Basic Interactable Objects User Testing

Purpose

The primary purpose of this user testing is to get feedback about the interaction effect of the basic function, which is the shining outline and the guidance for the keypress. According to the result, we can check whether the animation effect we added is useful and any place to improve the user experience.

Process

The steps we did to run the user testing:

1. Run the game.
2. Let them move the character to the basic interactable object to have a look at the animation effect.
3. have an interview with them.

Key questions we asked in the interview:

• How do you think about the shining outline we made? Do you think it can remind you that the object is interactable?
• How do you think of the guidance? What information can you get from the guidance?
• Is there any suggestion about the graphic design? (the size, colour et cetera)

Results

User 1:

• Quite like the shining outline because it really gives a metaphor of the highlight in other games like gmod(a game in steam). It can remind me that the object is interactable.
• I like that guidance, directly show you that press the key "E" to interact with it.
• For the animation, maybe when the outline is shining, the guidance bubble can also animate, like the animation of the size change.

User 2:

• I don't know much of the game things, but the outline really tells me that I can do something with it if other objects have no shining outline.
• The guidance looks like the bed and the door is telling you something. The texture in the bubble looks like a key on the keyboard, so I guess I need to press "E".
• It is all good but one thing. The shining for the bed is not that obvious.

User 3:

• The outline is good, well instructed as most of the games does.
• For me, the guidance explicitly indicates that pressing E to interact with these objects because I played a lot of games. However, for people who do not often play games, it might be confusing for them to figure what is that mean.
• The guidance can be smaller because it might be too large compared to the interactable objects. Also, could consider adding a text instruction with the key button shown as well. (Instruction like PUBG)

User 4:

• It is pretty easy to be spotted in a dark scene, I guess it looks pretty good and certainly tells me that the item is interactable.
• I can tell from it that I need to press E to interact with the item. It serves its purpose. But, it might not be very good looking? I think maybe it could be more refined with the appearance.
• The design fits the theme quite well, and maybe for the colour, have a try using a white outline instead of a yellow one, just to compare which one could be better. Also, animation can be added for the guidance pop-up, from small to large and then change back to small.

Summary

Four people participated in the test. Most of the participants think the shining outline can remind them that the objects are interactable. For the guidance, all of them can tell that they need to press "E" to interact with it or something should happen after pressing the E button. Thus, the guidance is able to seem to be informative.

There are some suggestions about the size of the guidance and the colour of the outline, which they think can be changed. Whereas the size of the guidance bubble can be smaller, the colour of the shining outline can be white. Furthermore, the animation of the guidance can also be considered in future work. Based on the feedback, we can design other versions of the objects and continue conducting further user testing.