Tag: Group Gaming

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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

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.