Electric Eel (Ranged Enemy) User Testing - UQdeco2800/2022-studio-1 GitHub Wiki

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Description of the test

This user testing was planned for our medium fidelity prototype of ranged enemy. We designed a series of questions on google form and sent it to other teams to fill out the survey questions. After we collected several feedback, we extracted insights from these data and made changes to our character. 

Purpose of the test

The purpose of this test is to ensure every teams are satisfied with the ranged enemy design. Therefore, users in this test are everyone in studio-1.

There were some points we wanted to focus on:

  • Whether the character meets Atlantis theme
  • Whether our design concept could be understood by visual inspection
  • Is everyone happy with the design

User testing design

We created seven questions that we believed will be beneficial to our next design stage:

  1. Does this character meet the Atlantis theme?
  2. Do you like the colour of this character?
  3. What does this character look like?
  4. Do you like the facial expression of this character?
  5. What do you think this character holding on hand?
  6. Do you like the position of this character?
  7. From scale 1 to 5, how do you like this character as ranged enemy in the game? (1 - not at all favourable, 5 - extremely favourable)

And 1 question for recommendation.

Results

Recommendations

  1. Maybe brighten the color a bit, to give better clarity of its head, body, tail, etc.

  2. Great work!! It seems a common theme in our studio is to have a black outline around most objects. Try to conform to this although I do understand it may be difficult given that the character is already fairly dark in colour.

  3. I think it's nice and unique, this is just nitpicking but you could try play around with the colours around the face to make it stand out a bit more (currently it feels like its blending in together with the body). Good work overall :)

  4. The face is pretty dark + contrast low - it's hard to tell what exactly the enemy is shaped like. I love the rest, just a lil more definition on the face could be nice!

  5. If the ball is meant to be water, it does need to express water features a bit more. Perhaps make water pooling around the character?

  6. any face side will be fine and I'll recommend that light colour on the eel will be suitable according the game, haha because face of the eel is not much clear in dark colour. that's why.

  7. It like a bad enemy, a boss with a lot of damage.

  8. Make it brighter so it can be seen clearly, and also the facial expression is not clear as we can see only the eyes

  9. Really love your design!! It's very on theme with our game aesthetic :) I'm not exactly sure what the yellow and blue lightening/diamond like thing is on the end of the enemy's tail? However, I also don't think it matters if this remains open for interpretation because to me it still makes the end of the tail look dangerous and threatening.

  10. Would love to see it animated in future sprints

  11. I love the design!! I think brightening up the darker colours of the body a bit would be nice as it's a bit hard to differentiate visually atm and would look like one solid dark colour if implemented in the game as is. Overall it's looking really great, nice work :)

Analysis

From the responses given, we observed that the majority of people were satisfied with this character regarding its colour, facial expression, position and most importantly, it met the Atlantis theme. However, when it comes to the species of this enemy and the thing it holds, there were several answers provided. 

In regard to the object this ranged enemy holding on hand, 40.9% of people thought that it was a water ball and 32.2% of people identified it as fire related. Nonetheless, our design was actually an electric ball which only got 18.2% of support. Therefore, we would have to modify this part so that it looks like an electric ball more.

Our design concept of this character was intended to be an eel. The result shows that 36.4% and 27.3% of people agreed this character looks like an eel and snake respectively. Followed by ghosted eel/snake (18.2%) and dragon (13.6%). This outcome met the expectation of our team since most people still stated that the ranged enemy looks like an eel.

The recommendations were mostly suggesting that we could brighten up the colour of this eel so that it can be distinguished with its face and body. Also, one user mentioned the ambiguity of the tail of this creature. It was hard to tell what it was. Therefore, we would have to depict it more in the future sprint.

Summary

In our second sprint, the design team will change colour and adjust the electric ball of the ranged enemy. In the meanwhile, we will maintain the Atlantis theme and the scary enemy traits. Overall, this user testing was a success as we gained valuable feedback from the studio. Further, in our next user testing, we will broaden our users to the target audience of the game.