Methodology

Overview

A key component of the game's safehouse is having a functional shop that enable player to purchase items in the game. As there are 4 levels in the game, there will be 3 safehouse levels for which player will have the opportunity to utilize the shop to purchase items to not only increase their change of surviving but also try out different abilities or weapons to explore the assortment of play style user can experience when playing the game. With the shop having such an impact on user experience, user testing must be conducted to ensure that users can seamlessly utilize the shop easily without any detrimental effects. Feedbacks would include information on the sizing of content that has been allocated for buttons and labels for each element in the shop pop up box, the organization, placement and structure of the popup box itself and the logic on finding information on an item and purchasing them.

Justification

These were specifically chosen because the intention of the popup box is to ensure that users can easily find items that they are in need of quickly and explore them by purchasing them in the shop. For this to be as seamless as possible, testing will revolve around the functionalities of buttons and how the elements of the shop popup box are affecting user's experience

Testing Process

User Brief

It is essential that users are informed about the purpose of having the shop in the safehouse. In addition to providing a brief explanation on the functionality of the shop, an idea of the kind of items that they may expect from the shop and what coins are in the game (as they would require them to purchase items with them)

Note: Currently, some buttons clicked may not provide feedback to user that a button has been clicked as these have yet to be designed and included. An example is the abilities, if a user were to click any of the ability item - the button's image will not change (briefly explain the assumption that a new image should appear when these buttons are clear where perhaps a white border could be around these clicked image button to indicate to user that the button has been clicked). Also, the assumption is that the game will be played in its original size (not full screen).

User Tasks

These tasks are designed to accumulative find information on what users feel about the current organization of the shop popup box and what should or should not be focused on to improve user experience when interacting with the shop popup box. These tasks should also be done in Level 1 and users will be instructed to collide with the 'shopkeeper' that looks exactly like player in game prior to starting on any of the tasks listed below.

1. Explore the shop popup box interface to have a feel of what the shop popup box is meant to provide in terms of functionality
2. Find information on the axe item that is being displayed in the popup box
3. Purchase the bandage item from the shop pop up box
4. Purchase the armor (next to the helmet item) item from the shop pop up box
5. Find information on how much you have to spend

Small Questionnaire

1. What do you think of the sizing of the popup box (without adjusting the screen size and when screen size is full)
2. Is it providing you information that you need when purchasing an item?
3. Is the organization of content of the shop popup box easy to follow and learn at the same time?
4. Do you have any feedback in terms of improvement or making the process less painless when attempting to purchase an item?
5. These are currently the kinds of versions the shop popup box could look like. Choose your most preferred version. First version (current)

Second version (enlarge screen size)

Third version (content organized differently)

Testing

Participant #1: Significant observations and feedback

• Thought that the original size of the interface was suitable and compact as well as concise with information required.
• Information is sufficient when thinking of purchasing different kinds of weapons
• Was painless when trying to learn to purchase an item from shop
• Finds that there might not be a need for displaying number of ammo or bandages but thinks that it might look empty without them
• First version is most preferred

Participant #2: Significant observations and feedback

• Easily identified the sections of the shopping screen and what they were communicating
• Easily selected, bought and read the descriptions of items, understood the items listed were those you had
• Didn't know what the armour was at first, when asked to buy armour they tried the helmet first (said it looked like a butterfly more than a set of armour)
• Didn't like seeing the smaller sections of the shop behind the screen (the entrance) thought the shop screen should cover it
• Would reorganise so weapons were together, with the pre-upgrade version on top of the upgrade version
• Would reorganise so the items were together and the abilities together (said maybe with the armour under the helmet on side -> but wasn't certain)
• Felt the last screen option didn't work as there was not enough room on that part of the screen
• Said the ordering of screen elements was okay
• Said could be nice to have the background behind the screen be pure black too and cover the game map

Participant #3: Significant observations and feedback

• Easily identified the sections of the shopping screen and what they were communicating
• Easily selected, bought and read the descriptions of items, understood the items listed were those you had
• Didn't know what the armour was at first, when asked to buy armour they tried the helmet first, said the shape of the armour was weird and kind of looked like the player but also didn't fit out of context
• Had trouble with the player character in the shop screen not showing the armour you have
• Didn't mind the size of the shop screen or that you could see things behind it
• Said it was easy to tell when you bought something
• Didn't think anything was missing but your current armour and weapon state (like which ones you have)
• Understood meaning of the ability icons
• Would group items on the screen by type, 6 weapons first, 3 columns of armour, items and abilities
• Preferred the top two options for the screen arrangement (no real difference between the two)

Evaluation of Results

Common Issues & General Options for improvement:

Multiple users noted that they didn't know what level of defence they had / the weapon they currently have which made it hard to know what to buy in the shop

• Have the weapon you are currently wielding shown near the player image
• Have the weapon you are currently wielding held by the player icon
• Have the purchase button become an equipped button if the player currently has that weapon/armour level
• Have the player image show the level of armour you currently have

Most users had issues with the arrangement of the items on the shop screen, feeling it wasn't ordered and should be grouped by type:

• Change the arrangement to group the items by type of item, also showing the weapons that are improvements on one another paired

Many users had issues identifying what the armour was easily

• Change the armour design
• Change the arrangement so the helmet is above the armour in the shop, so that it is easier to tell that it is supposed to be armour

A user also mentioned not liking seeing the game screen behind the shop screen

• Try enlarging the shop screen or blacking/fading out the game screen behind the shop screen

Currently Actionable Improvements:

• Reordering the shop screen items to:

1. Dagger, Bat, Axe
2. Machete, Crowbar, Hammer
3. Helmet, Torch, Long_Dash
4. Armour, Bandage, Invincibility

• Have the purchase button become an equipped button if the player currently has that weapon/armour level/ability

Evaluation of Methods

Overall a lot of good feedback on the design of the shop screen was given however, a few improvements could have been included in retrospect. Mainly, using more images showing different arrangements of different segments of the screen would have been useful, allowing us to better get an idea of the users opinions on the screen layout.