Evaluation of the Interactive Prototype 3

Outcome and Reflection

Before doing the survey, I briefly introduced the concept of the game to the user and introduced the new features added in this stage. I also told them how to use the physical input to play the game.

The outcome of the user testing and the reflection on each specific question are listed below.

Apparently, most people thought the current homepage was neater than the previous one. It is a good change to improve the user experience of the game interface.

Same as the last question, the majority of the users felt easy to select levels by drumsticks, which means the new physical inputs is easy to use. 

Most users thought the levels were suitable. This is further confirmed by my observations as most users felt easy and won the easy level but in a muddle while playing hard level.

It seems the 'restart' feature is not that welcomed as I expected. Despite that, the feedbacks regarding it are positive in general. Half of the testers thought they want to play more and the other half thought there was not much difference as before. It seems that the willing of replaying the game is depending on how much the players like the game, and to those players who really like the game, the new feature provides the solution to them.

Overall, it is a general question. Most users thought it did so I could draw a conclusion that the new features and physical inputs achieved the goals of improving the playability and UX of the game.

Most testers found it easy to play and said they were having fun. One bug was found when a tester was trying to select a level, which was really helpful.

Besides, someone mentioned the fragile foil again, this problem existed in the last stage. Since I could not find any substitutes, I tightly stick the foil on the bottom of the coke cans to make it not hollow so that the foil won't be that easy to break as before.

Several quite good suggestions for future refinement are brought up in the feedback.

• timer
• leaderboard (high score display)
• changes of the indication, for instance, having lights to show which drum to hit or making it blink before the drum number changes.

Effectiveness

The prototype and the testing session are both quite effective. I'm glad to see that most people enjoyed playing the game and had a positive feedback to the new features. 

The testing session helped me to test the new features and the corresponding physical inputs. The overall feedbacks are positive and constructive, some useful suggestions could be applied in the future game such as the timer, leaderboard, etc.

The observation of how the testers playing the game was fun. The same issues still exist, for instance, most of the users couldn't coordinate their hands well so they tended not to move the cannon, just wait for the aliens came and shoot. In general, what I observed is consistent with the responses in the feedback, which is a mutual confirmation of the testing result.

The testing protocol is not as detailed as before because this testing session focused on testing the new features and physical inputs added in this stage. Also, I remained the style of the survey of IP2, which contained more quantitative questions and less qualitative ones.

The feedbacks are thus concise and explicit.

Constraints

The game is near polished in this stage and the concept of the game could be easily understood in the stage. And yet there are still some problems. For instance, a tester found a bug while playing the game. It slightly affected the UX and testing process despite no other testers found the problem.

Besides, the operations such as 'moving' and 'shooting' could not be conducted at the same time. Perhaps it's because of the working principles of Makey-Makey that it'll stop working while two circuits are connected simultaneously.

Implications

For future codes, I'll add some of the features such as 'timer', 'score' and 'leaderboard'. Also, I will try to find out a feasible solution of the problem that the indication is difficult to perceive while the testers are playing the drum, which will definitely improve the user experience based on the feedback.

For future physical inputs, as I didn't change it in this stage, the implications remain the same. I'll try to find more solid materials to make it tough and durable. Also, I will try to make the interface simpler and neater.

For future testing sessions, from the feedback received, I think I've balanced the number of the qualitative and quantitative questions well for this prototype. I think I'll refer to this prototype's testing plan in the future stages.

User Testing of Interactive Prototype 3

The modifications in this prototype are mostly about the code. The physical input only changed a little bit. Thus, I won't mention the building process of the physical input in this post. 

The following photos are taken on the user testing session. Thanks for all the testers and the feedbacks.

Concept and Modifications of Interactive Prototype 3

Concept
The concept doesn't change much. You can see from the following two posts.

This is the previous concept idea:
http://startrekz.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/week3prac-arefine-game-mash-up-idea.html

The iteration in interactive prototype 2
http://startrekz.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/interactive-prototype-2concept-and.html

Interactions Modification
Apart from the drums, drumsticks, and gongs in the last prototype. Two more physical inputs are added in this stage, a 'replay' panel and three 'level selecting' panels. The player could use the drumsticks to tap the panels to choose a specific difficulty before entering the game. After the player wins the game, he could tap the 'replay' panel to play the game again. The interactions of the original physical inputs remain the same.

overall look

replay panel

select difficulty

Codes Modification
To incorporate the suggestive feedback received from the last stage, also to make the game more fun and visually comfortable, several new features are added to the game. The modifications are listed below:
1. Multiple difficulties for the users to choose;
2. A new class that holds the new homepage;
3. Replace the original schematic shapes to real icons of the cannon and aliens.
4. Add the restart function so the player could play the game again after it ends.

 new homepage

Evaluation of the Interactive Prototype 2

Outcome and Reflection

Before doing the survey, I briefly introduced the concept of the game to the user and then asked them to play the game. In addition, I told them how to use the physical input to interact with the game.

The outcome of the user testing and the reflection on each specific question are listed below.

From the pie charts, we can see that the concept got across well, and the physical inputs function well. In terms of the speed setting, it seems half of the user thought the speed of the cannon and bullets is a bit slow compares to the moving speed of aliens. I'll increase the speed in the next stage.

Based on the 4th and 5th question, most users found it not difficult to play the game and the physical inputs had enhanced the interestingness of the game. And from my observation, most users are more practiced after the first round. Besides, there're some major reasons that make the game difficult to play:
- eye-hand coordination.
- the random drum for shooting changes too fast.
- afraid to break the foils(materials) while playing the game.

From the design rationale, the essence of the game is the eye-hand coordination and it is also the most challenging part of the game. Therefore, I won't completely change the feature. However, I would probably add more levels in the game with different difficulty, varies in the frequency of changing the random index. In addition, in the future physical input, I'll use some more tough materials to prevent the drums break.

In terms of the potential problems of the current physical inputs, the testers all thought that the foils were easy to break so they had to be careful while playing the game. As for the desired features that could be incorporated in the future, many users suggested that I could add more levels. Also, they thought the cannon could move forward and back as well. Besides, they thought I can add some effects of tapping the drums. Those feedbacks are all inspiring and feasible, I'll try my best add these features to the future codes.

Effectiveness

The prototype and the testing session are both effective. And I'm glad to see that most people enjoyed playing the game. 

Although it is a brief version of the final game, it has already covered all the key interactions of the game. The testing session also helped me get some useful feedback that can be applied in the future game such as the difficulty levels, sound effects of drumming, etc. I also observed how each user holds the drumstick, how they beat the drum, how they coordinate both hands, and how they destroy the enemies. For instance, most of the users couldn't coordinate their hands well so they tended not to move the cannon, just wait for the aliens came and shoot. However, some more practiced and 'aggressive' users tried to chase the aliens and shoot to destroy them.

The testing protocol is not as detailed as the one of IP1. I found the survey of IP1 was too many for the user. Many testers just skipped 1/3 questions. Therefore, I removed some useless questions in IP1 and simplified it to just eight questions that focused on the evaluation of the physical inputs.

Constraints

Although I added new features such as winning message and some sound effects, it is still an unpolished prototype just has part of the functions. And the physical interactions are just an approximation of the intended physical interaction. The testers thus might not have a comprehensive understanding of the game and my general plan in the future. Fortunately, the game itself was intuitive so there was barely no constraint for the testers to understand or play the game.

Besides, due to the fragile foils, which wrapped around the paper cups and coke cans but leave the middle hollow, most testers are afraid of breaking them so they played the game carefully and lightly. Even so, the gong was broken after the user testing as someone accidently poked it with the drumstick. This really impacts the fun of the game.

Implications

For future codes, I'll add some of the features such as 'drumming sound effects', 'difficulty mode', 'real character icon'. Also, I will try to add a virtual drum on the screen, once the user beat a drum, the corresponding drum will have the effects to indicate it is beaten, which I believe will improve the user experience.

For future physical inputs, I'll use more solid materials to make it tough and durable. Also, I will use some fancy materials to make the interface simple and neat.

For future testing sessions, from the feedback received, I think I've balanced the number of the qualitative and quantitative questions well for this prototype. I think I'll refer to this prototype's testing plan in the future stages.

Building Process and User Testing of IP2

As I mentioned in the last blog, I used the drumstick idea to implement the physical interaction of the game. The user will play the game by beating drums and gongs.

Materials:

Paperboard

Paper cups

Coke cans

Straws

Foils

Wires

Tapes

Glues

Process

I use the two-layer paperboards as the base. The wires are hidden in the paperboards so it'll look neat and all other materials are built on the paperboard.

The paper cups, coke cans, and straws are wrapped with foils to simulate the drums, gongs, and drumsticks respectively. The drums are collected to the keys on the MakeyMakey while the gongs are collected to the left and right directions. The earth wires are collected to the straws so once the user beat the drums or gongs with the drumsticks, the cannon will move and shoot.

Special thanks to Lyndon for the brilliant idea. Thanks to Peter and all my friends for the tools and materials that I borrowed.

Interactive Prototype 2_Concept and Implementation

This is the previous concept idea:
http://startrekz.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/week3prac-arefine-game-mash-up-idea.html

Interactions
 The general concept of the game mashup, the gameplay, and the rules remain the same. The user will control the cannon to shoot the aliens with a random shooting key. When destroyed all the aliens, the user wins the game. However, for this prototype, we are asked to think of an innovative way to interact with our games or wearables. Thus, I changed the interactions of the game completely. Instead of the foot pad mentioned in the previous concept, 2 drumsticks (made of straws), 6 drums (made of paper cups) and 2 gongs (made of coke cans), all wrapped with foil and connected to the MakeyMakey, are designed and implemented to be the new physical input.

The drumsticks are the controller of the game. Just like beating a drum, the user will use the drumsticks to beat the 6 drums with indexes (1 to 6) on them. According to the index displayed on the game screen, the user hit the corresponding drum to shoot a bullet. In addition, the user could hit the gongs to move the cannon left or right to chase the aliens.

Codes Modification
To incorporate the suggestive feedback received from the last stage, also to make the game more appealing, I added some new features to the game. The modifications are listed below:
1. Increase the speed of the bullets and cannons.
2. Add the sound effects of shooting a bullet, hitting the enemy, winning the game.
3. Pop up a winning message after winning the game.
4. Change the position of the tiles to make the shooting key clearer to the user.

The experience of Interactive Prototype 1

This my own experience of the Interactive Prototype 1 that I want to share with you all.

1. Structure the code.
Before actually writing the code, we did an in-class exercise to think about the Classes, their Attributes (Variables) and Abilities (Functions) of our games or wearables, which was a key step to have a clearer idea of how to implement our concepts. Also, I found the learning materials, such as the pong game, are quite helpful for us to quickly familiar with AS3. I highly recommend you to study the code of the examples and figure out why the author structure the code like this.

2. Debug
The Photoshop Flash is not a good development environment as debugging is too hard and there are no detailed logs for the error. The most effective way I learned is to use trace statement to check if the code is executed to a specific line.

3. Fixing bugs
I implemented the majority of the functions but couldn't fix a bug of 'random shooting' feature. Everything seemed alright according to the code's logic. I spent a whole evening to discover why it didn't work and found the problem was caused by the 'Timer Event', but I still had no idea of how to fix it. The bug was solved by Peter eventually, he got rid of one 'Timer Event' (there were two initially) and it worked.

Besides, although I referred an example, it still took me about two days to add the 'restart' function for another game. As AS3 is just like many other programming languages such as C/C++ that have the main function, the sub-functions could not call the main function to loop the game, I had to write another two functions calling each other, using the main function as an entry. Once the game started, it'll execute the main function, then loop between the two functions and never break.