USER-TESTING: WHAT DID WE LEARN?
To make sure our game can be successful in the Maritime Museum we wanted to engage with our target audience and show them the game. We decided to make a paper prototype as it cheap to make and easy to create within a short amount of time. To gain inspiration on how we could make our prototype I watched a YouTube video which used paper prototyping to test out a blood test interface idea.
From this video I knew we would have to make our prototype using large pieces of paper, thick felt tip and possibly smaller paper to place on top of the large paper.
Using our user experience map we created each screen within 2hours then went to the museum to test it out. We were able to find a few people who were 14–25 year olds which is our target audience and went up to them and explained that we were testing out a new game that is going to be created in the maritime museum. I informed them that it is not us who made this game to make the response less biased as they would not feel pressured to like the game. After getting their consent we started our game and recorded them playing the game then asked them these questions:
- Was there anything that confused you?
- Would you ever play this game in this museum?
- How did you feel playing the game?
- What do you think could be better for next time?
Fortunalely the questions were not difficult for users to understand therefore we stayed with the same questions for every user testing.
To make sure the interviews were reliable we did not interfere with their answers or help them when they paused. We listened to the natural pauses and allowed users to give their honest opinions and full answers. Furthermore as we had a schedule to finish our user testing I did not ask them too many personal questions like what their hobby is or what they do in the weekend. I observed that many other members in my class took this approach however I feel I was able to create a friendly atmosphere as our target audience is within my age range. I explained that the museum is producing a new game for an exhibition and I’m just a worker carrying out an experiment for them. They knew who I was from the start of the interview and were happy to help out the museum.
Overall I feel our usertesting was strong and we were able to recieve excellent feedback that helped us improve bits and peices of the game. A common response we recieved is that respondents found then instructions lengthy and did not bother to read it. Therefore in the next round of responses we shortened the instructions and added clearer drawings of obstacles and treasures in our game.
To conclude I was able to understand how important user testing is to produce a ux design. Through this project I realised how much impact user testing has to the product and improvement stages of the ux design.
