User experience goals	Explanation
Satisfying	Whether the users desire about playing the game is fulfilled by the application
Enjoyable	Whether the user enjoys the application when they play the game.
Engaging	Whether the application is communicating with the user in guiding the user with his steps.
exciting	Whether the user is excited about using this application to play the game
Entertaining	Whether the application is considered by the user as an entertainment tool to spend the leisure time.
Rewarding	Whether the application encourages the user by providing rewards.
Fulfilling	Whether the user’s expectation about the game is fulfilled by the application
Memorable	Whether the steps involved to play the game in the application is easy to remember
Challenging	Whether the game is challenging to the user
Relaxing	Whether the application makes the user relax from the stressful day
Comforting	Whether the application provides comfort to the user when he or she is playing
fun	Whether the application is fun to use.

1.3.           Overview of Donald Norman’s design principles

Donald Norman’s design principles are visibility, feedback, constraints, mapping, consistency and affordability. The explanation of Donald Norman’s design principles is provided in table 3.

Table 3: Explanation of Donald Norman’s design principles

Donald Norman’s design principles	Explanation
Visibility	Visibility mainly focusing on designing an application that provides the required functionalities in a visible format that the user can find and use without much effort (Lee et al., 2017).
Feedback	The system provides detail information with the performance and guidelines to its users are known as feedback (Norman, 1983).
Constraints	The system should limit user interaction with the system to simplify the interface design of the application (McArthur and Graham, 2015).
Mapping	The mapping is a clear relationship with the application images and icons and the real-world significance (Lanter, and Essinger, 2017)
Consistency	The application design is consistent with other applications, so the skills learnt from other application can be used by the user in this application (Goldsby et al., 2014).
affordability	The application should provide clues and guidelines to the user to use the application is known as affordance (Norman, 1983).

2.0.        Overview of the game ‘Snake & Ladder Run.’

2.1.           A brief overview of the game

This game was designed for users to play snake and ladder through a computer. It provides three different ways the user can play snake and ladder which are against a computer, against another player offline and against another player online.

2.2.           Features of the applications

Some of the features of the game are provided below:

• Feature 1: The game home screen should be able to allow the user to select play with the computer, play multiplayer and play online (See figure 1).

Figure 1: Homepage of the application

• Feature 2: The user can play against the computer by rolling the dice See figure 2).

Figure 2: Player against the computer

• Feature 3: The user can play against the other player offline. Both players should be physically presented together play this game (See figure 3).

Figure 3: Player against a player

• Feature 4: The user can play against the other user online by signing into the application using Facebook (See figure 4).

Figure 4: Login screen

• Feature 5: The application will automatically search for users to play against online. This provides an opportunity to play with people who are far from each other. (See figure 5).

Figure 5: Selecting the online player to play

• Feature 6: The logged-in user can logout from the application.

3.0.        The methodology used for the evaluation

To understand the user experience of the game application named ‘Snake & Ladder Run’, 10 participants were selected who already have an iPhone and have an interest in playing the game. Moreover, out of 10 applicants, 7 of them know the rules of snake and ladder game and other 3 participants were not aware of the rules of the game. The sheet with the usability goals was provided for them to rate as well as provide their comments. The sheet given to the participants are provided in appendix A. The results received were analysed and summaries to provide the final draft of the evaluation as well as the recommendations to improve the user experience of the game application.

4.0.        Evaluation of the game against usability goals

The evaluation of the game against the usability goals are provided in table 5.

Table 5: The evaluation of the game against the usability goals

Usability goals	Evaluation	Recommendation required?
Effective to use	The game application is designed in a simple layout, which allows the user to identify what he or she is looking for. However, the login to the application has only Facebook and do not have any other option to sign in. This is a drawback because not everybody has Facebook.	Yes (Recommendation 1)
Efficient to use	The game application has less graphical content which makes the application load fast. Also, when the user presses the dice to roll, the application performs the function in a quick time without making the user to wait for the response.	No
Safe to use	The game application does not use other applications such as GPS, contacts, photo gallery and so on. However, it uses Facebook and the login approval is done not in the application but in the Facebook page. Also, only the profile name is used in the application from Facebook and not any other information, so there is no concern about data integrity.	No
Has good utility	The application is useful for people who are interested in playing snake and ladder game.	No
Easy to learn	The application is simple, with fewer functionalities. Therefore, it is easy for the user to understand the application easily. However, there is no assistance or help icon to support the new users about the steps involved in playing the game as well as its rules.	Yes (Recommendation 2)
Easy to remember how to use	The application is simple and has fewer steps involved to play the game, which ensure that the user should be able to remember how to use the application to play the game.	No

 

5.0.        Evaluation of the game against user experience goal

The evaluation of the game against the user experience goal is provided in table 6.

Table 6: The evaluation of the game against the user experience goal

User experience goals	Evaluation	Recommendation required?
Satisfying	The game application is not satisfying because the player piece in the snake and ladder board is not moving as expected. For example, the piece on the board is not moving to the correct block on the board  (see figure 6) and when the piece reaches the mouth of the snake, it did not come down to the tail (See figure 7).	Yes (Recommendation 3)
Enjoyable	The game is enjoyable	No
Engaging	The game is engaging. For example, the winner is displayed (See Figure 8), which player must play next (See Figure 3), waiting for the online player to join (See Figure 5) and so on. but can have voice engagement with the user.	Yes (Recommendation 4)
exciting	The game application is not exciting. The game does not have different types of snake and ladder boards or even the background music of the game.	Yes (Recommendation 5)
Entertaining	The game is not that entertaining because the application does not have much features such as different play boards, different levels and so on.	Yes (Recommendation 5, 7 and 8)
Rewarding	The game is not rewarding. There is no reward or moving to a next level motivation is not available	Yes (Recommendation 7, 10)
Fulfilling	The game is not fulfilling the expectation of the user because the application has bugs in its functionalities.	Yes (Recommendation 3)
Memorable	The application is simple, so it is easy to use. Therefore, it is considered memorable to use the application again.	No
Challenging	The application is not challenging because there are no global tournaments, not many online users available and no increase in the levels to improve the hardness of the game.	Yes (Recommendation 7,8 and 10)
Relaxing	The game application is relaxing because it is not complex and easy to use.	No
Comforting	The game is also comforting because of the colour combination which is pleasant and not hurting the eyes.	No
fun	The game is boring because there is no options or motivations available for the user to enjoy.	Yes (Recommendation 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10)

 

Figure 6: The piece of both players is not moving accurately on the board.

Figure 7: The piece reaches the mouth of the snake it did not come down to the tail

Figure 8: the winner is displayed

6.0.        Evaluation of the game against Donald Norman’s design principles

The evaluation of the game against Donald Norman’s design principles is provided in table 7.

Table 7: The evaluation of the game against Donald Norman’s design principles

Donald Norman’s design principles	Evaluation	Recommendation required?
Visibility	The visibility of the application is very good. Because the buttons and fonts of the applications are big.	No
Feedback	The application is providing some feedback like which players chance to roll the dice (See figure 3), the winner of the game (See figure 8), what is the number received from rolling the dice (See figure 9), and whether the number received from rolling the dice is big to finish the game (See figure 10). However, the feedback should be enhanced by implementing voice feedback.	Yes (Recommendation 4)
Constraints	The application limited the user interaction by providing fewer options for the user which reduce the excitement for the user to use the application. Currently, the application has too simple and limited. For example, the logging into the system is only possible through Facebook which is definitely a limitation.	Yes (Recommendation 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8)
Mapping	The application provides icons and images that have the same meaning as the real world. For example, the dice looks like the real-world dice (See figure 3), and the Facebook login has the Facebook icon as a button (See figure 4).	No
Consistency	The game design is consistent with other applications.	No
Affordability	The application does not provide any clues or guidelines for the user.	Yes (Recommendation 2)

 

Figure 9:what is the number received from rolling the dice

Figure 10: whether the number received from rolling the dice is big to finish the game

7.0.        Recommendation to improve the interface design

The recommendations to improve the user experience the game application is provided below:

Recommendation 1: The game application login screen should provide several options for the user to login which are google+ account to sign in, and register directly into the application to login. The suggested user design for the login screen to play the online game is provided in figure 11.

Figure 11: The suggested user design for the login screen to play the online game (Prototype design)

Recommendation 2: The application should have a help button which provides the game rules and how it should be played in the application. The location of the help button in the home screen is provided in figure 12.

Figure 12: Low fidelity design to place a help button on the homepage

Recommendation 3: The functionality of the application should be implemented correctly without any errors. Also, the system needs to be tested to ensure that it is reliable. Some of the errors identified that need to be fixed are:

• The piece on the board is not moving to the correct block on the board (see figure 6)
• When the piece reaches the mouth of the snake it did not come down to the tail (See figure 7).

Recommendation 4: The application should implement voice response to the user to improve the communication with the user/s.

Recommendation 5: The game should provide options for the user to select the different designs of the snake and ladder board, and background music.

Recommendation 6: The game should provide an option for the user to mute the background sound and music.

Recommendation 7: The game should provide different levels to encourage or motivate users to continue playing.

Recommendation 8: The online tournaments should be created by the application to provide challenges and entertainment to the users.

Recommendation 9: The application should allow the user to view the online players available online to play and should also allow them to select the user they prefer.

Recommendation 10: The application should provide a badge for the users when they pass a specific lever. For example, if the user passes the level 25 then browns badge.

8.0.        Conclusion and future works

In conclusion, the user experience of the game application name ‘Snake & Ladder Run’ is very low. The user experience was collected against the usability goals, user experience goals and Donald Norman’s design principles. This report provided valuable recommendations to improve the user experience of the game application.

The suggested future works for this report are listed below:

• Take more participants to get their experience and comments about the application.
• Design a high-level fidelity prototype for the new suggested user design of the application.

References

Butler, K.A., 1985, April. Connecting theory and practice: a case study of achieving usability goals. In ACM SIGCHI Bulletin (Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 85-88). ACM.

Goldsby, M.G., Kuratko, D.F. and Nelson, T., 2014. 10. Design-centered entrepreneurship: a process for designing opportunities. Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy _ 2014, p.200.

Kaasinen, E., Roto, V., Hakulinen, J., Heimonen, T., Jokinen, J.P., Karvonen, H., Keskinen, T., Koskinen, H., Lu, Y., Saariluoma, P. and Tokkonen, H., 2015. Defining user experience goals to guide the design of industrial systems. Behaviour & Information Technology, 34(10), pp.976-991.

Lanter, D. and Essinger, R., 2017. User?Centered Design. The International Encyclopedia of Geography.

Lee, C.S., Chan, S.W.L. and Guy, S.Y., 2017. Socially-enhanced variants of mobile bingo game: Towards personalized cognitive and social engagement among seniors.

McArthur, J.A. and Graham, V.J., 2015. User-experience design and library spaces: a pathway to innovation?. Journal of Library Innovation, 6(2), pp.1-14.

Norman, D.A., 1983, December. Design principles for human-computer interfaces. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-10). ACM.

Last updated: Mar 29, 2020 06:57 PM

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