Expert reviews

As part of our assessment, the class will be carrying out a usability evaluation of a video game for a large game production company. As we had only a very limited window in which to test the game, instead of recruiting random testers from the target audience and carrying out user testing in that way, we carried out an expert review by playing the game oursleves. In a group of 3 we had 2 hours to play the game, and have had to decide on the most effective way to approach this.

First, we were placed in a group that consisted of gamers, myself playing mostly strategy, music and platform games and the others playing more sports, racing and FPS games (classic gender distinction?). We had three main ways to divide up our playing time:

• one person could play for 90 minutes and the others watch
• will probaby come across less issues, plus only have experience of one type of person
• as longer play time can explore the game further, plus observers may notice things player doesn't
• each plays in turn while the other two watch
• the views of the second and third players will be affected by what they have already seen
• each can see the recurring issues
• each plays in turn with the other two absent
• less time spent playing the game
  
• less pressure than with others watching, each comes to the games fresh with no bias

As you can see, each of them have their own benefits and flaws, but in the end we decided to go with the third option. We felt that removing the bias of seeing the games before and being influenced by the actions and recations of others would not produce the best results.

The result of our testing session was a video of each tester playing the game, simultaneously displaying the on screen action and two points of view of the player. This will be analysed by each team member and we will then collate our results to produce a report for the compnay and a presentation to give to several people involved in the game's production. It will be interesting for me to see how the other groups in the class approached their testing and whether they reach similar conclusions.