3rd user test: Description

So we're officially done with user testing, after some struggling with the third and final user test.

The third user test consisted of two gameplay sessions, in which the persons taking part in the test experienced the first ~20 minutes of Resident Evil 5 and Dead Space respectively. During these sessions, observations were made of what the participants interacted with in the environment. Both sessions were followed up with questions regarding the way the game eases player interaction with objects and the environment, if this is positive or negative for the game experience, and if the diegesis of the UI solutions affects the game experience. As in the first test, the participants were asked to rank the two games according to 1) usability (how much the game eased interacting with the environment), and 2) immersion/engrossment (to what extent this strengthened the game experience).

The aim of the test was to prove our hypothesis regarding spatial interaction; the amount of affordances deduced from an 3D game space is aways greater than the amount of affordances actually allowed by the rule framework (in other words, code) - only certain doors can be opened in Mirror's Edge yet some of our participants in the first user test tried to open doors that could not be opened - hence UI designers must amplify affordances allowed and supress non-existing but deducable affordances. This to enable as rich spatial interaction as possible, and avoid having the player try to do things not allowed by the rule framework which might block the players precense within the game world.

As in previous tests, we can notice a number of interesting trends in the results, which will be posted shortly.