Crafting New Worlds: Inspirations from Gaming User Experiences

Amit PandeCredits: Sameer Bhiwani, Adesh Singh,

Deepak Srinivasan, Shami Raj

About me

• Intrapreneurial/Entrepreneurial• Enterprise, Mobile, ICT4D, Decision Support• Manager, Designer, Researcher, Engineer • President, UPA Bangalore

(http://upabangalore.org) • Supporter/Organizer: Doors of Perception,

Dcamps, World Usability Days, other P2P • http://amitpande.com

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Is this your image of Gaming?

Chicago Tribune: 76% of casual gamers are women…

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Two main objectives today

• Gaming is a legit, interesting, complex sub-culture – not just teens fragging away to glory

• Gaming provides strategic approaches, metaphors, inspirations and tactical notes, interactions, and interfaces

• Implications exist for consumer and enterprise software

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Basketball players in regular game?

Ancient gladiators fighting till death for glory?

6Students creating art on stones with paint

Wizards creating spells to cast new magic

7Old fogies playing poker with money in poker club

Generals planning attack against robotic alien army

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The Importance of Gaming

Gaming is problem solvingGaming is socialization Gaming is experimentationGaming is relationship buildingGaming is visceral and emotional Gaming is mind expanding

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Moksha Patamu: Ancient India

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Go: Ancient China

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Monopoly: 1935

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Space Invaders: 1978

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LAN parties: 1980+

Above: DreamHack 2007, Germany, 10445 gamers

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The UX Impact of Gaming

– 250+ million gamers online worldwide

– $10 billion+ global business– Driver and consumer of innovations

• New Business models• New Technologies• New Experience Ecosystems • New interactions and User Interfaces

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Gaming and business model innovations

– Traditional• Game characters on Ebay (now banned) • Share profits with power user-developers

who create mods (Counter Strike)– New

• MapleStory by Nexon, South Korea: Nexon prepaid debit card is second largest selling at Target, after iTunes card

• WildTangent, Redmond: Sells ads that are displayed on its site and sells players ways to avoid having to look at those ads.

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Gaming and technology innovations

– Innovations in storage, graphics cards, network access

– Reliability and speed – Visual and tactile manipulation via

many ‘interfaces’– Industrial design for core/casual

gaming– Future: Supercomputer consoles,

Virtual Reality headgear, brain interface games

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Gaming and experience ecosystems

• Ecosystems create stickiness and engagement

• Virtual collaboration in sensory immersive environments

• Creation of community ecosystem via sites, forums, etc

• Community builds itself • Focus on reputations, ranking,

rewards points

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Gaming and Product User Experience

• Freeze frame, forward, or rewind game• Remapping of controls’ preferences• Radial-context menus• Contextual palettes• Defining of hotkeys using drag-and-drop• Scriptable command line interface

integrated with Point-Click• Streamlining of repetitive tasks• Approachability and help for newbies • Extensive adaptation to users

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4 Interesting Gaming Experiences

• Nintendo Wii

• World of Warcraft

• BrainAge

• Spore

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Nintendo Wii Experience • World’s best-selling console – 30 million sales till

June 2008 • Most games complement real life, not escapist • Touchscreen interface – TV channels metaphor• Wii remote is a wireless controller, a handheld

pointing device that detects 3D motion (accelerometer/infrared)

• Blue Ocean Strategy: "price", "movie playing", "graphics", "physics", "fun", "game library", and "magic wand"

• Embodied physical user interaction: Point, Click, Sway, Swing, Swirl – even coined a term, Wiiitis!!

• Collaborative by design

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World Of Warcraft Experience

• Owns 62% of online massively multiplayer online game market – 10 million subscribers

• Players use characters to explore locations, defeat creatures and complete quests, gaining experience points.

• Experience points help characters gain a level, opening up the option of learning new skills or abilities, exploring new areas and new quests

• Customizations of User Interface based on character, game level and experience

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BrainAge Experience

Nintendo Annual report: Worldwide sales of 13 million copies, Mar 2008

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Spore Experience• “Massively single-player” online game • Real time strategy, simulation game• Control the evolution of a species • Unicellular organism -> Intelligent and social

creature -> Interstellar space exploration • Throughout gameplay, the player's

perspective and species change dramatically.

• 18 software editors including Creature, Music, Vehicle editor. Translatable skills. Toy metaphor

• User generated content - Sporepedia • YouTube/Flickr character uploader

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Spore Experience

• 18 editor software tools including Music editor. Translatable skills

• Creature Creator tool - Create your characters in natural, elegant UI – not a creature modeling tool, but a toy

• User generated content - Sporepedia • Characters evolve in game world

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CELL CREATURE

TRIBE

30CIVILIZATION

SPACE

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Software UX –Some inspirations from Gaming

• Consumer software

• Enterprise software

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Gaming Inspirations for Consumer software• Humanize• Create Playfulness • Use quirky relevant features • Allow users to engage in

entertaining passive exploration • Use rich and interactive tools

wisely• More iterative and immersive

Design Process

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Source: Jonathan Harris: We Feel Fine (www.wefeelfine.org)

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Source: Jonathan Harris: We Feel Fine (www.wefeelfine.org)

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Gaming Inspirations for Enterprise software

• Playfulness should either be helpful or at the very least not get in the way – should be contextual

• Use challenges, pleasant feedback (e.g. mission complete!), psychological payoffs (progress indicator showing 2 goals left)

• Performance based recognition (level up) for completing difficult tasks, if better than average time on task list

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Game Over (for now..)

• http://amitpande.com– Plan to write essay with additional

examples (www.braid-game.com, www.puzzlepirates.com)

• Presentation hosted at: www.slideshare.net/amitpande

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APPENDIX

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Design Patterns for Games

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Design Patterns - Usability

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1408/designing_usable_and_accessible_.php?print=1

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Design Patterns - Accessibility

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1408/designing_usable_and_accessible_.php?print=1

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Commentaries on games

• Quirky Games: Making Boring Tasks into Great Games

– http://hdrlying.com/2007/08/21/quirky-games-making-boring-tasks-into-great-games/

• Game Design Is ‘Just’ Specialized Interaction Design

– http://leapfrog.nl/blog/archives/2008/01/04/game-design-is-just-specialised-interaction-design/

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Game Design References• CHI 2008 Workshop “Evaluating User

Experiences in Games”– http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/chi2008uxgames/

• Game Feel: The Secret Ingredient – http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2322/

game_feel_the_secret_ingredient.php

• Game Design Fundamentals– http://www.metaplace.com/blog/24.html

• Game Design Links– http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/

clickableculture/entry/links_for_2008_02_09/

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Game Design References• Usability & Games – References

– http://www.webword.com/2006/02/23/usability-and-games-17-excellent-references/

• UI Design for Games– http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~soar/Classes/494/talks/

User-interfaces.pdf• Do Usability Expert Evaluation and Testing Provide

Novel and Useful Data For Game Development?– http://www.upassoc.org/upa_publications/jus/

2006_february/usability_game_development.html • What We Learned Evaluating the Usability of a Game

– http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0410-gameevaluation.html

• Challenge versus Usability in Games– http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/article/2004/07/

the-fight-of-challenge-vs-usability-in-games.html

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Mario motions that cause “feel”

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2322/game_feel_the_secret_ingredient.php?page=4