Game Usability: Advancing the Player Experience [Paperback]

Katherine Isbister (Author), Noah Schaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0123744474 | ISBN-13: 978-0123744470 | Edition: 1

Computers used to be for geeks. And geeks were fine with dealing with a difficult and finicky interface--they liked this--it was even a sort of badge of honor (e.g. the Unix geeks). But making the interface really intuitive and useful--think about the first Macintosh computers--took computers far far beyond the geek crowd. The Mac made HCI (human computer interaction) and usability very popular topics in the productivity software industry. Suddenly a new kind of experience was crucial to the success of software - the user experience. Now, 20 years later, developers are applying and extending these ideas to games.

Game companies are now trying to take games beyond the 'hardcore' gamer market--the people who love challenge and are happy to master a complicated or highly genre-constrained interface. Right about now (with the growth of interest in casual games) game companies are truly realizing that usability matters, particularly to mainstream audiences. If it's not seamless and easy to use and engaging, players will just not stay to get to the 'good stuff'.

By definition, usability is the ease with which people can emplo a particular tool in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability refers to a computer program's efficiency or elegance. This book gives game designers a better understanding of how player characteristics impact usability strategy, and offers specific methods and measures to employ in game usability practice. The book also includes practical advice on how to include usability in already tight development timelines, and how to advocate for usability and communicate results to higher-ups effectively.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Playtesting is the most challenging, and most mysterious part of game development, and this book is by far, the most thorough and practical collection of writings on the subject. I plan to return to it again and again -- there is just so much to draw from! Anyone who reads it will be able to playtest their games well, and with confidence."

Jesse Schell, Professor of Entertainment Technology, Carnegie Mellon University

".Games user research has taken leaps and bounds over the past 10 years, as evidenced by the content of this book.We encourage the readers to use this resource as a great starting point for strengthening the discipline while taking us into the future.”

Randy Pagulayan, Microsoft Game Studios & Dennis Wixon, Microsoft Surfaces

"Katherine Isbister's "Game Usability” is a multi-faceted look at a critical component of modern game design, full of excellent case studies by usability experts, industry leaders and cutting edge researchers. The methods found here will be useful to anyone interested in honing the player experience of their commercial, independent or academic games."

Tracy Fullerton, Associate Professor USC School of Cinematic Arts; Director, EA Game Innovation Lab

"On first blush, usability and game design look like oil and water: they don't seem to mix. One appears scientific, the other creative; one dispassionate, the other sentimental. This book offers a variety of promising ways to put the two together, ways that suggest general lessons in how design can learn from a measure of impartiality, and usability from a measure of passion."

Ian Bogost, Associate Professor in the School of Literature Communication and Culture, The Georgia Institute of Technology, and Founding Partner, Persuasive Games

From the Back Cover

GAME PROGRAMMING/COMPUTER GRAPHICS

Understand usability and user research in game design

Usability the ease with which people can use a program to achieve their goals is a topic of growing interest to game developers. Until now, no comprehensive survey of usability and user research issues and tactics specific to games has been available. This book includes introductions to basic and advanced methods, and advice for evangelizing usability within game studios and publishing houses.

" Hear from a range of experts, including great minds from large and small game companies as well as cutting edge researchers.

" Learn instantly applicable theory and tactics for designing game usability methods to improve and enhance games: pick methods to suit your needs.

" Read about cutting-edge techniques (such as measuring heart rate and tiny muscle movements) to measure and evaluate game play experience.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 1 edition (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0123744474
• ISBN-13: 978-0123744470
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Better for software engineering than for computer science September 27, 2009

By N. Krumpe TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I don't think the description of this book adequately addresses the question of who is the intended audience. As I see it, computer science is for people interested in the various computer related "systems" (databases, graphics, networking, operating systems, architecture, and so on). Software engineering, on the other hand, looks at the software development cycle, including gathering specifications, testing, quality assurance, human computer interaction, and so on. This book seems geared toward this latter, with chapters addressing such topics as:
* Physiological Measure for Game Evaluation
* Organizational Challenges for User Research in the Videogame
* Heuristic Evaluation of Games

Written by a variety of authors, each chapter offers experience- and research-based advice on improving video games, but the advice seems aimed more at the software engineer or the video game company CEO than at the programmers in the trenches. Indeed, one of the chapters is actually an interview with such a CEO, in which he discusses the importance of usability and design standards.

This could be a good textbook for a software engineering course, or even for the programmer interested in stepping back and looking at the "big picture" of video game usability. My only disappointment was in not realizing in advance the intended audience.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read, but scattered focus October 5, 2009

By C. Angel VINE™ VOICE

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This is a book of articles written by industry professionals. I'm not a fan of books that are a collection of articles because chapters feel disjointed and the focus is lost leaving myself, as the reader, not satisfied by the continuity of the content. There are a few interesting chapters that leave you wanting more information from that particular writer, but of course the next chapter is written by someone else. I think the information is interesting and useful as a general or introduction to usability issues in gaming read. If you are looking for something with more meat and instruction, then you should look elsewhere.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for a survey of topics, but lacks applicable content August 8, 2009

By Lars Bergstrom VINE™ VOICE

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This book is a collection of chapters written by different authors. This style is commonly used in research communities as a way to pull together a set of influential members of a field to comment either deeply on individual topics or broadly on the effectiveness of trends. These sorts of books are handed to new graduate students or used in survey courses.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from the same problem as all of these types of books: if you actually want to learn about the topic, there's little meat. It's not going to teach you how to do game usability experiments - it provides opinions on which of the different methods worked better or worse in individual projects. This book is not going to provide detailed steps or guidance on any usability efforts you'd like to roll out in your company - it'll just talk about who's doing it already.

However, if you're just looking for a survey of the field or are willing to chase down the references in each chapter to find materials you could put to work to do your own usability studies or interpret their usability results, this book is fine. There are also some excellent later materials talking about some of the interesting tricks that have been used in specific games (i.e. heat maps showing where people tend to play and tend to avoid going on levels).

5.0 out of 5 stars Game Usability brings the subject of Usability to the practicing game designer August 14, 2012

By Patrick Regan VINE™ VOICE

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Game Usability teaches usability in the context of game design. The authors have wisely chosen to teach usability from the ground up, knowing that their primary audience is game designers who might have little or no knowledge of this field. In fact, the first two parts of this book are devoted to teaching basic aspects of usability. However, the authors embed their tutorial on basic usability inside the world of game design so each usability technique is presented in the context of the needs of game designers. I think that this makes these usability techniques readily accessible to the target audience and also that this approach makes the book useful from the beginning for busy game design professionals. More advanced topics, such as the different usability requirements for hardcore gamers versus casual gamers and the use of biometric measurements and physiological measurements for aiding in making games more usable to the target audience for a game round out the remainder of the book. In addition to these topics there is a section toward the end of the book on how usability relates to making games fun, clearly an important aspect of game design. I think that this book, the only one of its kind in the world of game design, would be a useful addition to the library of any professional game designer or to any student of game design.

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Software Development QA - How Usable is it? January 19, 2010

By Joseph J. Slevin VINE™ VOICE

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I am impressed with Game Usability as an easy to read book that is focused on Software Engineering in gaming. I am a recruiting consultant and HR practitioner who has worked in a number of engineering environments and this is the most in depth I have looked at Usability Testing.

Most in Technology know about where QA testing and Beta testing are in the Software Development Lifecycle, but if you are not in the game development arena, you may not have been involved in or have witnessed Usability Testing. As a premise, when doing technical recruiting, sometimes, those who come out of the gaming industry have a very highly desired set of skills. Usability is not only for games, however, the post QA and pre-Beta timeframe is a very interesting time in the SDLC.

In the introduction, you get the idea of what Game Usability is, using Super Mario Brothers as an example, basically, you know the controls when you start, back, forward, up and down, so simple and you are on your way. That is the crux or beginning of Usability.

The book uses experts across gaming, Microsofts Games Studio, for instance, where we learn about Game User Research from a wide variety of developers in gaming technology. We learn of Usability and Heuristic testing, and a compare and contrast of these. We do see where Beta Testing fits and hear continually, that the focus of the test must be with known bugs in mind evidenced in the QA process.

Are the controls easy to use?, is the screen easy to read?, is is usable in a mobile application?, what about menu buttons? Every part of the process, look and feel and ability of a game to engage the game player is addressed.... One interesting tidbit was seeing how engineers attempt to create flow and immersion by integrating an interesting story line or dynamic.

We see a number of games addressed as well.

This is a 360 degree view of Game Usability in order to bring together experts to enhance what developers know.

I see this as an excellent text book, and as a handy reference tool for the developer or even Usability Tester. There is a lot of advice to help the developer improve his or her skill set and to focus on Game Usability. Read more ›