Using heuristics to evaluate the playability of games (original) (raw)
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Game Usability Heuristics (PLAY) for Evaluating and Designing Better Games: The Next Iteration
Online Communities and Social Computing, 2009
Game developers have begun applying formal human-computer interaction (HCI) principles in design. Desurvire et al [2] adapted a set of Heuristics for productivity software to games. The resulting set, presented at CHI 2004, was Heuristics to Evaluate Playability (HEP). Generalization of these heuristics is required to make them applicable to a multiple of game genres and game deliveries. This follow-up study focused on the refined list, Heuristics of Playability (PLAY), that can be applied earlier in game development as well as aiding developers between formal usability/playability research during the development cycle. Heuristics were formed based on their efficacious scores on the popular game review website, metacritic.com. Fiftyfour gamers rated High and Low ranked games on 116 potential heuristics. Implications for how these Heuristics will help developers improve game quality are discussed. PLAY has been found useful in design evaluation and elfreport survey format.
Evaluating Computer Game Usability: Developing Heuristics Based on User Experience
The 2nd Annual Human Computer Interaction Conference
Computer games designers must innovate to survive, but this innovation comes at the cost of high development cost and unreliable market success. Usability techniques can help software designers reduce these risks, but few methods currently exist that are applicable to computer game design. Heuristic evaluation is a budget usability method that has been used with great success in the design of non-game software and has advantages for use in a game design process, such as flexibility and low overhead costs. This study developed an initial set of usability heuristics for computer game design based on user input. These heuristics were then refined though expert evaluation and finally discussed in terms of possible applications and future developments.
Heuristic usability evaluation on games: a modular approach
Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2018
Heuristic evaluation is the preferred method to assess usability in games when experts conduct this evaluation. Many heuristics guidelines have been proposed attending to specificities of games but they only focus on specific subsets of games or platforms. In fact, to date the most used guideline to evaluate games usability is still Nielsen's proposal, which is focused on generic software. As a result, most evaluations do not cover important aspects in games such as mobility, multiplayer interactions, enjoyability and playability, etc. To promote the usage of new heuristics adapted to different game and platform aspects we propose a modular approach based on the classification of existing game heuristics using metadata and a tool, MUSE (Meta-heUristics uSability Evaluation tool) for games, which allows a rebuild of heuristic guidelines based on metadata selection in order to obtain a customized list for every real evaluation case. The usage of these new rebuilt heuristic guidelines allows an explicit attendance to a wide range of usability aspects in games and a better detection of usability issues. We preliminarily evaluate MUSE with an analysis of two different games, using both the Nielsen's heuristics and the customized heuristic lists generated by our tool.
HEURISTICS AND USABILITY GUIDELINES FOR THE CREATION AND EVALUATION OF FUN IN VIDEO GAMES
This study examines the implicit and explicit heuristics and usability evaluation processes utilized by a leading game developer. Five people from a single game team, each contributing in a different way to the game development process, were observed for one business day and interviewed. At the time of this study, the participating game team was at the tail end of their first month of prototyping in the pre-production phase of development. The data collected and literature reviewed combine to suggest that instituting more formal usability evaluation processes could be helpful to the game development process. The heuristics created in this study are a starting point for the construction of a standard list of game heuristics for use by the game development community.
Methodological Review Of Playability Heuristics
Proceedings of the Eurasia Graphics 2017, Istanbul, Turkey, November 4-5., 2017
This study reviews published scientific literature on the use of heuristics for evaluating player experience to (a) identify the potential contribution of the application of heuristics for assessing player experience, (b) present the status of playability heuristics evaluation procedures for evaluating player experience, and (c) define future research perspectives. By searching online bibliographic databases, 44 relevant articles were selected and included in the study. The aim, methodology, proposed heuristics and conclusions were studied separately for each article. The study indicated that a large variety of approaches on evaluating the experience of video games using heuristics were presented. Because of this, it is not possible to identify a generally accepted approach while studying evaluation of video games. This study intends to present and clarify a much-needed holistic point of view in terms of using heuristics for evaluating player experience because of the current dispersed state of the literature and interlaced heuristic evaluation approaches. The review study indicated that most of the articles presented new heuristics, either by iteratively improving the existing approaches or forming new ones. It is usually suggested that the presented sets of heuristics have been viable in general for assessing some aspects regarding the gaming experience. However, the heuristic approaches have neither proven to be including the experience in its entirety nor empirically tested adequately for validation to provide a possible de facto basis for further research. The implications of the articles were also studied for providing a common ground for future research in the field of heuristics evaluation of video games.
Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media: IGI Global, 2011
The expert review method is a widely adopted usability inspection method for evaluating productivity software. Recently, there has been increasing interest to apply this method for the evaluation of video games, as well. In order to use the method effectively, there need to be playability heuristics that take into account the characteristics of video games. There are several playability heuristic sets available, but they are substantially different, and they have not been compared to discover their strengths and weaknesses in ...
Playability heuristics for mobile games
Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services - MobileHCI '06, 2006
Expert evaluation is a widely used method for evaluating the usability of software products. When evaluating games, traditional usability heuristics lack comprehension and cannot be directly applied. In this paper, we introduce playability heuristics that are specifically designed for evaluating mobile games. Heuristics form a core model that can be used in any mobile game evaluation. The model consists of three modules: Game Usability, Mobility, and Gameplay. The mobile context has some unique characteristics, which require special attention during the evaluation. These characteristics are described in mobility heuristics. Mobile devices also set some of their own requirements for general usability and these issues are described along with game usability heuristics. These heuristics have been developed by using an iterative design process of a mobile game. In addition, we have validated the heuristics and evaluated five mobile games by using them with the expert evaluation method.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Heuristics present a cheap and effective way of evaluating usability. However, in video games, evaluating unique player experiences that are dependent on individual preferences and abilities presents a challenge that goes beyond usability. Video games are more than just functional software, so games heuristics have been adapted to help examine functionality and experience. This paper reports on how papers published in the ACM Digital Library between 2012 and 2022 develop and apply heuristics in video games research. We found that heuristics are often used outside their intended purpose of being used in an expert evaluation. Instead, they are used as survey instruments, interview guides, codes for thematic analysis, and as design guidelines. This research contributes to HCI and video games research by distinguishing the terms design guidelines and design principles from heuristics. We make recommendations for researchers around developing heuristics and conducting video game heuristi...
Empirical Analysis of Playability vs. Usability in a Computer Game
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
This paper reports our experience in applying an empirical userexperience testing method to improve a computer game. We sought to understand the differences in practice between usability and playability, and correspondingly to assess the usefulness of different approaches to taxonomies for playability. Our experience suggests that the evaluation technique for playability can be the same as for usability and that some existing taxonomies for playability do not provide effective support for translating experience of evaluation into heuristics for design. For formative evaluation, understanding episodes for playability depends on specific circumstances of each episode; taxonomies may be more useful for summative evaluation.
Comparing Two Playability Heuristic Sets with Expert Review Method
Ambient, Social and Gaming Media, 2012
The expert review method is a widely adopted usability inspection method for evaluating productivity software. Recently, there has been increasing interest to apply this method for the evaluation of video games, as well. In order to use the method effectively, there need to be playability heuristics that take into account the characteristics of video games. There are several playability heuristic sets available, but they are substantially different, and they have not been compared to discover their strengths and weaknesses in game evaluations. In this chapter, we report on a study comparing two playability heuristic sets in evaluating the playability of a video game. The results indicate that the heuristics can assist inspectors in evaluating both the user interface and the gameplay aspects of the game. However, playability heuristics need to be developed further before they can be utilized by the practitioners. Especially, the clarity and comprehensibility of the heuristics need to...