Abstract
The gaming industry and the concept of gamification have altered the way many developers and users approach interactive products. As social gaming demographics expand to what was previously considered “casual” audiences, more users expect an enjoyable experience from their digital applications and games. Developers now request more detailed subjective descriptions of satisfaction and the player experience from user-experience (UX) practitioners. Focusing on how fun a product is for users/players requires subjective, situationally dependent metrics rather than traditional UX efficiency metrics. The UX discipline is still constructing a comprehensive ecology of the player experience and how to measure it. This article contributes to that ecology by detailing a case in which our team conducted a usability test on a new video game peripheral. Our client’s primary concern dealt with how fun experienced gamers found the device. As our test progressed, we encountered a number of fun-related participant behaviors that led us to develop new metrics beyond our initial planned metrics. These new metrics helped us and our client better define and discuss enjoyability. Our case, in conjunction with a detailed definition and review of player experience and UX scholarship, shows the importance of adopting metrics contextually specific to the video-game product and player group when measuring fun is the primary goal.
Highlights
Usability, according to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), focuses on the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” Most current definitions of usability include some variation of these critical measures: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction (ISO 9241-11; Barnum, 2010)
As we discuss in this paper, it is important for researchers to separate the satisfaction of an efficient, effective, and usable product and the emotions users experience with the gaming medium when performing user experience (UX) testing on gaming equipment
As we have shown, is a highly subjective, slippery metric, one that can be difficult for UX professionals to pinpoint with traditional usability methods; the oft-used System Usability Scale (SUS) (Brooke, 1986) has been long used as a method for assessing user satisfaction with a particular tool
Summary
Usability, according to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), focuses on the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” Most current definitions of usability include some variation of these critical measures: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction (ISO 9241-11; Barnum, 2010). Usability, according to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), focuses on the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.”. Most current definitions of usability include some variation of these critical measures: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction (ISO 9241-11; Barnum, 2010). Though usability testing and UX are primary concerns for both game software and hardware developers, game studies and UX researchers have recently focused more closely on distinctions between these traditional usability foci and subjective player experiences with video games, especially on the distinct, but difficult to measure, differences in the concepts of satisfaction and enjoyability—the emotional experience of playing a video game— fun. Current UX methods and the gamer-centric concept of the player experience offer researchers insights into how to approach UX testing when satisfaction and fun serve as important criteria
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