Immersing myself in relevant media and documenting my experience
Image by David Travis Link
Over the past few months I’ve been playing a lot of games and watching films that have specific aspects related to our game in development. Obviously this includes mixed reality games but also VR games with hand tracking so I can conduct research on relevant user experience.
I have a particular approach to tracking and documenting my experiences. First, I play the game or watch the movie and enjoy it! I reflect broadly on whether I like it and why. Perhaps how it compares to examples from similar genres.
Then I play/watch it again, from the beginning, but this time taking notes. I pay careful attention to things like
How do I feel at certain moments?
What makes me feel this way?
How do I know what to do next?
Are there any points of frustration?
Are there any points which I like to call “magical moments” of surprise and delight, and how were these constructed?
While taking notes during a film is quite easy, it's quite difficult to do while you’re playing a VR or MR game because you’re wearing a headset and using controllers or your hands. You could jot down notes in between taking off/putting on the headset but I find this quite frustrating. So here are some workarounds:
Where possible I take a screen recording from the headset.
I might also take some screen shots from within the headset especially for things like user interface (UI). I could screenshot from the above recording but sometimes head motion makes the image too blurry.
I’ve also recorded a voice memo on my phone as I’m playing.
You can also watch walkthrough videos where people play a game and talk as they play. This often gives interesting insights into moments of confusion, frustration or delight. It also serves as a great reminder that people approach situations in different ways that you might not have encountered or considered.
When playing games specifically I observe as much as detail as I can in an attempt to “reverse engineer” the experience. This includes taking note of things like:
onboarding: is this implicit or explicit? is it aligned with the experience’s narrative? how well does the experience achieve this?
level design: how is increased complexity introduced to the player?
game balancing: is the experience too easy or too hard at different stages?
UI design: what is the approach taken? is it cumbersome or elegant? is it explicit or didactic?
help: what assistance is available if the player gets stuck?
It can be difficult to “switch off” sometimes when you’re a designer and taking in someone else’s work. But often if a game, film or other interactive experience has been really well designed - your brain disengages and you find yourself completely immersed in magical world. That’s my favourite place to be!