Category: Group Gaming

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pg slot game demo 2023

เว็บไซต์เล่น สล็อตpg ที่ดีที่สุดให้คุณโอกาสในการเพลิดเพลินกับเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ที่มีคุณภาพและมากมายให้เลือกเล่น นี่คือบทความที่อธิบายเกี่ยวกับเว็บไซต์เล่น PG Slot ที่ควรพิจารณาเลือกใช้.

1. รู้จัก PG Slot

PG Slot เป็นผู้พัฒนาเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ที่มีชื่อเสียงและเป็นที่รู้จักอย่างกว้างขวางในวงการเกมคาสิโนออนไลน์ พวกเขามีความคล้ายคลึงกับผู้ให้บริการเกมสล็อตอื่น ๆ แต่มีคุณภาพและการออกแบบที่น่าประทับใจ รูปแบบการเล่นที่ง่ายและการจ่ายเงินที่มีราคาสูงเป็นเอกลักษณ์ของเกม PG Slot.

2. การเลือกเว็บไซต์เล่น PG Slot ที่ดีที่สุด

2.1 ความปลอดภัยและความน่าเชื่อถือ

เลือกเว็บไซต์ที่มีความปลอดภัยและความน่าเชื่อถือ เป็นสิ่งสำคัญมาก คุณควรตรวจสอบให้แน่ใจว่าเว็บไซต์มีใบอนุญาตการพนันและมีการรีวิวที่ดีจากผู้ใช้งานอื่น ๆ เพื่อให้คุณมั่นใจในความปลอดภัยของข้อมูลและการทำรายการเงินของคุณ.

2.2 ความหลากหลายในเกมสล็อต

เลือกเว็บไซต์ที่มีความหลากหลายในเกมสล็อตของ PG Slot ที่ให้เลือกเล่น มีรูปแบบและรูปแบบการเล่นต่าง ๆ เพื่อให้คุณสามารถเลือกเล่นเกมที่ตรงกับความสนใจและความชำนาญของคุณ.

2.3 โบนัสและโปรโมชั่น

เว็บไซต์เล่น PG Slot ที่ดีควรมีโบนัสและโปรโมชั่นที่มีคุณค่าสำหรับผู้เล่น ดังนั้นคุณควรตรวจสอบโปรโมชั่นที่มีอยู่และตรวจสอบข้อกำหนดและเงื่อนไขของแต่ละโปรโมชั่นก่อนที่คุณจะเริ่มเล่น.

2.4 ระบบการชำระเงิน

ตรวจสอบระบบการชำระเงินที่เว็บไซต์มีให้บริการ ควรมีวิธีการชำระเงินที่สะดวกและรวดเร็วสำหรับคุณ นอกจากนี้ยังต้องมีระบบการถอนเงินที่ง่ายต่อการใช้งาน.

2.5 บริการลูกค้า

เลือกเว็บไซต์ที่มีบริการลูกค้าที่ดี โดยมีทีมงานที่พร้อมให้ความช่วยเหลือและตอบข้อสงสัยของคุณ 24/7 ผ่านช่องทางต่าง ๆ เช่น แชทสด อีเมล หรือโทรศัพท์.

3. รายละเอียดเว็บไซต์เล่น PG Slot ที่ควรพิจารณา

  • สมัครสมาชิก: กระบวนการสมัครควรง่ายและรวดเร็ว
  • การเงิน: ระบบการเงินที่ปลอดภัยและรวดเร็ว
  • เกมสล็อต: ควรมีหลากหลายเกมสล็อตจาก PG Slot
  • โบนัส: โปรโมชั่นและโบนัสที่มีคุณค่า
  • บริการลูกค้า: บริการลูกค้าที่เป็นมิตรและเปิดให้บริการตลอดเวลา
  • ความสามารถในการเล่นบนมือถือ: ควรรองรับการเล่นบนอุปกรณ์มือถือ

4. สรุป

การเลือกเว็บไซต์เล่น PG Slot ที่ดีที่สุดต้องพิจารณาความปลอดภัยและความน่าเชื่อถือของเว็บไซต์ รวมถึงความหลากหลายในเกมสล็อต โปรโมชั่น ระบบการชำระเงิน และบริการลูกค้า เมื่อคุณพร้อมแล้ว คุณสามารถเริ่มเพลิดเพลินกับเกมสล็อต PG Slot และมีโอกาสชนะเงินรางวัลที่มีราคาสูงในแอพนี้ได้เลย!

หากคุณกำลังมองหาเว็บไซต์เล่น ที่ดีที่สุด เพื่อให้คุณสามารถเพลิดเพลินกับเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ในรูปแบบที่มีคุณภาพและปลอดภัย นี่คือบทความที่อาจจะมีประโยชน์สำหรับคุณ:

PG Slot: สร้างประสบการณ์การเล่นสล็อตที่ยอดเยี่ยม

PG Slot เป็นผู้ให้บริการเกมสล็อตออนไลน์ที่เป็นที่นิยมในประเทศไทย ซึ่งมีชื่อเสียงและความน่าเชื่อถือในวงการการพนันออนไลน์ นี่คือเหตุผลที่ PG Slot ถือเป็นหนึ่งในเว็บไซต์เล่นสล็อตที่ดีที่สุด:

  1. ความหลากหลายในการเลือกเล่น: PG Slot มีความหลากหลายในรูปแบบและธีมของเกมสล็อต ที่คุณสามารถเลือกเล่นตามความชื่นชอบของคุณ มีทั้งเกมสล็อตแบบคลาสสิกและเกมสล็อตใหม่ล่าสุดที่อัพเดทอยู่ตลอดเวลา
  2. รางวัลและโบนัสที่มากมาย: PG Slot มักจัดโปรโมชั่นและโบนัสที่มากมายเพื่อรางวัลผู้เล่น เช่น โบนัสต้อนรับสำหรับผู้เล่นใหม่ โปรโมชั่นเงินคืน และโบนัสฝากเงิน
  3. ระบบการเงินที่ปลอดภัย: เว็บไซต์ PG Slot มีระบบการเงินที่ปลอดภัยและมีความน่าเชื่อถือ เช่น ระบบฝากถอนอัตโนมัติที่รวดเร็วและปลอดภัย
  4. การสนับสนุนลูกค้าที่ดี: บริการลูกค้าที่เป็นมิตรและพร้อมช่วยเหลือตลอด 24 ชั่วโมง
  5. เล่นได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา: สามารถเข้าเล่น PG Slot ผ่านอุปกรณ์ที่เชื่อมต่ออินเทอร์เน็ตได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา ไม่ว่าจะในบ้านหรือขณะเดินทาง
  6. ระบบความปลอดภัย: PG Slot มีระบบความปลอดภัยที่มีมาตรฐานสูง เพื่อความเชื่อถือและความมั่นใจของผู้เล่น
  7. การออกแบบและกราฟิกที่น่าทึ่ง: เกมสล็อตใน PG Slot มีการออกแบบและกราฟิกที่น่าทึ่ง ที่จะทำให้คุณเพลิดเพลินกับการเล่น
  8. การพัฒนาเกมตลอดเวลา: PG Slot มีการพัฒนาเกมตลอดเวลา เพื่อให้คุณได้เล่นเกมใหม่ๆ อยู่เสมอ

การเล่น PG Slot บนเว็บไซต์นี้เป็นทางเลือกที่ดีสำหรับคนที่ต้องการสนุกสนานและมีโอกาสที่จะได้รับรางวัลใหญ่ อย่าลืมตรวจสอบกฎและเงื่อนไขของเว็บไซต์และการเล่นเพื่อรักษาความปลอดภัยของคุณเสมอ ขอให้โชคดีในการเดิมพัน!

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 3: ITERATIVE DESIGN 2

Website: IGN (https://www.ign.com)

In the second iteration of the page design, we moved some of the information that was buried in the abstract “More” section of the left-hand navigation menu and made it part of the footer. This gives access to these functions from every page and increased visibility to these elements. As mentioned in the first iteration, the original “footer” was lost under an ever-extending page as the user scrolled down. This caused the information in the footer to be lost down the proverbial well

Figure 1: Revised footer to contain elements lost in the “More” menu.

The login and register buttons were moved to the header alongside the search bar for additional visibility. The original location was the bottom left corner of the page where it tended to get lost behind the URL notifications as the user passes over a hyperlink. This change enhances the user experience by giving them a much easier time accessing or creating their IGN account.

Figure 2: The old Login/Register buttons were obscured by status notifications from the browser

Figure 3: New revised search and Login/Register button now have prime locations in the top right of the page

We’ve also decided to move the playlist to the user account/profile menu to free up space in the menu section giving users less to deal with. With this move, once a user creates or logs into their account, they’ll have the ability to customize and control their own playlist of games, reviews, and other preferred content.

One of our initial tasks we wanted the end users to accomplish in our earlier scenarios was finding an article that contained different titles in the Game of the Year catalog for 2021. Due to the limited search functionality of the IGN website, most tests and scenarios ended with an overall negative experience for our experimental group. While the user task differed slightly from our login/registration placement, the scenario brings to light the importance of widget placement and how a simple change could have a huge impact on usability. With this new placement, the user now has the ability to save specific games to their playlist making it easier and more efficient to locate games of interest and relevant information such as articles and game details.

In the first iteration of our proposed design, we moved the search function and added functionality to the pop-out search. In the second iteration, we removed the pop-out search and added functionality to the search bar. Users are now able to search the entire website using the search bar, instead of having to choose a filtered category to search. However, users are still able to filter the results when the search results are displayed. The search location and functionality change makes it much easier for the end user to find relevant content.

Figure 4: Gaming group’s second iteration of the IGN website

Our final revision includes a cleaner look that doesn’t bombard the end user with too much information and allows them to see the main content of the page with the option to navigate elsewhere when effortlessly. They have the ability to effortlessly search for content, log into their account, as well as save content to their personal game playlist. Our updated homepage also includes the addition of a footer that grabbed some of the contents from the “More” section and gave it more relevance by including functions that were often overlooked. Also, with the removal of the continuously loading content as the user scrolls the page, we feel the revisions will make content searching more efficient and improve overall usability.   

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 3: ITERATIVE DESIGN 1

Website: IGN (https://www.ign.com)

Group: Gaming Group

During our group’s individual heuristic analyses (and again in user testing), the most glaring shortcoming on the site was the lack of an obvious search function. There is a natural inclination to look for a search bar or a magnifying glass when trying to locate specific bits of information. At the time of our initial testing neither option existed, as shown in the screen capture below:

Figure 1 – Screen capture from October 18, 2022, prior to Search function being added

This change was to be our initial iterative change. This change would help the website create a much needed “match between system and real world” as years of using search bars has created an instinctive draw to the search bar and the magnifying glass icon. Since the time of our initial user testing, the website has added a search option. In the earlier screen capture of the website, the column on the left side only showed a magnifying glass icon beside the playlist option. This only allowed for searching of game titles and precompiled “playlists” of articles and reviews.

One of the drawbacks this has on end users is the ability to resurface older content and articles that might be of interest. One of our initial tasks we wanted the end users to complete was finding an article that contained different titles in the Game of the Year catalog for 2021. Due to the limited search functionality of the IGN website, most test and scenarios ended with an overall negative experience for our experimental group due to it being difficult to find the search features, only returning individual games, or returning irrelevant results causing the users to look elsewhere. The site did not really have a way to look through its resources and return specific entities even though we knew it was there. This is one of the main reasons we decided to change the layout and make it easier for users to find the search bar as well as navigate IGN.

Figure 2: Screen capture showing added search option in left hand column (added by website) and a search bar option in the top right (group recommended change)


The next screen capture shows the search option after you select it from the main page menu. It offers increased flexibility by allowing the user to search for their keyword in the context of the more popular segments of the page.

Not only have we updated our navigation features, but we’ve also cleaned up the homepage and the cluttering of content. Previously the homepage contained a lot of randomly placed ads that were sometimes inconsistent with the layout of the page, those things such as large images that took up most of the screen. In our revision, we’ve decided to give the site a cleaner look that doesn’t bombard the end user with too much information and allows them to see the main content of the page with the option to navigate elsewhere when effortlessly. This cleaner look also includes the addition of a footer to the home page and the removal of the continuously loading content as the user scrolls the page. We feel the revisions help the user find content and reduces confusion caused by the current site. 

Figure 3: Website’s search option, continued.

The website’s recent addition of a search capability shows that our group was on the right track and that the change was an obvious and glaring deficiency in the site’s design. 

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: REPRESENTATIVE USER TEST

• The Website

The website for this test is IGN (https://www.ign.com). The site hosts a wide variety of content related to video games and entertainment. The layout of the site is designed around a sidebar style menu setup that can be condensed to the far left of the screen to have more room for main page content.

• The User

The user for this test is a mid-30’s black male that enjoys gaming on his days off. Raised by an Army father, and with a bachelor’s degree, he is very well spoken, well-mannered, and respected by his peers and his customers. He almost exclusively games on a PlayStation 4. He is in the IT field, with over 15 years of experience, so there should be no issues with “normal” website navigation.

• The Testing Method

In the test, the “think aloud” method was used, simply due to it’s cost effectiveness. In a conference room setting, the user was provided a printed list of the three tasks to accomplish and a laptop that was open to the IGN website. The user was read the following script to help set the “motivations” behind the provide tasking:

You are just out of high school and have your first job. You enjoy gaming and are looking to purchase a game with your hard-earned money, but you want to get a good game that you can use to pass the time. The idea of spending $60 on a game that you will complete in a few hours seems like a waste of money. With this in mind, you will visit the IGN website on the laptop and perform the three tasks listed on the provided list.

• The Tasks

Task #1:
Since you are looking for a good game to buy, start by finding the site’s “best games” from 2021.


Task #2:
You are looking for a game that will take some time to play through, so tale a look at Zelda: Breath of the Wild and see how long it would take to complete.


Task # 3:
Look through the 2021 best games list and check out the reviews to pick out a game that you would want to play.

• How the test went

Task #1


The testing was in line with what was found during the original group discussion about the website. The first words out of his mouth were “I’m looking for a search bar.”


Some of the following conversation:


“I see a magnifying glass, so I am clicking that to see if I can use that to search the site.”


This points to the real-world expectation of using the magnifying glass icon for searching.


“When I click on it, it shows games and playlists, and since I’m not trying to find a specific game, I’m checking the only other option which is Playlists. Since it shows stuff other that games, I’ll search for 2021 and see what comes up.”


This leans more to a lack of other options instead of having a choice that makes sense to the user.


“There’s a lot of stuff just called 2021, so I’ll keep scrolling. I see different ‘Favorites of 2021’ and various writers’ best of 2021, but no “IGN best of” list. Nothing shows up for ‘2021 Game of the Year’. I’m going back to the home page now.”


Already some frustration from the user, as the closest thing to a search doesn’t give him anything usable for this task.


“I’m looking under Reviews, Game Reviews…. Why does it have Movies, TV, and other stuff under Game reviews?”


Looking at what he was talking about shows that there are issues with the Reviews section. Selecting Game Reviews in the left navigation pane highlights the words ‘Game Review’ which shows an attempt to keep the user informed of where they are, but in reality, all reviews are on the same page. They filter by type by using the side navigation buttons, or the bar in the middle of the page that shows the same subjects. Oddly enough the Comics reviews option is not shown in the left-hand navigation.

Task #2


“The Playlist let me search for games, so I’ll try that. Zelda shows up on the list and I click there and go to the page and there’s the How Long to Beat on the page.”


Lessons learned from the first task were applied but may have been a more natural flow with a simple search option as well.

Task #3


“Since I couldn’t find a IGN 2021 Games of the year list, I’ll just try to find a game I might like.”


He clicks Discover and finds a IGN Best Picks section and starts there. For the sake of time, he picks Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. As he looks through all the reviews, he comments on the lack of pictures by each.

• The Recommendations

The absolute first change that the website needs is a well-defined search function that the user cannot miss. In the testing, an uncomfortable amount of time passed as the test user scrolled and clicked through various menu options, until he finally gave up and clicked on the only thing with a magnifying glass by it. This shows that the symbol of a magnifying glass is universally understood to be associated with some form of search functionality. Having a search bar with the magnifying glass icon by it would create the match between system and real-world expectations.


A second change would be in the best Games list. It should have had a small picture by each review, just for consistency. Some reviews did, but they were in the minority. That may just have been the author’s poor layout, not indicative of the entire site.


Another note is the Login/Register buttons at the bottom left of the page. There should be some addition call to action for these, such as “Click here to subscribe to our weekly email with the latest reviews and special content”. If this is connected to some website metric, it would generate additional interest form site visitors.

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Individual Assignment #3: Representative User Test

The Website

The website that we chose for our usual tasks was IGN.com. as you hang.com is a website where users can go online to find various pieces of information and even ratings on different types of video games and entertainment media.

The website even allows users to create an account so that they can earn rewards. There are guides on how to complete your favorite games and tips and tricks for gameplay. This website is considered one of the more recognizble of its kind and has been around for decades.

User Characteristics and Tasks

The user persona we had developed was for an 18-23 year old gamer that enjoys various genres of games but does not have a “make or break” genre. They are a student, ideally working part-time to afford video games. The user is looking for a new game to play and is familiar with IGN having a rating system for games and hosting their own awards to recognize high-ranking games.

Our user would be assigned with three tasks:

  • Accessing the Game of the Year awards for 2021. The user doesn’t actually know which video they are interested in purchasing yet. They know that they are looking to see what’s trending in the gaming community before making a purchase.
  • Find a walkthrough for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The user wants to be sure that gameplay is actually engaging. They have familiarity with the Legend of Zelda brand but wants to know what to expect.
  • View the reviews for the other games that were being considered for Game of the Year. The user isn’t completely insistent on having Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. They are open to seeing what other games have been trending to see if there is something else to pique their interest.

The actual user that I used to carry out these tasks is a 24-year old who doesn’t regularly play video games. This user has described themselves as a “social” gamer, a person who plays when they are in environment where there is a game. They are very familiar with the internet and are familiar with websites that serve this same purpose just not tailored to video games. During this test I asked the user to speak aloud. This user is a very vocal person and I knew that while the speak aloud method may be intimidating for others, it’d be prefect for me to find out what they were thinking.

The Test

The first task I asked the user to complete was to access the Game of the Year awards for 2021. As soon as I assigned the task, the user encountered their first challenge, website navigation. The website had it main content showing as it was in the first screenshot but then the sidebar had collapsed.

The user expressed confusion over the structure of the navigation bar and then decided to resize the page. Luckily, this made the menu bar expand. At this point, the user expressed that they were looking for a search bar. The user scrolled all the way to the bottom of the website and then scroll all the way back to the top and stated that there isn’t a search bar present. While they were scrolling, they indicated they were also looking for an article or a hyperlink that would take them directly to the Game of the Year awards and they couldn’t find one. The user then decided to expand the menu bar one more time to see if they have missed a search bar. They saw a search icon, but when they clicked it, it only allowed them to search through playlists that have been created on the website. At this point the user turned around and looked at me because they thought that I was playing a joke on them. I didn’t do anything except remind the user of the task to accomplish. They decided to expand the menu bar one more time and click on the Reviews tab, which only separated the reviews by what they were reviewing (e.g., video games, television, etc.). After reviewing all the options present in the navigation by the other determined that there wasn’t a way to get to the game of the year awards from the IGN homepage. The user resorted to conducting a search on a search engine. From the users initial search on the homepage they had concluded that they were unable to execute a search on the website so they decided to continue using their knowledge of Google to help them search the IGN website. There they located the Game of the Year article and was then able to find reviews on the other games listed in the article. The article featured videos it appeared to be trailers for each of the Game of the Year contenders but didn’t necessarily take you to any extra reviews for the games. The user had already accomplished two of the three tasks that I had assigned to them, and the only thing left was to find the walkthrough of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The user decided to head back to the IGN homepage and give it one more try to help him complete the last task. The user headed to the menu tab, clicked on the reviews tab and selected video game reviews. The user scrolled down a while and without a search bar, they decided to Ctrl+F the webpage and turned up nothing. After a deep sigh, the user then went back to Google and searched for this information just as they had searched for everything else.

Design Recommendations

Throughout the user test, one thing I noticed is that my user was extremely frustrated at the lack of navigational aids to guide them through the website. I know that the Internet largely functions on ads now, but I think that IGN could benefit from reducing the size of their advertisements. When they reduce the size of advertisements, it will allow them to incorporate certain elements into their webpages such as search bars and other hints to let the user know where they are in the website. The overall structure and layout of the homepage also could use work. Similar to how we format our blog posts, IGN could utilize headings to make certain parts of the website stand out and define structure. The website does have well functioning responsive design which is hard to find sometimes with content heavy websites. Because most of my user problems centered around finding information on the website I feel that would be the space that the most changes should take place.

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: REPRESENTATIVE USER TEST

Individual Assignment #3

The website I’ve decided to analyze is IGN.com and my goal is to see if the end user can efficiently navigate the website as well as take note of any flaws or design errors in the site. IGN, like most websites in its genre, is a gaming website designed to give gamers a place to get information on all things gaming, entertainment, and comic related. Whether it’s an insider review on the highly anticipated Modern Warfare 2, an article on why Henry Cavill is leaving the Witcher series, or even a leak/gameplay of the newest God of War installment, this website is made with a specific user group in mind and tries to cater to their needs.

The chosen user is a 25-year-old male who has an intermediate to advanced skill level when it comes to computers. This user recently graduated college and is a full-time engineer and a hardcore gamer who regularly plays games such as Rocket League and prefers PC gaming. He has general knowledge of web browsers and uses it frequently to work and for personal use. Due to the user working in the tech industry, they have means of indulging in video games and plays during or after work each day.

The user testing method I’ve decided to go with was the Think Aloud method since it provides easier access to the user’s thoughts and gives me an idea of where they’re at mentally. This method allowed me to provide instructions as well as ask questions whenever the user was confused or stuck at a specific task. Because it’s impossible to read minds and predict what the user is thinking or going to do, this method was the best option to get the results that would be the most useful. The concurrent think aloud method is generally used when an instructor wants an end user to talk through a process or provide audible feedback to let the instructor know their thoughts. Because of this, the Think Aloud method made the most sense when examining our website.

The user was given three tasks to complete during our evaluation/analyzation of the IGN website. Each task served a purpose, and the main goal was to see if each task could be done without too much effort.

  • Task 1: Locate and analyze the Game of the Year (2021) contestants and winners.
    • The goal here is to get an idea of the games that were well received by the community and potential grabs for the end user
  • Task 2: Look for any Demos or Walkthroughs for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
    • The goal of this task is to see if this game is any good or would interest the end user. This gives the user an idea of what to look forward to and if the game will be a good investment
  • Task 3: Find any reviews or news on the Game of the Year titles to see if they’re worth buying
    • Like the tasks implies the goal for this scenario is to allow the user to assess all his options and see if any games are good or if any might’ve gone under the radar.

There wasn’t much change from the group’s original task and each assignment served a specific purpose in our analysis.

Because my user was very tech savvy and an avid gamer, we didn’t really have many issues regarding errors, but our experience was filled with a lot of frustration. The first task I had the user complete was locating the Game of the Year for 2021. We both went through the site and one of the first issues we encountered was the lack of a search bar. The user mentioned that while IGN seemed to have everything, it was missing an essential feature. He went to the side panel and looked through Discover, News, and Reviews but to no luck. After about 10 min and a lot of sighs from his end, he eventually just searched for the answer in his browser, and it was relatively easy to locate. After we found the list, he then tried to use the web URL to find the Game of the Year list from the home page but was still unable to and decided the list was almost impossible to find without a home search bar.

During our second task is where we found our breakthrough for the website. The task was to locate a Demo or gameplay for the Zelda game and thanks to his extensive exploration of the site during our first task, he was able to look up reviews for games using the Review tab. While looking at the reviews, he noticed a search icon next to a Playlist button and out of curiosity used it for our target game. He was a bit confused as to the placement of the icon but, it still managed to get the job done.

After completing the first two tasks, the last one was relatively straightforward due to them using the same tools/method. To find reviews on the Game of the Year titles, the user utilized the same page from task one and entered the titles found on that list to get reviews on all the titles listed.

Most of my users’ problems surfaced due to the placement of tools/icons on the website and the layout of the homepage. In terms of design, the website leaves a lot to be desired and could use a restructure to allow new users to be able to find what they’re looking for. My user had a hard time locating the search functions and had to resort to a 3rd party search engine to find resources on a separate site. Another problem I noticed is the confusion when the search icon was eventually located. The placement of tools is also something that could be changed so that users aren’t puzzled as to what different items are meant to do.

After analyzing this site, one of my first recommendations for IGN would be a redesigned homepage. When I first visited the site, one of the first things that caught my attention was the huge ads that took up a large portion of the dashboard. It doesn’t add much to the website and depending on the ad you get, won’t have anything to do with gaming or entertainment. I’d recommend shifting the middle section of the homepage to the top to give users a familiar feeling as far as navigation goes and to get more relevant information to them more effectively. Another suggestion I’d give would be to make searching for games or content more accessible to the end user. Currently, if a user wanted to search for a specific game, they’d have to jump through a few hoops to even find the search bar or button. My suggestions would be to add a search option to either the side menu or at the top of the page with our newly adjusted home menu. Another recommendation would be to move the news articles below the menu bar so that stories are less distracting to the user. During our initial test, the user didn’t know what some of the news articles were referring to or what gaming platform they addressed. Moving these News articles below the Menu bar would give more context as to what their telling as well as providing a smoother feel to the information flow. This also leads to the overall simplicity aspect of the website and the need to change the layout. Based on the user comments and their experience, they explained how the site had a lot of news and information to go through. This alone is why I’d suggest removing some of the panels of content to ease the user into the site. My recommendation would be to provide a simple design that would make navigation digestible and more straight forward. The user shouldn’t have to go above and beyond just to search for something or even find a game. My final recommendation would be to include a more interactive menu guide to give end users an easier time navigating the homepage. During our scenarios, the end user had a slightly difficult time hovering over the different options and understanding what the different symbols meant. What I’m suggesting is a feature that would make the icons or menu sections fly out when users hover over them giving more context to the page.

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Individual Assignment 2: Representative User Testing

Ginny Morris

The gamers group chose https://www.ign.com as the site we are evaluating for the Usability Analysis project. IGN provides information and news about video games, movies, and television shows. The website includes profiles for a great number of video games and includes information such as statistics on the amount of time it may take someone to complete the game and breaks that information up by the main story, side quests, and everything the game has to offer. Each profile also contains reviews, general information, and news stories about the game, as well as links to detailed game walkthroughs.

The user I chose for my usability test is a 36-year-old male who works full-time and plays video games in his free time. However, I explained to the user that I may ask him to put himself in the shoes of a college-age student who has a part-time job, which gives them the means to occasionally purchase video games.

Since I did not have access to a formal usability testing facility, I used the Think Aloud method while duplicating (casting) the user’s screen to a television screen. When think-aloud is used, a user is asked to perform a task while vocalizing their thoughts, no matter how inconsequential or seemingly unrelated to the task the thought may seem (Nielsen, 2012). According to the Nielsen Norman Group, think-aloud is used because it is cheap, robust, flexible, convincing, and easy to learn. I must agree that I chose this method because there was no cost, it is easy to learn and easy to explain, and from past experience, I tend to get good information from the think-aloud test.

I asked the user to perform the three tasks that we outlined in a previous group assignment. The first task was to find the 2021 Game of the Year (GOTY) award winners to determine what games are trending and popular. Another purpose of this task is to identify games the user may be interested in playing. The second task was to find the game profile page for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to find a walkthrough and information on how long it takes to complete the game. The purpose of the task is to find information that will help make the decision on whether the game is worth purchasing. The third task depends on the first and could be counted as a subtask. The third task is to review the 2021 GOTY runners-up and contenders to identify additional games that may be fun to play with the purpose of deciding whether to purchase one or more of these games. I did not modify any of the tasks from our original write-up for the purposes of this user test.

I asked the user to find the 2021 GOTY awards winner to determine what games are trending and popular and to decide whether they are worth playing. The user started out on the IGN home page and started scrolling through to see if there were any quick links for the Game of the Year list. He reached the video game news section and clicked the Games button to focus the articles on games (as opposed to Videos, Television, etc). Not finding articles on the game of the year list there, he started looking for the webpage’s search feature. He expanded the fly-out menu on the left of the page and couldn’t find the search function. I saw it but didn’t bring attention to it. Since Dr. Marty had trouble finding the search function of the webpage in class, I was interested in finding out how long it may take the user to find the search. Not finding the search function in the fly-out menu, the user went back to scrolling through the home page. Not having any luck, he used the ‘find in page’ function of the browser to search for the term game of the year. That resulted in no hits, so he searched for awards. He then started looking for the search function again on the fly-out menu. Not finding it, he again started scrolling through the home page. He clicked an article in the top banner about a specific game to see if he was presented with information the home page wasn’t giving him. I could tell the user was starting to get frustrated and asked if he would have given up by now if he was a college-aged gamer. He said he didn’t know if it was part of the rules or not, so he refrained from going to Google to search for the information from the task. At this point, I decided the user could not complete the task due to the poor design of the website, so I advised him to use whatever means necessary to find the 2021 GOTY list. He then navigated to Google and searched for the IGN GOTY Awards. He clicked one of the top search results titled ‘IGN GOTY Winners’ and reached a page that listed many games. He clicked around but was confused because he knew these games to be older and not recent releases. He then discovered this page, titled IGN GOTY Winners, was a list of previous Game of the Year winners. He went back to the search results and located the correct link, which was the third search result.

Since the user was not able to locate the search function, I told him where it was located so that he was able to complete the second task. I had already determined that the website’s search function was not easily found and presented a user design flaw in the website. The search function is located on the left fly-out menu at the bottom of the main menu headings and is simply a dim magnifying glass. It does not stand out on the menu, as this user test displayed. The user was curious if he could locate the GOTY article with the search function and discovered he was only able to search for games and playlists, not articles. This is another user design and functionality issue with the website. If I had not coached the user on where the search function was, he would be unable to complete the second task without using Google again.

After the user explored the search function on the website, I redirected the user to the second task of searching for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to decide whether to purchase the game based on time to play, walkthroughs and reviews. He started by launching the webpage’s search function and noticed the game was listed as a top result. He clicked on the game and quickly located the section detailing how much time it takes to complete the game. He said he likes Zelda games and would buy them based on the information. He is not a completionist and paid more attention to the time it takes to complete the main story. He was happy the number was over 50 hours and said if it was half that, it would change his mind about the game.

I asked the user to complete the third task of viewing the 2021 GOTY runners-up to make determinations on whether they are worth purchasing. The user navigated back to his Google search and located the 2021 GOTY list. He reviewed the list and looked at specific games. He said it would help him make decisions on what to buy or possibly whether to subscribe to a service to play the game. By this point, I believe he was more comfortable with the user design of the website and understood its flaws, therefore compensating for these user design issues without even realizing it.

I recommend redesigning and recoding the search function of the webpage to always display the search in the top right corner, where many websites typically place their search bar. The search should be a search bar instead of a button that grays out the screen and should search the entire webpage instead of only games and playlists. The user had a lot of difficulty finding the website’s search function and in fact, had to be led to the search. The current search function is located in the left menu fly-out and is only represented by a very hard-to-see magnifying glass.

I also recommend more clear links to content and a homepage redesign. The homepage includes links to articles and all types of content, making it difficult to locate the information the user is searching for. As mentioned above, the user would have abandoned their search and searched instead in Google in the time it was taking him to find the 2021 GOTY list. The user could not find the GOTY lists by searching the webpage or scrolling the homepage. A redesigned menu and simplified homepage may help users find content more easily.

References

Nielsen, J. (2012, January 15). Thinking Aloud: The #1 Usability Tool. The Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/thinking-aloud-the-1-usability-tool/.

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INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT 3: REPRESENTATIVE USER TEST

The Website

The website being chosen for evaluation is called IGN, formerly known as Imagine Games Network. IGN Entertainment is a multimedia review aggregation site. The website also hosts interviews with titans of the game and film industries such as Sony and Microsoft, along with also streaming award ceremonies for these mediums as well. The website is also home to walkthroughs, game rankings, and articles about video games, movies, tv shows, and anime. Users can also purchase official merch from several of their favorite intellectual properties through the IGN Store. IGN is one of the most highly regarded “go to” sites for fans of games and other creative mediums.

Persona:

The persona that our gaming group chose to focus on for this task is a 17 to 23 year old gamer who enjoys playing games from many different genres of games, that range from role-playing games or RPGs, first-person shooters or FPS’, and multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBAs, puzzle games, action adventures, massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, or MMORPGs and survival/horror. These individuals are part of the middle class, attend some type of school (high-school, college, or trade) and have at least a part-time job or receive some form of monetary allowance to give them the means to purchase video games. Their experience level with gaming ranges from beginner to expert since IGN has a wide variety of content available ranging from reviews to comprehensive walkthroughs.

User:

The user is a single mother in her 50s. She is a librarian and has little to no experience with console video games and has never used IGN Entertainment’s website.

Tasks:

  • We chose the specific task of accessing the Game of the Year awards for 2021 because the user is particularly interested in what’s trending in the gaming world. This user does not have a specific genre in mind for the games they would like beyond Legend of Zelda.  
  • Find a walkthrough for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to get an idea of how long the adventure will take to complete. With today’s top games at almost $60 each, many gamers do not want a game they can complete in a few hours. Gamers like to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. 
  • Look for reviews of the other Game of the Year contenders and see if any of their reviews are intriguing enough to warrant purchasing a different game.  

Test:

I sat down with my user and had her pull up the IGN Entertainment website. I outlined the three tasks listed above and explained that I was just looking for her to try to complete them to the best of her ability and encouraged her to talk through her thought process as well. The first task given to her was to access the article detailing the Game of the Year for 2021. Initially she tried the Rewards tab on the main page.

When that failed to produce the desired result, she attempted to find it by clicking on the News tab. This also did not provide the desired result and the user started to become frustrated with the website’s lack of clear direction. Technically the information the user was looking for would be under the News tab, but there is no simple way for users to sort through IGN’s massive collection of articles to find a specific one.

The next thing the user did was to look for a search feature. She clicked on the magnifying glass below the tabs, and was frustrated to find out that the search feature only allows you to search for video games specifically and not more generic search queries. A proper site search feature would go a long way here to operate in line with Nielsen heuristic: match between system and real world. At this point, the user gave up on this task and asked to move on to the next task on the list.

The next task was to locate a walkthrough for the video game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. She was able to complete this task far easier than the previous task by clicking on the Guides tab and scrolling down to All Guides and selecting Most Popular.

The third task proved just as fruitless as the first because we ran into the exact same problem of being unable to locate the article that held the list of Game of the Year 2021 entries.

Analysis:

Due to the obstacles faced by the user in completing the first and third task, I came to the conclusion that expanding the limited search function available on the main page to enable users to search not just for video games but for the articles written by IGN Staff as well would be a considerable improvement in site navigability and user experience. Adding a feature to the News tab to enable article searching or article sorting by author, or keywords, or even adding a specific section for games of the year would solve all of the obstacles faced by the user performing this usability test. If these changes had been implemented the user would have had little to no trouble locating the information they were seeking despite being a complete novice of the website.

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GROUP ASSIGNMENT 2: USER SCENARIOS AND REPRESENTATIVE TASKS – GAMING GROUP

Information about the Website: 

https://www.ign.com

IGN Entertainment hosts a wide variety of content related to video games and entertainment on its website. The IGN acronym is commonly used as shorthand for “In Game Name” which refers to a player’s character name in the video game world. The site provides a variety of resources to gamers by way of game reviews, top entertainment news, social media content, game walkthroughs and more. IGN.com has earned its popularity among gamers and has developed a reputation as a “go to” site for gamers.

Persona:

The persona the Gaming group chose to focus on is 17- to 23-year-old gamers who enjoy playing many genres of games, from role-playing, first-person shooters, and multiplayer online battle arena to puzzle, action adventure, and survival/horror. These individuals are middle class, attend some type of school (high-school, college, or trade) and have at least a part-time job to give them the means to purchase video games. Their experience level with gaming ranges from beginner to expert since IGN has a wide variety of content available ranging from reviews to walkthroughs.

Scenario:

A typical user in the 17 – 23yr/old range visits the IGN website to get information on the newest games soon to be released and updates in the gaming industry. This can range from insider news on game features and development to public beta releases of games such as Overwatch and occasionally, news on the entertainment sector such as Netflix or HBO announcements. In our scenario, the user wants to find out information on the popular game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. They want to know if the game has any cool features and game modes as well as any updates on the new open-world gameplay. Also, due to the user’s demographic and income, they’d like to know if there are any advantages to purchasing the game on a disk or a digital copy as well as any in-game mechanical changes such as movement that might play an important role in the overall experience. This is also a special year because this holiday season is when multiple 1st party developers are also releasing a bunch of AAA games such as God of War. Because of this, our user not only wants to see reviews on Legend of Zelda, but also other games so that he/she can see which ones are worth investing time and money in.

User Tasks:

  • We chose the specific task of accessing the Game of the Year awards for 2021 because the user is particularly interested in what’s trending in the gaming world. This user does not have a specific genre in mind for the games they would like beyond Legend of Zelda.  
  • Find a walkthrough for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to get an idea of how long the adventure will take to complete. With today’s top games at almost $60 each, many gamers do not want a game they can complete in a few hours. Gamers like to feel that they are getting their money’s worth. 
  • Look for reviews of the other Game of the Year contenders and see if any of their reviews are intriguing enough to warrant purchasing a different game.  

These tasks should provide an idea of how easy (or hard) navigating the site is as well as how useful the search feature is.

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Individual Assignment 2: Heuristic Evaluation

The Website

The website that I chose was True Achievements.

Screenshot of the True Achievements homepage

True Achievements is a website that markets itself as presenting Xbox related gaming updates and reviews. It also features a community forum where users can participate in discussions and find themselves on leaderboards.

The Scenario

Recently, over 90 videos of what was then considered “suspected” user gameplay of the newest installment of the Grand Theft Auto game series was leaked to the internet. Rockstar Games then came out and confirmed that these videos were real and reassured users that it would not affect the development timeline of the game. In this case, I wanted the user to be heading to True Achievements to see what information they could find on the leak. This task would ideally be accomplished by the user searching the website using the search bar; even though there is an article featured on the home screen.

Usability Flaws

Upon searching the website for anything related to the GTA leak, I was met with the following screen.

A screen capture of a search for “GTA leak” returning the error message stating there aren’t any matching search results

I knew this information was incorrect because I had just seen an article featured on the Home Screen. Another thing I noticed while on the home screen was that each image has a small descriptor box that seemed to put the listing into a category. Naturally, I looked at the search parameters to see if I could change them to match the descriptors. I couldn’t. They were two completely different sets of information. This violated the Consistency and standards design heuristic. Since the categories do not match the descriptors the user is left wondering how to search the correct parameters and how, if at all possible, to search and retrieve a relevant article.

I ended up going back to the home screen and clicking on the article I saw that was related to the leak. I went into the article and read it. I saw that it did contain some of the information that I was looking for but I wanted to know more than a teenager from the United Kingdom was arrested for it. I went through a rabbit hole of related articles until I was well informed about the leak and then wasted to go back to the home screen to see what other featured articles are there. Because I am an avid internet user, I know that the quickest way to get back to a website’s home page is to click on their logo in the header, however this is not always the case. This has to be coded into a website and it is not common knowledge which violates the design heuristic of Visibility of System Status. My current location was not clear nor was I able to navigate back to the Home Screen but I had accomplished what I initially visited the website to do.

Design Recommendations

In conclusion, TrueAcheivements could use an entire revamp. I’d suggest they start with the overall layout o the site. From the screenshot of the homepage, you can see tat headers and other information tend to blend into other elements on the page. This will help the website better appeal to the Aesthetic and minimal design design heuristic. Revisiting the tagging that the website uses to identify their content. They also should revisit the coding of the website because in this case it is interfering with the usability of the website. When I used the provided search bar to look for information on GTA, the returned screen indicated that there was no information on the website that related to GTA. A quick scroll of the Home Screen led me to determine that that was not the case. Also when I clicked on the article that initially grabbed my attention, there were many more articles linked under the article that were also about the game. Lastly, I’d suggest adding some sort of navigational aids to the website. The current header’s navigation options do not support all the different paths you can take on the website. This also leads to the user not being able to return to a page they may have visited previously because it isn’t recognized or listed I the current menu options. A home button would be a great starting point.