穿过大门 Full Sail用户体验实验室, and the first thing you’re likely to notice are workstations outfitted with the latest technology. High definition cameras mounted in the corner of each room offer a panoptic view of what’s playing out on screen—and on a gamer’s face—at any given moment. Two-way mirrors allow researchers to observe test subjects unobtrusively, 与此同时，许多未来派的小工具也在大量生产生物识别数据.

Researchers observe a test subject from the main room of Full Sail’s User Experience Lab

“我们这里有很多能力，”他说 Dr. 亚当斯Greenwood-Ericksen，在Full Sail 's担任课程总监 游戏设计硕士课程 谁来监督UX实验室的研究. “From really nice eye tracking equipment to a brand new facial recognition software package that comes out of MIT, 我们可以进行各种生理和基于大脑的测量. That’s what most people think of when they think about user experience assessment. 闪亮的东西.”

“但在一天结束时,” he adds, “most of what we do still relies on old school observation techniques.”

The research methods used by Adams and other scientists have been around for decades—in some cases, 80岁或以上. So how do techniques that predate video games by nearly a century result in a better, 更具可玩性的产品? 答案就在一个叫做 人为因素Adams和他的同事Dr. 肖恩·斯塔福德专攻.

“The goal of 人为因素 is to get machines to play nice with humans. Engineers are really good at building machines with amazing capabilities, but getting those machines to keep a human operator in the loop and functioning along with the machine in a way that’s safe; that’s a whole different problem.”

The study of 人为因素 was born out of necessity during the Industrial Revolution, at a time when advancements in production techniques put workers in contact with machines that were often dangerous in their inefficiency. 二战后, the same techniques used to build a safer steam engine in the 19th century and better radar systems in the 1940’s were applied to a whole generation of product design— from toasters to space shuttles.

“这与电子游戏的发展非常吻合, which are very complex function systems that have to work with a human operator. 不像其他地区, 在那里，人类可以被训练来绕过现有的机器工作, there is no higher purpose to a video game other than entertainment and enjoyment. In other words, if a game doesn’t work with a human, it’s completely worthless,” says Adams.

Enter UX. Bringing researchers into the process early on is key to ensuring that the development process runs smoothly, 它可以在投资回报方面产生巨大的差异.

Generally, there are two approaches researchers take when compiling UX data. 定性研究方法 关注那些主要是观察到的或坊间传闻的数据, 这意味着它不太可能用数字来衡量. 定量方法, on the other hand, are all about things that can be numerically verified, like statistics.

Here’s how the process works: A client comes to the UX Lab with a specific project in mind. 通常, Adams和他的团队将建议进行可用性研究, which begins by compiling qualitative data through the systematic observation of a test subject. 全速航行, every step of the usability assessment is handled by graduate students in the 游戏设计硕士课程, 亚当斯和肖恩负责监督整个过程.

“Students who choose to work in the UX Lab as part of their capstone usually finish the program with 20 to 25 studies under their belt, 所以他们毕业的时候都很聪明.”

研究生与客户一起确定他们的需求, 然后设计定制的测试计划来回答特定的问题. Once the client agrees on a test plan, the team moves forward with data collection.

记住那些闪亮的东西? 亚当斯说，这就是它发挥作用的地方. Study participants are hooked up to machines that note subtle changes in their vital signs. Eye trackers use infrared light reflected off the subject’s corneas to track where their visual focus is at any given moment. And facial recognition algorithms detect micro expressions—tiny changes in a person’s affect lasting between one 25th and a third of a second—which help researchers determine what the test subject might be feeling.

“如果我们检测到影响的变化, we’ll look at the eye tracking data to figure out what they’re looking at, 然后我们再回去问他们, ‘Hey, 在这个特殊的时刻, 当你看到这个东西的时候, you smiled. 你能说的都说了? 这有助于我们深入了解游戏过程中发生的事情及其原因.”

典型的UX工作站

当然，定性方法并不完美. Asking a player to describe what they’re doing as they do it has the potential to distract from the game. This is where quantitative data such as gameplay statistics come in handy.

“We look for descriptive statistics that describe broad trends such as means, medias, and modes. This combination of [qualitative and quantitative] techniques offers the most helpful and actionable feedback.”

一旦数据被收集和分析, 团队向客户端提供一份报告, which is often followed by an adjustment period before heading into another round of testing. 这是一个艰巨的(而且往往是昂贵的)过程, 但Adams表示，用户体验测试的成本效益是有据可查的.

“可用性问题约占维护成本的80% [in gaming]. 它如此昂贵的原因是你在改变资产, 您正在更改代码和架构, 在许多情况下支持功能.”

从AAA级游戏到独立项目, the amount of money UX testing can save developers is no small consideration. Beyond that, 亚当斯和他的团队提供的数据提供了另一种激励, one that could be considered more important than even monetary savings.

“Personally, 我认为UX的最大价值在于你降低了概率, 有时大大, 玩家会遇到一些让他们退出游戏的东西.”