MAD UX: Process Blog #4

This is the fourth entry in my UX portfolio series. If you have not read the previous one, you can find it here 👈️

Planning In-Test Questions

Last week, we began planning for our final research study for the summer term of our user experience capstone. As a part of this exercise, we revised our drafts of our participant screeners, research guides, and consent forms for this study. Here I must again praise the wealth of information made freely available by the Nielson Normann group. They provide a plethora of talks and articles filled with pointers on moderating a remote research study.

Particular attention was paid to developing our pre- and post- task questions in preparation for a pilot study in the subsequent week. In this study, the pre-task questions were designed to help support information drawn from the participant screener, more clearly categorizing users based on their level of familiarity with EarthBound and similar RPGs. Subsequently, the post-task questions were used to help gauge players’ overall impressions of playing through the tutorial section of EarthBound.

Distinct from my studies in the Spring and Fall, my usability study this term is now focused entirely on a game that has already completed its production process, namely EarthBound. That meant submitting my research proposal to the head of the MOTHER² development team in order to recruit from within the project community on Discord. The following video from MOTHER fan MonkeyNess, provides his personal analysis of EarthBound’s opening moments through the lens of game design. This video gives a great overview of some of the key assumptions similar to those shared by the developers on the project.

Pilot Usability Sessions

The following week, it came time to begin a pilot study for the proposed usability playtest. Given the single-week constraint on the time allotted to both recruit and conduct the pilot study, only one participant was recruited from the ideal applicant pool of test participants. As opposed to limiting our pilot to a single participant, the family member of a developer on the project was recruited to allow for preliminary results to be collected before testing with an ideal candidate.

Moderating the usability study for the introductory sequence of EarthBound was a predominantly positive experience, revealing both the strengths and areas for improvement in the game’s design. The two participants, one a seasoned gamer and the other a younger newcomer to RPGs navigated the game’s opening moments and provided valuable insights into their initial impressions and engagement levels. Frequent encouragement was given to participants to think aloud as much as possible as well as probing questions when participants became silent for extended periods.

In response to participant comments made while learning the controls of the game, a new controls quick reference sheet was added to the participant materials shared at the beginning of the playtest session. This cheat sheet comes directly from the EarthBound Player’s Guide and mimics a section of a physical booklet that players from the ‘90s would have received when purchasing the game.

The UX portfolio series continues on. You can continue reading here. ⏩️