Usability versus Playability? staffan.bjork@cs.chalmers.se 1
About the Lecture Purpose Material for starting discussions Several of you are more knowledgeable in specific topics than me Rules Ask questions and interrupt whenever Interactive (but maybe not a game) 2/22
Difference between Games and Other Computer Applications? 3/22
Many Games are Computer Applications Or can be seen as state machines Same requirements on interaction Identify functionality Ease of use Ease of learning User satisfaction Accessibility Adapted to different cultures Same processes needed 4/22
HCI and Games Games have the opportunity to use the latest HCI findings since they provide their own specialized interfaces E.g. pie menus Games are voluntary activity in competitive market with many alternatives Choosers are users? Is HCI more important here than in other serious applications? 5/22
A Closer Look at Usability ISO 13407 understand and specify the context of use specify the user and organisational requirements produce design solutions evaluate designs against requirements With the objectives to enhancing effectiveness and productivity, improving human working conditions, and counteracting the possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance 6/22
A Closer Look at Usability, cont. This standard (which is part of the ISO 9241 series) provides the definition of usability that is used in subsequent related ergonomic standards: Usability: the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use. 7/22
A Closer Look at Usability, cont. efficiency criteria whereby the attainment of a minimum level of effective performance may be determined effectiveness criteria whereby the success or failure of task performance may be determined Satisfaction criteria by which the users may be judged to have interacted with the system to their internal degree of sufficiency: subjective ratings are frequently employed here 8/22
Playability Omnibus term, taking in many things: rules clarity, speed and ease of play, interestingness of each turn and of the game as a whole, and the whole gestalt of the game. (Schuesller, N. & Jackson, S., 1981) the degree to which a game is fun to play and usable, with an emphasis on the interaction style and plot-quality of the game; the quality of gameplay. Playability is affected by the quality of the storyline, responsiveness, pace, usability, customizability, control, intensity of interaction, intricacy, and strategy, as well as the degree of realism and the quality of graphics and sound. (usabilityfirst.com) 9/22
Measuring Playability GameFlow: A Model for Evaluating Player Enjoyment in Games (Sweetser & Wyeth, 2005) Concentration Challenge Player Skills Control Clear goals Feedback Immersion Social Interaction Using heuristics to evaluate the playability of games (Desurvire, Caplan & Toth, 2004) game play game story game mechanics game usability Playability heuristic for mobile games (Korhonen & Koivisto, 2006) Game Usability Mobility Gameplay 10/22
Notes on these View on Playability See playability as the sum of all aspects affecting the experience of playing the game Usability as a subset of playability What would be the corresponding concept for non-entertainment applications? Let s look at a definition of games and gameplay 11/22
A Closer Look at Games [Play is] a free activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being not serious, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. (Huizinga, J. Homo Ludens, 1938) To play a game is to engage in activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity. (B. Suits, Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia) A game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable. (Juul, J.) 12/22
A Closer Look at Games, cont. In general Not succeed all the time Must be challenging Negotiable outcomes or not serious Effectiveness not primary importance 13/22
Gameplay The actions and planning possible by a player for a specific game Definition in progress based upon noting usage online "I just prefer my gameplay to be 80% smashy smashy, 20% puzzles/anything else "LoM also had bad gameplay, as it was pathetically easy "Biggest reason for that was that the fast gameplay of Unreal wasn't as easy to transfer to a console as was thought "How many hours of gameplay is it going to offer? "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas will have 150 hours of gameplay 14/22
Returning to Playability Salient features of gameplay which contribute to a good gameplay experience (Järvinen et al, 2002) Functional playability Ability to explicitly attempt to do something in the game Not usability! Structural playability Measure of if the gameplay is sufficiently demanding to engage Sensory playability Information presentation and availability Social playability Measure of how well the gameplay facilitates a certain type of social interaction or practice 15/22
Are Definitions of Usability and Games Compatible? Not according to strict readings of the definitions But descriptions of playability typical include or complement descriptions of usability But what do people talking about design methods say? 16/22
Evidence Professionals and textbooks on game design stress the iterative process and especially testing Examples Game Design Workshop, Fullerton et al. (2004) Game Design, Vol. 1 Theory and Practice (1981) 17/22
A Player-Oriented Design Process Involve players Representing the target audience Iterative Design Setting an initial goal regarding gameplay Stepwise developing and refining Evaluating against initial design goal Use of low fidelity prototypes E.g. Pen and Paper prototypes Stress playtesting Designer Playtesting, Blindtesting, Proof Playtesting Evaluate / Playtest Generate Ideas / Identify Target Group Test Ideas / Implement Formalize Ideas / Create Specification 18/22
Differences in Approach HCI focused on low-level aspects of the design Game Design focused upon high-level aspects of design Second-order design (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004) The importance is not the design of the artifact but the activity that it gives rise to The shift from HCI to Interaction Design can be seen as a shift towards second-order design Can these be combined? Should they be combined? In other things than games? 19/22
A Theory of Fun Fun is learning patterns The body s way of rewarding the brain for learning something Games are distilled patterns Limited models of the world to promote understanding of structures Self-creating puzzles in games Player-created content Emergent gameplay Competition Raph Koster, 2005 20/22
Learning principles (Gee, 2004) 1. Active Critical Learning Principle 2. Design Principle 3. Semiotic Principle 4. Semiotic Domains Principle 5. Metalevel Thinking about Semiotic Domains Principle 6. Psychosocial Moratorium Principle 7. Committed Learning Principle 8. Identity Principle 9. Self-Knowledge Principle 10. Amplification of Input Principle 11. Achievement Principle 12. Practice Principle 13. Ongoing Learning Principle 14. Regime of Competence Principle 15. Probing Principle 16. Multiple Route Principle 17. Situated Meaning Principle 18. Text Principle 19. Intertextual Principle 19. Multimodal Principle 20. Material Intelligence Principle 21. Intuitive Knowledge Principle 22. Subset Principle 23. Incremental Principle 24. Concentrated Sample Principle 25. Bottom-up Basic Skills Principle 26. Explicit Information On-Demand and Just-In-Time Principle 27. Discovery Principle 28. Transfer Principle 29. Cultural Models about the World Principle 30. Cultural Models about Learning Principle 31. Cultural Models about Semiotic Domains Principle 32. Distributed Principle 33. Dispersed Principle 34. Affinity Group Principle 35. Insider Principle 21/22
Conclusions Tools, methods, and concepts from usability are applicable for playability even if the overarching goal may differ Tools, methods, and concepts from playability are applicable for usability even if the overarching goal may differ The concepts of usability and playability may points to different goals through similar means And can therefore gain by learning from each other 22/22
Thank you! staffan.bjork@tii.se 23
Flow Characteristics Activity requiring skill Merging of action and awareness Clear goals and feedback Concentration on task Paradox of control Loss of selfconsciousness Transformation of time Activity becomes its own purpose - autotelic Difficulty Frustration Flow Boredom Skill Czikszentmihalyi 24/22