A short presentation on lessons learned applying traditional UX methods to games.

1. User Experience Methods
and Games
Lessons Learned
Remigius Fierley, Director User Experience, SirValUse Consul@ng GmbH, Germany
Stephan Engl, Informa@on Science, University of Regensburg, Germany

2. More demand for external UX
research and tes@ng of games

3. a growing market
Es#mated global retail sales, online revenue, digital distribu#on and relevant ad sales in billion
100
91
75
50 54
25
25
0
2004 2008 2015

4. new concepts
hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/brandonshigeta/4835770799/

5. differen@a@on of gamer popula@on

6. So what?
Why should we care?

7. More demand for external UX
research and tes@ng of games
To which extent can our established
UX methods be applied?

8. different criteria?
hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/cybjorg/275083906/

9. different criteria?
Usability & User Experience Playability & Game Experience
• task/goal‐oriented • ac@vity‐oriented
• effec@ve, efficient, sa@sfying • immersion, challenge, flow, story‐
• non‐instrumental quali@es telling, aesthe@cs, mo@va@on
• ease of use

10. our experience
„industry insights“

11. test sedng

12. data acquisi@on

13. free interac@on & thinking aloud

14. standardised ques@onnaires

15. itera@on
analyse & define build prototype
evaluate

16. learnings
• test sedng maQers
• data aquisi@on challenging
• free interac@on crucial
• thinking aloud only par@ally suitable
• ques@onnaires s@ll handcrafed
• itera@on mandatory
• …

17. No fundamentally new approach
to research and tes@ng required.
Nevertheless, we have to adapt and
expand our toolkit.

18. new tools
hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/drbakker/4540124047/

19. discussion
• How to deal with insufficient mo@va@on of test
par@cipants?
• How can all relevant player experience criteria
be adequatly covered during recrui@ng?
• Which methodology is ideally suited for
conduc@ng longitudinal studies?

20. hQp://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroven@ne/3210068573