[h2]1. About myself[/h2] Hey! My name is Yana Voronkova, I am from Minsk, Belarus. Starting from elementary school I loved to play games, in middle school I got acquainted with technology, and in high school I decided to become a psychologist. Having crossed all this, I came to my current specialty, that is an engineering psychologist, if say it literally in Russian. (Games) User Experience Researcher - if in English. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34771562/729e6f3b97580c0b76e20988f83e4f83fde90386.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34771562/7f20ec5bb1462fa89ab3216ac22d3ddefe72e5e7.jpg[/img] This is me studying the influence of music on human productivity at the Labor Psychology and Ergonomics class :) I research the user or player experience within something that engineers and designers have created, usually within the interfaces. I evaluate how clear it is for a person what s/he sees and how comfortable it is to solve the arising issues. In the games I also necessarily investigate the "fun" they bring. I also often research the target audience of products: what the potential users like, what do not like and why, what problems they have, their pains, values, unresolved needs, experience with competitors, and so on. I worked at Wargaming for a couple of years, then I entered the free market. But the free floating in the CIS, unfortunately, can provide a very few game projects that want to conduct research. Usually my customers are enterprise products or services. So I started looking for some kind of an indie studio to work with games for pleasure. So, while listening to the podcast “Want to be in gamedev”, in which Vyacheslav Utochkin regularly advertises the opportunity to work with novice studios for free, I wrote to him and eventually got into S.O.S. Well, first I had to really explain what kind of specialist I am and how I can be useful in general :) [h2]2. What were the tasks?[/h2] I don't have a lot of tasks on the project yet, because there are still no players on whom I could conduct research. And external research costs money. Therefore, it is necessary to find opportunities to draw something in the conditions of the given constraints. While there were tasks for collecting and analyzing feedback from those who, on occasion, managed to play the build, and I also conducted a usability audit or, in other words, an expert assessment of the game's interfaces. [h2]3. What were the instruments?[/h2] If we talk about software and hardware, then everything is free! :) Since specialized tools like an eye-tracker (a device for tracking an eye) or collecting telemetry (game data) are not yet available to us, we use any available office packages that allow to collect and record information. For example, Google Forms for creating questionnaires, Google Docs for writing reports. If we talk about the tools of the researcher — methods, I used questionnaires, heuristic assessment and cognitive test (or scenario test). I'll tell you about them further. [h2]4. How was it implemented? [/h2] When DevGamm Moscow took place, we collected feedback from the participants of the conference (you can read about this in the last issue). To do this, the guys attracted visitors to the stand to play the build, and then the players filled out the feedback form that I prepared. There, in a structured way, we found out what the players liked / disliked, where there were difficulties, and also asked to compare S.O.S. with reference games. A usability audit task does not need players, so this method can be used just when it is not possible to conduct research on live users. To do this, you only need an expert who, based on their knowledge, experience and observation, can point out weaknesses in the interfaces and give recommendations for their improvement. It happens like this: I master the game based on the player's experience who sees all this for the first time. I did this as soon as I came to the project, so the view of it was very up to date. In the process of research, I take the marks for myself on what looks or feels incomprehensible, confusing, or inconsistent with some design heuristic (sort of like a set of rules for design) or game idea. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34771562/4aad5b15fe1562b69c0a692c40766fb64ec4e080.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/34771562/df1f7e447b0e0b12b5abcee6f3e670d0260dc60e.png[/img] An extract from the usability audit report Then I describe all this for the team with explanations why this is a problem and how it can be solved. At this moment, a lot of analytical work takes place, since it is not enough to simply locally point out problems such as “incomprehensible icon”, “too fast transition” or “the problem for the level is poorly described”. It is necessary to look at everything in a complex and try to identify deeper and more serious problems. For example, “the game has problems with navigation” or “there is the lack of goal-setting for the player”. To solve such problems, it will not be enough to repaint or change the wording. Here you may need to revise the logic of game mechanics or information architecture, for example. [h2]5. What are the final results? [/h2] It is still difficult with the questionnaire. You may have seen in the last blog our few responses after polling on DevGamm. Difficulties arise with the collection: a) feedback from relevant potential audience, not industry experts; b) a sufficient amount of this feedback. It's hard to get feedback without reward or self-interest from people. The usability audit results included a list of minor and global issues. Some of them coincided with what the team was already working on before I came. Some were new for the guys. They intuitively felt something, and my report simply helped them to “sort it out”. The most popular flaw is insufficient informing the player about the status of the system. It is important that the player always understands what is happening with him/her and with the game. This includes informing about whose move it is now, which hero is chosen, why s/he cannot walk, how s/he can perform this or that action, what is generally required of him/her now, etc. When you work on a game for a long time, to you, as a developer, some things seem obvious and self-evident. But this may not be the case for the person who first looks at the game. The team is currently working on fixes and improvements. [h2]6. Plans for the future, edits, P.S. [/h2] I really want to fully test the game with the players and give the guys feedback. From time to time we discuss some ways of where to get the audience, for example, via some article. So, if you consider yourself a fan of tactical games and space setting - write to us in the comments! :)