Do What Gamers Tell You, Not What They Say?
Now, Hanford Lemoore is a bit of an interesting guy - he does product design in Silicon Valley, including for ReplayTV and the Rio MP3 player, but he also makes wacky games such as Rocknor's Donut Factory.
Anyhow, his latest blog post is regarding UI design, and is entitled 'Don’t do what your users say…', concluding: "...do what they’re telling you." He explains specifically: "It is rare that a user outright lies for no reason. There is almost always a root cause for what your users are saying. The trick is to find that root issue to truly get what the user is telling you."
He has an awesome example, too: "I sent a private beta version [of Rocknor's Bad Day] to some close friends to get their take on it. A few days later I collected feedback via email and phone conversations. I got a good variety of comments back. Constructive thoughts. But I noticed an interesting trend: The most common thing suggested was “Add an undo to the game”. It seems almost everyone who tested the game had asked for an undo option."
But.. that's not what he immediately did - he did an in-person user test, which revealed: "After the user test is was clear to me that the root cause for undo requests was that the controls were too sensitive for the average player. There were a few other things that were revealed too. People really loved solving the puzzles in the game -- the first time. But if they had to restart, they really did not enjoy redoing the puzzles they had already solved." More if you click through, and it's an excellent lesson for all developers.
Comments
Isn't it sort of common knowledge to UI designers that direct user feedback through observation and a good dose of common sense is a lot more valuable than mindlessly reacting to written commentary? I may be asinine in saying this, but the article comes across as a bit 101 to me, rather than adding much value. Although I suppose with the percentage of dodgy game UI these days, a lot of game UI designers may need it.
Posted by: Rahul | April 17, 2007 5:42 AM
UI designers, yes, but I do think that game developers (especially indies) think about this less. Maybe!
Posted by: simonc | April 17, 2007 7:11 AM
The lesson has broader implications than just to UI designers.
More often than not, user-created material is uninspired and bland. Youtube is a prime example. You have to dig through a lot of the garbage to find the entertaining videos. This fact is ignored by industry pundits who expect games like Little Big Planet to be the future.
This lesson is far from obvious when developers with years of experience to this day still struggle with this issue.
Twilight Princess is a prime example. The game is a direct response to the objection to Wind Waker's art style. The backlash from this move is sobering. Twilight Princess is a good game but the element of surprise was replaced by familiarity that many fans raged against.
All ideas seem obvious when you are spoon fed the wisdom from someone who has spent a lot of time and effort trying to articulate the idea.
Posted by: Velops | April 17, 2007 11:03 AM
Rocknor's is one of my favorite puzzle games of recent years. Nice to get a tiny piece on how it came together.
I think that a lot of beginning indie designers miss the importance of feedback translation. It's one thing for a Microsoft backed game to run focus groups and serial testing sessions but another when you are relying on a smaller community or just a circle of friends.
The big lesson here is to watch people play your game. That's where Hanford's insights came from, not just the feedback.
The other important take-away is to question your design. After deciding that an undo function was probably a bad idea, there was no necessity to revisit the game; a lot of designers would have concluded that their friends were wrong, or didn't spend enough time practicing or something.
Posted by: Troy Goodfellow | April 17, 2007 11:09 AM