I have not posted in awhile, but thought i would update you with our user testing methods.
Our users test will be coming up soon and we will be using three different methods to test our game, these methods will give us the best results and find our sneaky hidden problems the quickest out of all user test methods.
Method A,
Observation
A simple method, in which a user conductor will observe the game while it is being played by a player. This method is mainly to find any unwanted bugs in the game but also allows us to see the players expressions during the game; if they are angry, frustrated or happy and excited. We can monitor all of this to allow us to work out what stages are working with the player without breaking their immersion.
Method B,
Questionnaire
The questionnaire is mainly there to get answers that you would not get from the Third Method (focus Group). It’s for more personal questions and for players that don’t like to talk in a group. This allows us to find hidden information that we didn't notice when observing the player. Such as things they found difficult, information that came across confusing or hidden bugs the user found that we didn't. Unfortunately this is rather useless if the results are different from each user, this method will only work if we find a common problem or common issue allowing us to work on the major problems.
Method D,
Focus Group
The focus group is comprised of the user
testers and the user conductor. The conductor will ask a series of questions to
the group and take notes based on their answer. The conductor will have to run
the group and keep them on the topic of the question. They will focus on monitoring
expression and behaviours towards the answers from the person, as well as
recording the answer said.
This helps a lot in finding out information that is a common solution, for example; If every one jumped over the bridge to get to the other side and that was what we wanted them to do, then we know that its clear to the player they need to jump over the bridge to get to the other side.
Or if the players explain they found a crack in the wall that got them to the other side. Then we know that the crack was not meant to be there and it's obvious enough that all the users know how to sneak past the finial boss =S awkward.
Thats me, talk to you after the user test.
