Usable Usability Heuristics for Game Developers (original) (raw)

The Quest for Usable Usability Heuristics for Game Developers

Lecture Notes in Information Systems and Organisation, vol 39. Springer, 2020

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research has provided many processes and methods for ensuring good usability during software development. The importance of usability in games has been acknowledged. However, there is a lack of research examining usability activities during actual game development and the suit-ability of different usability methods for different phases of game development. Game development industry, although growing fast and already including certain large and successful companies, consists of a huge number of small-to-medium-sized enterprises and start-ups. For these companies, practical, developer-oriented tools for ensuring game usability are needed, as these companies do not have resources for hiring usability specialists for taking care of usability. This paper reviews the concept of game usability and existing research on usability methods for game development. In addition, the paper proposes a set of usable usability heuristics as a practical, developer oriented tool to be used during the game development process as well as reports on a small-scale survey study on game usability, heuristic evaluation and us-ability of usability heuristics in game development.

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.

A Survey of Game Usability Practices in Northern European Game Companies

2016

Abstract. In today’s heavily competitive game market, it has become very important to make a game that stands out from the other games. Even though the game design might not be very unique, a game can still offer a better playing experience by having a better usability than a similar game with worse usability. The human-computer interaction research could provide game companies with the practical tools and methods needed to improve the game usability. This study investigates the views of the Northern European game companies on the concept of game usability, the extent to which the game companies utilize usability methods, and the methods they use. Data from two surveys conducted in Northern European game companies were analyzed; the unit of analysis of the survey data was company. The respondents – professionals with different roles in game development – regarded usability as a broad concept and rated it as having high importance in games. Game companies used multitude of usability ...

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.

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.

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.

A methodology to establish usability heuristics

2011

Usability evaluation for applications based on emerging information technology brings new challenges. Is it the classical concept of usability still valid? Which are the dimensions of the (new) usability? How can it be measured? How should we develop for (better) usability? A methodology to develop usability heuristics for emerging applications is proposed. The methodology was fully checked in the case of Grid Computing applications, and partially applied in the case of Interactive Digital Television and Virtual Worlds.

Heuristic Evaluation in Game and Gamification Development

Proceedings of the 2nd GamiFIN Conference, 2018

Game development business has become very competitive, therefore it is very important to develop games that stand out from the vast amount of other competing game titles. Usability of the game is crucial to ensure game acceptance, which in turn will contribute to more sales and profit for the game company. Game usability can also contribute to better player engagement and better accomplishment of individual and organizational objectives in the case of gamification. One successful method to ensure good usability is heuristic evaluation, which has been proven useful also in game development. However, the existing heuristics are criticized for being too general to suit specific games. This study investigates the views and practices of the game companies regarding game usability heuristics and the extent to which they utilize heuristic evaluation as a game usability method. A series of surveys was conducted in the North American and North European companies and the results show that all game professionals view usability as being very important in games, however the extent of utilization of heuristic evaluation in game development is overrated. Implications for the development practice and research in games and gamification are discussed.

Exploring the Advantages of Genre Specific Usability Heuristics

The 3rd Annual Human Computer Interaction Conference

Heuristic evaluation is a quick and affordable method of usability evaluation, and is used widely in software research and design . A wide range of usability heuristics have been developed, some are developed specifically for a given type of software, while others are presented as applicable to all software . Little research has explored the practical implications of using specialist or generalist heuristics evaluations. This paper reports the findings of a series of validation studies comparing Nielsen's [5] general software usability heuristics and Brown's [2] computer game specific heuristics. These evaluations will be compared in terms of number of problems identified, severity of problems identified and quality of feedback produced. Play testing and a series of quantitative usability evaluations of the games will be used as a base line for the comparisons. The games evaluated are Dawn of War, Baldur's Gate and Demon Stone. The results of each evaluation will be inspected individually, then the complete findings discussed in detail. Overall, the context specific heuristics are found to perform better in terms of finding more sever usability issues and the quality of feedback produced, while the general heuristics identified more problems. With these results in mind it is concluded that context specific heuristics could be of greatest benefit when used early in a design process, when the goal of evaluation is to clearly identify any serious usability issues.

Usability heuristics for networked multiplayer games

2009

Networked multiplayer games must support a much wider variety of interactions than single-player games because networked games involve communication and coordination between players. This means that designers must consider additional usability issues that relate to group play-but there are currently no usability engineering methods that are specifically oriented towards the needs of multiplayer games. To address this problem, we developed a new set of usability heuristics, called Networked Game Heuristics (NGH), which can be used in the design and evaluation of networked multiplayer games. The new heuristics were identified by analyzing problem reports from 382 reviews of networked PC games, covering six main genres. We aggregated problem reports into ten problem categories (covering issues from session management to cheating to training for novice players) and developed heuristics that describe how these usability problems can be avoided. We tested the new heuristics by having evaluators use them and an existing set to assess the usability of two networked games. Evaluators found more usability problems with NGH, and stated that the new heuristics were better for evaluating multiplayer game usability. Our research is the first to present networked game heuristics that are derived from real problem reports, and the first to evaluate the heuristics' effectiveness in a realistic usability test.