Alpha System

Test Observations

The usability testing of computer prototype was done by Group 2 (‘Bubble Swish’ team). The team properly followed our test plan and has provided us valuable feedback.

Strengths

In the ‘Level Page’, the users were able to select the available level very easily.
The users begun the game by placing the finger on the starting point, the dog, within 5 seconds after the instruction was given.
After the users successfully completed the given game level, they were able to find and tap the ‘Restart Level’ button to improve the score of the same level within 5 seconds.
After the users successfully completed the given game level, they were able to find and tap the ‘Next level’ button to go to next game level within 5 seconds after the instruction was given.
The users had no problem in finding home button and navigate to the main page at any given situations.
In general, navigating between pages was very easy.

Weaknesses

The instruction/tutorial animation was able to provide enough information for users to understand that the dog has to be moved to get the bone. But, it did not convey enough information to tell users that touching the walls is supposed to reduce the game score. Moreover, the users were not able to notice there was a maximum time to finish the game.
As the users begun to play game, they were able to win the given game level. However, although the users successfully took the dog to the bone, they moved the dog beyond the bone and hit the wall. The response feature of winning game (the dog touches the bone) was not implemented.
The ‘Quit’ label confused the users that they tapped the label instead of clicking the home button to quit from the application. Moreover, if the tablet device is flipped, then the ‘Quit’ label pointing in the opposite direction, so this will even more confuse the users.
The given game time was long that users felt the game is easy. it might cause the users to lose their interest in the game.
In the ‘Level Cleared’/winning page, the ‘Previous Score’ was irrelevant because it confused examiners whether it means the score from the last completed level or the highest score of the current level.

Recommendations from Group 2

We recommend to rename previous score to level high score and store the highest score achieved in the current level.

We recommend to show on the tutorial video the score increasing as the dog gets closer to the bone and reduce it when it touches the wall.

We believe boundaries should be implemented around the dog’s path. The user would lose points when the dog collides with the path’s boundary.

We believe it would be better to remove the quit label because you cannot quit an application from within under any iOS. Currently, the quit label is confusing and may be in the wrong position if the ipad is flipped.

It would be better if the level ends as soon as the dog collides with the bone.

We recommend to give more feedback when the user loses or gains points. Every time the user gains points, a label would show +10 and when the user loses points it would show -10. The positive points could be green and the negative points could be red. When the dog reaches the bone, the points obtained by the extra time should be shown on the points label and added to the total score.
Group 2 - Formative Feedback

Comparison with Previous Test Results

Here are the lists of observations that our team has made after the paper prototype usability testing and the comments for each of the lists.

Changes to be Made

It is recommended to include a brief instruction of how-to-use at the start of level one so that the user gets to know how the game works before they play it. An animated illustration was suggested by an occupational therapist.
- This change was only partially implemented since users did not fully understand how the game worked.
Making the game a little more captivating and clear by having either a dog and bone game or a race track game is advisable. It provides a clear goal for the user over the option of a ball and track design.
- Our team believe that this change is quite important because the ‘dog/bone analogy’ meets the ‘Match between system and the real world’ part of the heuristic evaluation. The changed analogy is more purpose-driven and users understand why they need to move their fingers from one place to the other.
More game levels need to be added to challenge and motivate users.
- This change is also only partially implemented. Although we added more game levels to interest the users, since the given time for each level was bit long, users felt the game was quite easy, therefore we reduced the time allotted for each level making the game a bit more challenging, encouraging the users to try the same levels more than once.
Exit indicator needs to be added.
- This change wasn’t implemented because the user did not understand the purpose of the ‘Quit’ label. Also, when the tablet device is flipped, the label points in wrong direction and it confused the users.

Good Aspects of the Design

Users were able to easily navigate between pages and could reach to the page that we asked to navigate to.
- This wasn’t changed and was safely implemented in the computer prototype since users had no problem in navigating between pages during the testing.
There was no significant problems for the users in understanding the functions of buttons and meaning of the labels.
- This aspect was also preserved since users succeeded in accomplishing all given tasks, asking users to find and select specific button within 5 seconds

Improvements on the Prototype

Improvements Applied Prior to Alpha

Automatic page transition after winning/losing game is implemented. During the latest usability testing, There was no necessary feature that stops the users when they clear the game or fail the game, so they were still engaged in the game even after the game was over. Thus, when the users touch the bone with dog, then ‘Level Clear’ page is displayed automatically, and if the users do not reach to bone within given time or the users loses point down to 0, then the ‘Try Again’/failure page is displayed.
With advice from our TA, Dalia, we modified the scoring system. The score is initially set to 100 at the beginning of the game. As users move the dog along the path, the given score remains, but when dog touches the boundary, the score is deducted by 5 points. Furthermore, if the dog is still in contact with boundary, the score is deducted by 10 point for every second the dog remains off the path. We decided to reduce more points if users remains in contact with the boundary because we believe this harsh punishment would force users to bring back the dog to the path. Then, after finishing the game, the remained time multiplied by 20 points will be added to the score the users achieve during the game. Our team believes that such score calculation would be most fair because it does take into account of how fast the users can finish the game.
Score remembering system is implemented. It is the general score tracking system in that each level saves the highest achieved score. Thus, in the ‘Level Clear’ page, saved highest score and currently achieved score are both displayed.

In addition to the implementing missing elements, we modified some existing features and added new features.

We have created ‘Start New Game’ and ‘Continue Saved Game’ options. Since the game has a level system, it requires to unlock the game level by user’s performance and to save the highest score for each level to track the user’s performance. But, we have realized that the game also can be used by other users and they might want to start from the beginning. Therefore, if users tap ‘Continue Saved Game’ button, the system brings the saved game (unlocked levels, highest score for each level). Meanwhile, if users select ‘Start New Game’, the system first asks if they are sure to continue with warning. And, if users select to continue, all saved game data (unlocked levels, highest scores) are deleted and the user starts from the beginning.
Level page is modified. Initially, only available level was displayed to the user, but our team realized that this does not provide information of how many levels exist in the game. Thus, we have changed in such way that available levels are displayed as they were, but unavailable levels are represented with lock image. So, as users unlock the levels, the lock images are changed to corresponding level numbers.
Our team has decided to change the name of the product from ‘Wire Loop Game’ to ‘Spotty’ because we implemented the ‘dog/bone analogy’.

Improvements Drawn from Formative Feedback

Instruction/tutorial animation has been improved to give more precise information of how to play the game. During the computer prototype usability testing, the users only partially understood how the game worked. Thus, our team modified the tutorial animation to be more specific and detailed.
We renamed the ‘Previous Score’ to ‘Highest Score’ in the ‘Level Clear’ page. Displaying highest score is more relevant for users that it gives a goal and motivates the users to achieve the highest score for each level.
We did not completely removed the ‘Quit’ label, but we changed it to ‘Click home button to quit’ and set the tablet device setting to display game in only one orientation to prevent the label from pointing wrong side of the device. Our team was reluctant to delete this label because the user during the paper prototype usability testing had no idea how to quit from the application because she had no any experience in using tablet device.
Continued from automatic page transition implementation above, our team set the delay time between transition and user’s success/failure to 1 second. During the development, we felt that no delay before the transition was too quick, but also more than 1 second of delay gave enough time to move the dog around.
Our team implemented the feature that sets the background of the game screen to red if score is deducted and a -5/-10 label is shown beside the score. Group 2 commented that the change in score is not noticeable enough and the users were not easily aware of the decrease in score.
The given game time is changed from 10 seconds to 5 seconds because the users felt the game was easy. We hope that decreasing the given time increases the difficulty of the game and that the game motivates the users more than it did with the previous time settings.

User Manual

The manual has been updated from the initial version to now include more intermediate steps, additional screenshots, thorough explanation of the scoring system and menu navigation in the new manual.

Summary of Contributions

	Mohamed	Radhika	Chan Woo
Development	-	-	8
Feedback Overview	-	-	1.5
Test Result Comparison		0.5	1
Prototype Improvement	-	0.5	2.5
User Manual	1	4	0.5
Web Notebook	3.5	-	-
Total	4.5	5	13.5