Paul Sztajer's Blog - How many players should you playtest with? Reposted from www.throwthelookingglass.comSo, you've started developing your game, and you've got your basic gameplay done. It's time to start playtesting*. The question occurs to you: how many people should be playtesting my game? *If you've got something you can playtest with, you should be playtesting. As soon as possible. Jakob Nielsen, usability king, says that you only need 5 users to test each iteration of a design, and in many ways, this philosophy applies directly to playtesting. Nielsen's basic argument is that testing is about improving a design rather than finding every single problem. There's a caviet to this: if you're just sending your game to 5 friends and asking them to 'tell you what they think', 3-5 probably isn't enough. There are ways of getting almost as much information from your testers in an online playtest. There are two exceptions to this rule of 3-5. So that's it.
10 Heuristics for User Interface Design Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. (Read full article on visibility of system status.) Match between system and the real world The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. (Read full article on the match between the system and the real world.) User control and freedom Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Consistency and standards Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Error prevention Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. (Read full article on preventing user errors.) Recognition rather than recall Help and documentation
8 guidelines for usability testing (WebCredible) In professional web design circles, the usability testing session has become an essential component of any major project. Similar to focus groups in brand development and product launches, usability testing offers a rare opportunity to receive feedback from the very people the website is aimed at - before it's too late to do anything about it. But how can you get the most from these usability testing sessions? 1. As with any market research project, the results will only be as good as the people you test. 2. As with everything in life, first impressions are vital. Provide clear instructions on how to get to the usability testing location, and if necessary meet the participants at local stations. After the initial greeting and welcoming drinks, there are always legal forms that must be signed. 3. Before diving into key tasks, get the user familiar with the environment. Next, let them look at the website they are testing. 4. Set tasks that are essential to the new site's success, such as:
LE BILAN-PROJET Lorsque nous vous rencontrons, que vous soyez étudiant en cours de cursus ou en fin de parcours, vous ne voyez pas toujours l'utilité de faire un bilan. Travail long et contraignant, le jeu en vaut-il vraiment la chandelle ? Ne pouvez-vous pas plutôt y réfléchir au fur et à mesure de vos besoins ? C'est bien sûr une préparation indispensable pour s'armer d'outils efficaces, logiques et bien argumentés ne pas être déstabilisé en entretien par des questions-pièges auxquelles vous ne pourrez apporter de réponse satisfaisante faute d'y avoir suffisamment réfléchi élaborer un ou plusieurs projets professionnels qui vous permettront de cibler avec pertinence les entreprises auxquelles vous apporterez une collaboration efficace ainsi que les fonctions dans lesquelles vous aurez le maximum de chances de réussir construire un argumentaire qui vous permettra de vendre sur le marché le produit que vous représentez. le savoir : Que sais-je ? C'est votre potentiel. le savoir-être : Qui suis-je ?
Features - Practical Game Playtesting: A Wii-Based Case Study [Sidhe's Griffiths discusses in depth how the GripShift developer playtested, and then took that feedback to improve, their Wii version of the recent Speed Racer game, from Wiimote tweaks to difficulty changes.] Playtesting a game for the very first time is an incredibly daunting task. I'm not talking about all the preparation that goes into it; I'm talking about the abundance of negativity that is bound to be thrown your way. The first time players get their hands on the game always results in problems -- and when it comes time to write up the report, I realize with each soul-destroying point that it's my job to then present this information to the developers. However, the light at the end of the tunnel is that we can find and tackle these problems while the game is still in our hands. There is always the tendency, though (and I myself am guilty of this) to believe that your game is going to be perfect. Yet, we did get it out on time, and it actually received pretty good reviews.
Usability Testing (Web Design & Usability) - Constance J Petersen Home Articles We've Written Usability Testing By Constance J. Petersen for Borland's DevNews Copyright 1999 Inprise Corp. Help visitors navigate your Web site by removing stumbling blocks in advance. Shopping the other day on garden.com, I selected one item to purchase and continued browsing. I looked for a link labeled "check out," but there was no such link on the page. Obvious? Note: After this article was written, garden.com was acquired by Burpee seeds, and it now provides a standard shopping cart icon and text. I've noticed a strong new interest in usability testing, thanks to the growth of the Web. In its simplest form, usability testing requires only three ingredients: an application or Web site, a usability tester, and an observer. Note that usability testers are not the same as software testers whose job is to find bugs in the program. Be prepared Careful planning helps immensely in getting beneficial results from this kind of test. Trial run Time, cost, and videotape
The NEW LinkedIn Profile Explained. People don’t like change, it’s just the way we’re hardwired. You get used to doing (or seeing) something, it becomes familiar. Like driving a car, complex initially but after a while it becomes second nature. Background The LinkedIn Profile made it’s debut in 2009. “We want to make it look like [LinkedIn] is from the year 2012 and not like it’s from 1999,” Senior Experience Designer Marissa Dulaney says. Project Katy As in Katy Perry, which makes no sense for a professional networking platform, right? The references to “she” and citing Katy Perry, a well known female icon for inspiration for the re-design is quite deliberate – nearly twice as many men (63%) as women (37%) use LinkedIn (November 2010 Pew Survey). “Signal-to-Noise Ratio” (SNR) I have to admit that my initial reaction to the New Profile was negative. So What’s TRULY Important On A LinkedIn Profile? What’s Non-Essential? The stuff that’s been tucked away out of sight, deemed not as important as those 5 core elements:
Lennart Nacke's Blog - Biometrics, Game Evaluation and UX: Approach with caution The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. My colleague Steve Fairclough recently posted an article on PhysiologicalComputing.net in which he discusses the potential pitfalls of biometric research and how it is currently being sold to the game industry. Steve outlines that "psychophysiological methods are combined with computer games in two types of context: applied psychology research and game evaluation in a commercial context. Similar to Mike Ambinder's presentation of user research and game design at Valve (PDF), he makes the point that games in this context are analysed using principles of experimental psychology. They are used as tasks or virtual worlds within which a research can study the behavior of players (you might recall John Hopson's Gamasutra article on behavioral game design).