Yonatan Shaham
UX improvements, user testing
Today I focused on user experience (UX) improvements.
The first improvement originated from quick user testing I did earlier this week: a user expected to see something on the screen around the player avatar when they buy or sell something. They offered an animation of popping coins. This type of animation is very excepted in games these days.
So I created a simple animation each time the player makes a transaction:
- When the player buys a resource, a coin drops down and the resource pops up.
- When the player sell a resource, a coin pops up and the resource drops down.
The second is adding sound effects. Until now there was only one sound effect of moving around, with a sound of foot steps.
Sound effects are extremely important for game user-experience, as they significantly increase the fill of the player that their actions (inputs) result in real consequences (outputs) in the game world.
I added sound effect for:
- Selling
- Buying
- Eating
For the eating sound a chose a very prominent chowing sound. It helps the player understand the importance of eating and food management in the game.
I also did quick user testing. You can never over estimate the importance of user testing when developing something. Do as many as you can and as often as you can.
The user testing took 3 minutes and yielded two important insights:
- The WASD controls are not comfortable for some users. Try to make mouse controls for moving.
- Users don't understand that the fragmented road is a road, so they don't look for the other village at the end of it. I tried to create a worn road, so it can be upgraded later. Need to make a continues road.
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