Monday, January 20, 2014

User Study

Now it is time to test our software prototype with real users (that didn't know or saw the game before) to see how they react when playing it and to get some ideas for final improvements.




1. User description

First User

  • Age: 26
  • Gender: M
  • Job: Student
  • Experience with natural user interfaces: only a little

Second User

  • Age: 23
  • Gender: F
  • Job: Student
  • No experience with motion controls or gesture controlled applications
 

2. Setup

  • small room
  • laptop screen with sensor on top on a table
  • user stands approx. 2 m before the screen
  • calibration session before beginning the test
  • Laptop displays game prototype
  • user has enough space to move around

3. Task


The user plays the game prototype of “ClimbOrDie”. The user moves in front of the game while the Kinect monitors her/his movement. The movements then translated into instructions for the player character. The character is hanging on a wall and tries to reach the top. The player moves like he is climbing and the character moves slowly towards the top.

"Climb the wall like you would naturally do it on a climbing wall"

User should verbalize thought processes and actions:

  • What do they (the users) think is happening? (state)
  • What do they try to achieve? (goals)
  • Why are they doing something specific? (actions)

Users thoughts

First User

  • The (characters) arms are following mine (state)
  • Ok, I want to grab the handle above (goal)
  • (makes a grab gesture) (action)
  • Grabbing the handles sometimes does not work reliable(state)
  • Why doesn't the characters torso follow mine? (left/right movement) (state)
  • Now I want to pull myself up to reach the next handle (goal)
  • (lowers the grabing hand to pull) (action)

Second User

  • Okay, the character is following my movements.
  • Why does he move so strange? (bug, the character moved out of sync)
  • Huh, what do I have to do?
  • Oh, I can grab!
  • I should reach the flag.
  • I fall when I release the hands.
  • I can climb.
  • Why didn’t this grab work?
  • I won.
 

Results / discovered issues

The user recognized very fast what she/he has to achieve. The flag on the top was clearly the goal of the game. Also, the user recognized the movement control with grabbing and climbing.

The problems are the bugs in the current state. There are some bugs with wrong movements of the character and also with the grab gesture, which does not work all the time. The solution for these problems is simply fixing them.

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