Usability is about the ability of the game to be used, which entails taking into account human limitations in terms of perception, attention, and memory. Usability is a well-known UX pillar and very precise guidelines have been established throughout the years in industrial design and digital product design. The most renowned list of usability heuristics (i.e. rules of thumb) was put together by Jakob Nielsen. In my game UX framework, I’ve adapted these heuristics to be more relevant and, well, usable to game developers who use their own vernacular. These game usability heuristics are as follows:

Usability

YouTube上有个视频Test Your Awareness: Do The Test，测试结果涉及到一个现象“非注意盲视”：当我们集中注意力处理一件任务时，我们无法注意到与该任务无关的刺激现象（即便是一个意外事件！）许多游戏在挑战玩家的注意极限，当玩家掌握了游戏后这样做当然没问题。然而，让玩家在学习和探索的过程中同时进行多项任务，可能会导致他们错过重要信息，例如，在战斗过程中突然弹出恢复血量的教程。玩家因被打扰而感到恼怒倒还好，最糟糕的情况是，他们因此跳过了弹出的关键信息，更别提处理和记忆这些信息了。由于人的注意力有限，精品传奇网页游戏，游戏开发者应时刻注意避免造成过度的记忆负担，特别是在教程部分，因为这部分需要的注意力更多。

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2008)

If you are looking for more detailed information on these engage-ability pillars you can check out my GDC 2017 talk.

Attention

A GAME UX FRAMEWORK

1. 可用性

Celia Hodent, The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX Can Impact Video Game Design (CRC Press, 2017)

-Signs and feedback

SCIENTIFIC METHOD & UX PIPELINE

1. 理解大脑的运作

我将详细说明我们在制作《堡垒之夜》的过程中，建立用户体验思维最重要的3个步骤：

2. 参与性

用户体验=可用性+参与度

Perception is subjective. It depends on our DNA, our prior knowledge, our expectations, our culture, the context, and many other factors. This situation is problematic when we make a video game, because the game represents a series of stimuli that we want players to perceive the way we intended. If perception is subjective, how can we be sure that all the visual and audio cues in a game will be perceived as intended? To put it simply, we cannot. This is why it is very important to run UX tests, whereby we invite people from our target audience to test the game in development. Many types of tests exist, but to determine if our audience perceived the main elements of Fortnite as intended we mainly used surveys. For example, in 2013, we invited a few people to play through a prototype of the game, and then we asked them to tell us what they believed the icons were communicating. The original symbol that was chosen to represent traps in the game was not perceived as such by all players who tested the game then. Some players thought it looked like ammunition, or trees. Thus, the icon was perceived differently by the person who designed it and by the target audience who interacted with it, as I explained in my GDC Europe 2014 talk. As traps were a key feature in Fortnite, it was important to tweak this icon so that no player would be confused by this stimulus. After the UX test, we decided to change the trap icon to look like a bear trap. There are no bear traps in Fortnite, but in our continued testing, all the players we invited to test the game understood the new symbol. This situation underscores that people will have multiple perceptions for any given reality. This situation necessitates testing the main elements in a game, whether they are UI elements, character design, sound design, visual effects, or environment design.

3. Gameflow

胜任主要指一种进步感，无论是能力进步（比如建造速度更快了）还是非能力进步（比如升级并购买使自己更强的技能）。若我们在进行某项活动的过程中（比如学习吉他和减肥）感受不到进步，我们很容易放弃。这也解释了为什么我们喜欢进度条，不仅在于它预示着完成关卡后能获得奖励，更在于我们能见证自己朝着目标迈进，对自己越来越有信心。