careful—sometimes the quality is all over the place.
If you're feeling fancy, you can use external programs like Figma or Photopea to design your icons and then import them as Decals or ImageButtons. Just remember that Roblox has a limit on image resolution, so you don't need to upload a 4K image for a tiny button. 1024x1024 is the max, but for a small icon, even 256x256 is usually plenty.
Wrapping things up
GUI design is definitely one of those things where you get better the more you do it. My first menus were literal gray boxes with "Click Me" written in Arial, and they were hideous. But by experimenting with UICorners, playing around with UIGradients, and finally mastering the whole Scale vs Offset nightmare, I started making stuff I was actually proud of.
Don't be afraid to look at your favorite games for inspiration. Don't copy them exactly, obviously, but look at how they handle their margins, what colors they use for their "Confirm" buttons, and how they animate their menus. If you keep practicing and keep your players' experience in mind, you'll be making top-tier interfaces in no time. Good luck with your project—I can't wait to see what you build!