◾ Usability Testing of Serious Games: The Experience of the IHCLab

Usability Testing for Serious Games: Making Informed Design Decisions with User Data

Advances in Human-Computer Interaction ◽

10.1155/2012/369637 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 2012 ◽

pp. 1-13 ◽

Cited By ~ 44

Author(s):

Pablo Moreno-Ger ◽

Javier Torrente ◽

Yichuan Grace Hsieh ◽

William T. Lester

Keyword(s):

Serious Games ◽

New Technologies ◽

Usability Testing ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Educational Game ◽

Management Tools ◽

Medication Knowledge ◽

User Data ◽

Successful Design

Usability testing is a key step in the successful design of new technologies and tools, ensuring that heterogeneous populations will be able to interact easily with innovative applications. While usability testing methods of productivity tools (e.g., text editors, spreadsheets, or management tools) are varied, widely available, and valuable, analyzing the usability of games, especially educational “serious” games, presents unique usability challenges. Because games are fundamentally different than general productivity tools, “traditional” usability instruments valid for productivity applications may fall short when used for serious games. In this work we present a methodology especially designed to facilitate usability testing for serious games, taking into account the specific needs of such applications and resulting in a systematically produced list of suggested improvements from large amounts of recorded gameplay data. This methodology was applied to a case study for a medical educational game, MasterMed, intended to improve patients’ medication knowledge. We present the results from this methodology applied to MasterMed and a summary of the central lessons learned that are likely useful for researchers who aim to tune and improve their own serious games before releasing them for the general public.

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Serious Games Usability Testing: How to Ensure Proper Usability, Playability, and Effectiveness

Lecture Notes in Computer Science - Design, User Experience, and Usability. Theory, Methods, Tools and Practice ◽

10.1007/978-3-642-21708-1_70 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 625-634 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Tanner Olsen ◽

Katelyn Procci ◽

Clint Bowers

Keyword(s):

Serious Games ◽

Usability Testing

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Serious games and active healthy ageing: a pilot usability testing of existing games

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations ◽

10.1504/ijnvo.2016.075129 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 103 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Aung Pyae ◽

Reetta Raitoharju ◽

Mika Luimula ◽

Paula Pitkäkangas ◽

Jouni Smed

Keyword(s):

Serious Games ◽

Usability Testing ◽

Healthy Ageing

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Usability Testing of Serious Games: The Experience of the IHCLab

Games User Research ◽

10.1201/b21564-12 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 271-283

Author(s):

Pedro Santana-Mancilla ◽

Laura Gaytán-Lugo ◽

Miguel Rodríguez-Ortiz

Keyword(s):

Serious Games ◽

Usability Testing

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Formative Research for STEM Educational Games

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000134 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 221 (2) ◽

pp. 90-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

John L. Sherry

Keyword(s):

Video Game ◽

Serious Games ◽

Educational Games ◽

Sesame Street ◽

Children's Television ◽

Educational Video ◽

Educational Media ◽

Television Shows ◽

Educational Video Game ◽

Games For Health

Millions in taxpayer and foundation euros and dollars have been spent building and testing educational video games, games for health, and serious games. What have been the fruits of this frenzy of activity? What educational video game has had the reach and impact of Sesame Street or Blues Clues television shows? By comparison, the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) managed to get Sesame Street off the ground within a couple of years, writing the basic scientific literature on educational media design in the process. Not only is Sesame Street well known and proven, it laid the basis for every effective educational show to follow. This article explores the differences between the CTW scientific approach to educational media production and the mostly nonscientific approach consuming so many resources in the educational games, games for health, and serious games movements. Fundamental scientific questions that remain unanswered are outlined.

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