Heuristic usability evaluation on games: a modular approach

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.Unión Europea PI055-15/E0

Methodologies for evaluating the playability of mobile games:systematic literature review

Tiivistelmä. The gaming industry has been growing rapidly during the past years due to the interest of the new generations in mobile gaming. To deliver a great experience for the gamers, it is required for the gaming companies to produce games that are challenging but at the same time easy to play. To achieve this, it is required to understand the factors that affect the gaming experience. Playability is a term that is used to understand the usability of a game and its experience. The purpose of this thesis was to understand what is known related to the playability of mobile games and to identify the methodologies that are used by the community to evaluate this phenomenon. To find the answers to these questions, it was performed a systematic literature review (SLR) using the databases Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science. After conducting the SLR, 1,390 studies related to the playability of mobile games were found from which 27 were identified as primary studies of this research. From the data collected from the primary studies, there were identified 12 different methodologies that are used for evaluating the playability of mobile games. The methodologies that are most suitable to assess the playability of mobile games are heuristic evaluation and playtesting. Other methodologies can be used for evaluating the playability of mobile games, but they must include a set of heuristics that allows evaluating the playability. The limitations of the research were mentioned, and it was proposed topics for future research of this field. The contribution of this thesis is the summarizing of the current methodologies that are used to understand and evaluate the playability of mobile games. The results of this thesis are valuable for game developers, game designers, and game usability practitioners

From Playability to a Hierarchical Game Usability Model

This paper presents a brief review of current game usability models. This leads to the conception of a high-level game development-centered usability model that integrates current usability approaches in game industry and game research.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figur

PLAYABILITY HEURISTIC EVALUATION SYSTEM FOR MOBILE GAMES

Playability is an element that measures the ease of use by which a game can be played. To evaluate playability of a game, two methods are widely being used; Playtesting and Heuristic Evaluation. Playability Heuristics are required to perform heuristic evaluation on games

Evaluation of the game development process of a location-based mobile game

There is a growing interest of government bodies and NGOs in using (serious) video games in awareness campaigns. Until now, however, little was known on how to set up such a campaign so as to effectively cater to the needs of different stakeholders including the target audience. Hence designing, developing and translating a game for educational purposes whilst balancing between fun and learning is a complex process, this paper aims to evaluate this by presenting a methodological framework for involving stakeholders in the design and development of a game-based awareness campaign based on a user-centered software design methodology and assesses its effectiveness in a concrete use case: the development of the location-based mobile game City Jam. The goal was to develop a game-based road safety campaign to confront adolescents with road traffic situations with the aim to positively influence road safety attitude and behavior. Mobile technologies offer new opportunities to embed digital game based learning by in different contexts. Given the nature of the road safety campaign, a location-based game format was chosen, aiming to facilitate learning by means of an extended three-way interaction (human interaction, game and context). Different user-centered design methods were deployed throughout several phases of the game development process: In phase one (the opportunity identification) a literature review was performed to investigate relevant fields for the game’s goal. In phase two (the game concept development) expert interviews and a focus groups were conducted with relevant stakeholders and in phase three (the game concept design) co-design sessions and a focus group resulted in a game design document. In phase four (game development and testing) the beta version of City jam was developed and tested in an iterative field testing design and resulted in the final game. Results obtained throughout the game development process provided us the opportunity to evaluate several major aspects. Firstly the impact of stakeholder involvement on the different phases of the design process and the final product resulted in a game that was tailored to the preferences and needs of the target group. Secondly translating the game concept into practice, such as game elements, proposed educational game elements, were evaluated based on the usability, playability principles and social and technological aspects. Benefits and challenges of user-centered design methods are discussed and how budget constraints and differing desired outcomes of different stakeholders challenge but also enrich the process

A survey of Game Usability Practices in Northern European Game Companies

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 methods, but these methods and their usage have not stabilized. Surprisingly, only a few game companies used heuristic evaluation, mostly employing in-house game usability heuristics

Playability Evaluation using the Heuristic Evaluation of Playability Method in Warcraft 3 Reforged

Game is a digital activity that is very popular in the modern era, both among young and old. One game that is very popular with E-sports competition is Warcraft 3. However, in 2020 it immediately fell because Blizzard company has released a new version of those games which is called warcraft 3 reforged. The purpose of this study was to find out the reason this could happen by using the heuristic evaluation of playability method. With this method, you can find the scale of the problem in a game that will be released. The data used for this study uses the player persona as the source of the assessment that will be carried out in this game. The player persona is created by providing 10 respondents who will be required to perform and assess each task given according to the scenario codes. The benefits of this research can be used to analyse the readiness of games to be released to the market and to find out customer tastes in RTS (Real Time Strategy) type games. This assessment is based on the mean rating which will later be categorized as the level of problem in the running of the game. The results of this study indicate that the mean rating in this game is 2.91 or can be referred to as the Major Usability Problem with the highest value of percentage with the highest problem category found in the game usability with a percentage value of 41.7%

Understanding the fidelity effect when evaluating games with children

There have been a number of studies that have compared evaluation results from prototypes of different fidelities but very few of these are with children. This paper reports a comparative study of three prototypes ranging from low fidelity to high fidelity within the context of mobile games, using a between subject design with 37 participants aged 7 to 9. The children played a matching game on either an iPad, a paper prototype using screen shots of the actual game or a sketched version. Observational data was captured to establish the usability problems, and two tools from the Fun Toolkit were used to measure user experience. The results showed that there was little difference for user experience between the three prototypes and very few usability problems were unique to a specific prototype. The contribution of this paper is that children using low-fidelity prototypes can effectively evaluate games of this genre and style

Older adults’ motivations in game based systems: Heuristic definition and its connection with fun

Efforts are currently being made to generate wellbeing in the elderly population in order to achieve a good quality of life through the improvement of health, social interaction and psychological health. This is achieved, in addition to other options, through the application of game-based systems, presenting positive results that have been evidenced in several studies. These types of approaches are not only applied for entertainment and leisure, but also for learning and generating positive feelings, as a means of escape from loneliness, isolation, health improvement and support in daily life. Although these experiences are gradually being applied to the older adult population, they have usually been oriented to a young population with different characteristics, needs and motivations, where technological mastery is taken for granted. This makes an older adult feel limited when initially interacting with this type of experiences, which prevents them from fully using and enjoying these technological solutions. In this article, different motivational aspects that encourage older adults to use gamebased systems (for learning, fun, health, etc.) were identified and characterized in order to increase the use of this type of technologies, and to improve the design and evaluation of these experiences to obtain greater enjoyment from the end users. These aspects were represented by a motivational model and then established as a set of heuristics. These heuristics were evaluated by means of an expert judgment focused on the design of game experiences, obtaining positive results for the use of these elements as guides in the design and construction of Game-Based Systems oriented to older adults. This set of heuristics and their application were published in the PL/PX web platform for detailed explanation, access and use by the academic communityMINCIENCIAS of government of ColombiaFCT – Fundaçao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, I.P. [Project UIDB/05105/202