Wired Magazine had a great article a few months back about Usability Testing during the development of Halo 3 for the Xbox . I kept it around and have thought about it many times because it discusses the use of usability methodologies in the most immersive of all user experiences, video games.

For the most part, when we provide usability services, our goal is to make an interface more efficient or easier to use. For example, we focus on making it easier to buy an item on a shopping site or quicker to send an email from an email application. During the development of Halo 3, Microsoft and Bungie employed standard usability techniques to make their game more fun.

Some of the usability heuristics, or rules of thumb, they focussed on were:

• Discoverability - Can the player find the weapons and ammunition required to progress in the game?
• Feedback - Were the players able to determine when an enemy was too far away to shoot at?
• Interactivity - Was there a good balance of action and time in between action to keep the interaction with the game flowing and the player immersed in the activity of the game?
• System Guidance - One of the levelswas so big and sprawling, players were getting off task and becoming lost. How could the designers strike a balance between leading the player forward without overly diminishing the challenge of the game.

I particularly liked this quote: "Gamemakers have to devise a system of rules and equipment that gives players a few basic goals and then allows them to find their own ways of achieving those goals. The flow comes from constantly discovering innovative ways to solve these open-ended problems." As opposed to traditional interfaces where the goal is to offer the user one or a few simple ways to complete a task, the game designers intend for the players to solve the game problems in unique ways.

Labels: games, quotes, ue design, ue research