Player Profile: User Testing
A user test with the studio was conducted in order to determine the best layout for the player profile window. The purpose of the user test was to understand what users want to see when they are being displayed information regarding their performance in the game. What users want to see and the degree of detail that they want to see in their player profile can significantly affect the way we decide to display the different information, therefore, the user test was conducted.
A questionnaire was created on google forms and posted to the studio's general chat on discord to receive responses from the developers in the foot of users; answer the questions as if they were the users of the game.
The participants of the user test are displayed two designs at the beginning of the questionnaire: one displaying a summary of all stats/info on one page, while the other allows users to view detailed information about each stat. The questionnaire asks users questions about preferences regarding the amount of information they wish to see about their performance, or their status in the game. It also asks whether users would like to see the information from different times they were playing the game (being able to look at past information). Questions regarding the design were also asked, as in whether users think visual aids are necessary on the player profile window, and whether there are any other information the players wish to see while they are playing the game.
The questions are largely based around the amount of information that the players would like to be exposed to, regarding their status in the game and their performance. Since we have provided examples of the designs of displaying less or more detailed player profile, the testing largely incorporates A/B testing as well, commonly used in user testing to understand users' preference. Overall, we were asking whether participants prefer the first or second design and why (the "why" is answered by the participants' response to the questions).
The link to the survey is: Team 4 User's Profile Design Questionnaire
The images below summarises the responses we received from the studio for each question, regarding the content they wish to see in the player profile.
As the results have shown, we can summarise and conclude that the studio as users prefer they see a brief summary of the their player profile if the game was to have one. As from the responses to the first question, majority of the participants responded that "brief information is all I need" meaning that they do not want to see too much information on the screen. They just want to be able to look at their profile briefly so, they rather see a simple profile window with simply summarised information. Since participants prefer a simple profile page where the information is simple and easy to see, they correspondingly said that they do not think customisation is required where they can filter the information depending on time, and they also said that they would like to see all information on one page. It can be seen from the results that the studio wants the game to be simple and easy to navigate, aimed for players of all level (so that it is easily approachable for people who are not too familiar with games as well).
Regarding the visual aids, majority of the participants responded that they do not put too much focus on the visual aid. Since they are opening the player profile to see information, if they could see the information, that is all they need. However, without visual aids, the window may look too plain and not match the rest of the game UI, so our team has decided to add some visual aids in for the purpose of design.
The last question summarises the users' opinions with a question which explicitly asks which design they preferred (shown at the beginning of the questionnaire). More than half the participants responded that they would like to see all the information on one page - which is Design 1. Design 1 displays all the information on one page, displays brief information for each component of the profile, and has no filtering. In the previous questions, participants responded in a way which shows their presence for a simple window displaying brief, summarised information.
It can be concluded that participants preferred Design 1 over 2, therefore, our team will work towards creating a simple player profile window which briefly summarises all the information in an easy to understand manner. Design 1 will be used as the base layout, adding in some design elements as we progress, including visual aids, and deciding on the colour scheme.
Design 1:
There are some points of evaluation from this user test. As it can be seen in the images of the results, we were greatly able to receive 14 responses from the studio, which is a fair participant size for the test. Looking at the participant size itself, it will be a fine representative for the potential users of our game. However, a limitation of using the studio as participants, is that they may not be an accurate representative of the potential users of the game. The studio is building the game, therefore they would have implementation of the feature somewhere in their mind too. Studio members will automatically think about implementation, and their responses may have been affected by having "implementation" in mind. In future user tests, it would be great to be able to gather participants who are not related to the project, so that we get a more accurate representation of the potential users of the game.