Berriton_UX_test

Usability Report of Berriton

Danny Shiojima Richard Percival Hong Yu

1. Executive Summary This paper discusses the effects of usability testing on the design and quality of game Berriton. The first section gives an overview of usability testing, includes purpose of the study, information of participants, and test methods. The second section contains findings and recommendations of the test, discussions and the appendices.

The usability testing of Berriton was conducted in BCIT NE1 building 346 room, on April 27th, 2017. Five participants who are studying in BCIT digital design and development program were selected. The length of the test was around 2 hours, 20 minutes for each.

By observing the game playing process of the participants, following are major findings: ● Need to add a tutorial page at the beginning of the game. ● Need to be able to decide the character by hitting the enter key. ● Need to add effects on interactive objects. ● Need to change colour of speech bubble when dialogue changes. ● Need to add an arrow toward the house for the pond scene. ● Need to add more interactive objects to the mountain scene. ● Need to fix some unclear instructions especially for how to find the recipe. ● Need to fix the goodies menu, when users obtain the recipe and pie. ● Need to be able to run through to next dialogue, if users already clear the conditions. ● Need to fix the problem that if you double click the speech bubble quickly, the speech bubble become small. ● Need to close the speech bubble, if dialogue does not finish when users leaving the scene.

The details will be discussed in the following sections.

2. Table of Contents Executive Summary …………………………………………………………………………………1 Table of Contents ………………………………………….……………………………………….. 1 Part 1 Purpose of the study ..……………………………………………………….……..……………… 2 Participants …………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 Method ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 Part 2 Findings and recommendations ………………………………………………………………….. 3 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………..12 Appendices ………………………………………………………………………………………….12

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3. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this research effort was to assess to overall usability of an adventure game Berriton while it is still in development. Specifically, the product team was interested in learning whether users could understand the game instructions as well as complete the tasks. To meet this goal, a usability study was conducted with two scenes of the game.

4. Participants Five users were invited to participate in a usability study of the game Berriton. Two of them were chosen by instructor, three of them are volunteer who are interested in the game Berriton.

5. Method Overview During the test session, users were asked to explore the game by themselves. To complete the whole process, user need to perform several tasks including: choosing a character, giving a name to the character, gathering berries, talking with the navigator characters, finding the recipe, etc. Users’ errors, comments, and satisfaction ratings were observed during the study.

Testing Environment Four of the product evaluation was conducted on a computer running Mac OSX, and viewed at a 2560 by 1440 pixels screen resolution using the Google Chrome browser. The review was conducted using interactive prototype screens published on April 26th, 2017.

One of the product evaluation was conducted on a iPhone5, and viewed at a 640 by 1136 pixels screen resolution using the Google Chrome browser. The review was conducted using interactive prototype screens published on April 26th, 2017.

Questionnaire 1.What type is your device and screen? Does it show properly on your screen?

2.What do you think of the art?

3.Does the instructions clear? If not, please write in details.

4.How is the user interface?

5.Did you notice any bugs?

6.Name three words or characteristics that describe this game.

7.What are the three things you like best about the game?

8.What are the three things you like least about the game?

9.If you could make one significant change to this Web site, what change would you make?

10.Could you please give us some suggestions?

After all the tasks are done the users will be asked to fill out a questionnaire. Above is the questionnaire that was used for the usability test session. All the questions are open questions. It includes basic questions such as what you like and dislike about the game.

Then it will ask about recommendations to improve the overall game design and functionality.

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6. Findings and Recommendations Ten findings were founded by this usability test. The details will be discussed by the order of the story line.

Starting page

" Findings: Because the game is designed for horizontal screen view, for the laptop users, they did not have any problem to start the game. While for the mobile user, the graphic was cut off until the screen were turned around.

Recommandation: It is better to add a tutorial telling the mobile users turn around the phone to start the game.

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Characters choosing & naming page

" Findings: All of the users got the idea about choosing and naming characters. The interesting thing is users need to type name in the blank space, and most of them unconsciously tend to hit the enter key to finish.

Recommandation: For the better user interface and the user experience, Berriton needs to be able to decide the character by hitting the enter key.

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The berry gathering scene

" Findings: Two of the users did not gather the berries at the first time. They followed the arrow and went through this scene directly. Until be asked for some berries in the next scene, they came back again.

Recommandation: It is better to add some effect on the berries, such as glow or shade, to let users know there are some interactive things on berries.

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The bridge scene

" Findings: Users tend to click the speech bubble again, even they already clear the task for this scene.

The reason is even user has five berries in basket, they have to click the speech bubble two times to finish the task. The first time to get the task, and the second time to give the berries.

Because the speech bubble looks same for the first time and the second time, users do not know if the dialogue will change or not, until they click the third time, and see the same dialogue.

Recommandation: It is better to change colour of speech bubble when dialogue changes. So that users can know there are new dialogue come.

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The pond scene

" Findings: In this page, all the users gathered berries and talked with the dolphin without difficulty.

However, some of the users couldn’t find the baking scene, because there is not arrows point at the house. Users tend to follow the arrows and go to the next scene. Moreover, users were confused about the instructions that dolphin gives.

Recommandation: It is better to add an arrow toward the house or add effect on on it, to tell users there are some hints in the house. Also, make instructions more clear. 


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The mountain scene

" Findings: All users clicked the mountains expected to find some interactive objects, and one user asked why the arrows are not in the same line.

Recommandation: It is better to add some interactive objects into this page, and align two arrows into the same line.

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The mountain top scene

" Findings: Basically, this scene works good. All users did dialogue with the goat, but some of users were confused about how to get the recipe and pie, so they did the conversation many times.

Recommandation: This page works well. In order to complete this task (get him a pie), it is better to make instructions clearer of other pages.

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The kitchen scene

" Findings: When users obtain the pie, it does not appear in the goodies menu. To see the pie they need to close and reopen the goodies menu. The recipe book should also disappear when the pie is obtained. Also, users try to drag the pie to the goose to use it when in reality they don't need to.

Recommandation: There should be a more interactive option for giving the goose the recipe.

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Others:

" Findings: When users clicked speech bubble quickly, the speech bubble become small.

When users left the scene in the middle of the dialogue, the speech bubble didn’t close. And when they came back again, the dialogue started from the middle. It suppose to close the bubble and restart it again.

Recommandation: Fix these three bugs.

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7. Conclusion The usability test result was good and the users are excited to see a fully working version of the web application. After analyzed the usability test data and presenting to the development and design team. We can discuss with the team on which changes are possible and which are not. If the change is not possible, figure out why it is not possible and find suitable alternatives. After applying the changes according to the recommendation from this usability testing session. It would be ideal to conduct iterative usability testing with different participants.

8. Appendices Sample Scripts Thank you for participating in this test session.

Hi, ___________. My name is Hong, and I’m going to walk you through this test session.

Today you are here to test a adventure game called Berriton. The purpose of this game is for the users to enjoy the time. The purpose of this usability test is find if any UI or UX aspect of this game can be improved. I am also interested in which features worked well or not. You are welcome to explore the whole game by yourself. So let’s start it.

Summary of qualitative comments ● Does the instructions clear? If not, please write in details.

Not always. I didn’t know where the recipe book was add also the pie.

The text in the bubble is not inside for one of them. ● How is the user interface?

No introduction of the story. ● Did you notice any bugs?

Speech bubbles get small.

There is no my character in the house. ● If you could make one significant change to this Web site, what change would you make?

Have something at the end of signify completion.

Make instructions, where to click, more clear. ● Could you please give us some suggestions?

More arrows, reset button Add interactivity to trees/mountains.

Add a night mode to make the background black.

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