Senior UX Designer, but not enough experience in the video game industry

While having an almost lifelong interest in video games, contemplating a future career in this industry and seeing an increase of UX positions at video game companies, I wanted to get some experience in video game usability. However, getting experience without being in the industry can get tricky. The infamous catch-22.

Where to start?‍

After some desk research on video game UX I discovered that this community is quiet small and only a few Youtubers would sometimes talk about this topic. I quickly discovered the website of IGDA Games Research and User Experience Special Interest Group (GRUX SIG) and Games User Research where I read the article of Steve Bromley "How to get games user research experience" where I was able to take inspiration from his process.

Finding game projects

Because I don't know people in my network who are working on a video game to collaborate on I had to look online to find projects to work on. A good place to start is the /playtesters community on Reddit.

When selecting a project to collaborate on it had to meet the following criteria:

1. The game had to be accessible to me to play since I've only got a mobile phone available with the capacity to run games. I've also got a laptop but it not suitable for modern and more demanding games.

2. Familiarity with the genre. This makes the analysis easier when empathizing with the end user of the game.

3. There is still room for additional development on the game and it is not in its final stages yet. This makes the likelihood of the usability issues and subsequent recommendations in this report making it into the final product higher. However, this is ultimately up to the game designer.

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Collaborating with the game designer and running the analysis

Once I found a suitable project that met above criteria and there was a connection with the game designer willing to collaborate on the project, everything was discussed in order to be ready to start with the analysis. Once everything was discussed and the purpose of the usability study was set, it's output including recommendations an important distinction was made between an usability analysis and game design review. I used my own mobile phone for the analysis.

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Key findings report

The analysis showed 1 usability issue with high severity, 6 usability issues with medium severity and 15 usability issues with low severity. The usability issue with high severity was related to the responsiveness of player movement. Some issues with medium severity were related to app permissions, unclear feedback, repetition of unnecessary acts, visual- and legibility issues.

Handover to game designer

Once the usability analysis was completed it was send to the game designer. Early impressions were positive and the game designer went on to process the issues immediately.

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Future

The game designer is currently processing the usability issues. I'll keep adding to this page as the project moves forward.