Friday, July 31, 2009

User Trial: Implications for Game Design

The next part of the development is of course the game itself. One of the main objectives of the project is to gather useful information from which conclusions can be drawn, such as:
  • How does gaze and voice compare with keyboard and mouse as a means of interaction
  • How enjoyable is the use of gaze and voice as a means of interaction
To gather this information necessitates the running of a user trial. The first objective is (relatively) easy to quantify, by gathering and saving data while participants play the game. However it also means that comparisons need to be made, which in turn means participants will need to play the game using both modes of interaction, that is, play the game using conventional interaction devices and then with gaze and voice.

Another consideration is, if gaze and voice proves not to be a viable form of interaction, which mode of interaction was at fault? The gaze or the voice? So ideally data needs to be gathered to resolve this. This can be done by varying the different combinations of interaction so gaze and keyboard could be compared against mouse and voice.

This would mean that the user trial would be potentially asking participants to play the game 4 different times, with the four different combinations of interaction. This is has two main drawbacks. Firstly players are likely to improve at the game the more they play it. So by the time participants play using the 4th type of interaction, it is difficult to determine if the means of interaction has benefited the player or was it simply due to their skill level improving over time. The second drawback is time, it is unreasonable to ask participant to spend longer than 20 minutes completing such a user trial. Anything longer and they may begin to lose interest skewing results. Another aspect, regarding the duration of the user trial is that users will need to demo the game to get a feel for it. This again takes time away from the experiment itself.

So with this in mind the game needs to be relatively simple so users can get get to grips with it quickly and finish it within a reasonable time frame. Asking participants to play it more than twice would be unreasonable. Given the need for two different comparisons, involving four different types of interaction means that there should be 2 groups of experiments as follows;
  • Keyboard & Mouse versus Gaze & Voice
  • Keyboard & Gaze versus Mouse & Voice
Obviously the former comparison is of more importance and will require more participants. The second is more of a control group to see if there is a significant lacking in either gaze or voice as a means of interaction.

I realise its been over two weeks since my last post, so my apologies for the delay. In my next post I'll talk more about the game concept.

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