Chore System User Testing

Purpose

The user testing is designed to gather feedback about the chore system, which is aim to figure out:

• How users complete tasks in chores list
• Whether users are able to finish all tasks
• Whether tasks in the chores list are designed properly
• The consistency between chore objects and the game theme. (Visual aspect)

Methods

• Observation
• Interview

Testing plan

Process

1. Running the game
2. Let users complete tasks listed on the screen
3. Observe while users are doing the tasks
4. Conduct an interview after they have done all the tasks or the time-limited has been reached.

Interview Questions

1. How do you think of the difficulty of the tasks?
2. Do you think the design of the chores list is reasonable?
3. Do you think you can easily know where to complete tasks in the game?
4. Can you easily recognise objects you need to interact with?
5. How do you think of the animation of every animation for the chores system?
6. Do you think these objects are suitable for the 80s?

Evaluation

Noticed problems in Observation:

• Users felt lost in the first level.
• Bugs appeared for the task "Water the plants".
• Problems with picking up the trash

Feedback gathered from the interview:

1. The difficulty of tasks is set well.
2. The task "Drink an energy drink" did not make sense in the chore list.
3. Did not notice the backyard, and some objects were hard to find.
4. Some chore objects are hard to recognise, such as trash.
5. No feedback after a task was completed, but the yellow helped to recognise interactable objects.
6. Objects are suitable for the 80s.

Conclusion

Overall, users were able to notice the chore list at the top-right of the screen and tried to complete the listed tasks. When the task Water the Plants" appeared in the chore list, all users would fail that level. Tasks in the chore list are designed properly except drink an energy drink. The visual of chore objects are consistent with the game theme.

According to observation and interview responses, issues we need to discuss and resolve are:

• Fix the bug for task "Water the plants" (Would not be removed from the task list even users have finished this task).
• Consider adding highlights for trash objects.
• Reconsider the functionality of banana peel since it is more likely to be recognised as a trash object.
• Consider removing the task "Drink an energy drink" from the chore list and how users will interact with it.
• Feedback should be provided to users for usability. (Notification/Animation should be given to users after they complete a task).

Testing Results

User 1

Observation: When there were no tasks in the first level, The user walked for a long time and interacted with many things. But the player is more at a loss. After the prompt, interact with the bed to enter the second level. The user got stuck for a long time when trimming bushes in the task.

Interview:

1. The task is not that difficult, but I did not realize that there are some task objects outside the house.
2. I understand that this is to increase the difficulty of the game. But if you bring it into the background of the story, you don't really understand why you need to do these tasks, especially drinking energy drinks.
3. Hard for the tasks in the backyard.
4. In the task of cleaning up rubbish, the pictures of rubbish are small and not easy to notice, and the banana peel should be rubbish, but it cannot be interactive.
5. There is no animation when picking up the garbage, the garbage just disappears. I'm not sure if I have succeeded until I see the corresponding task in the chore list is completed. The yellow highlight is very helpful to me.
6. I am not sure that the dishwasher is suitable for the 80s.

User 2

Observation: In the task of picking up garbage, it took two or three interactions with the coke can to succeed (maybe because of the angle problem) and got stuck in the task of watering the plant. Completed the task after being prompted but expressed doubts.

Interview:

1. Some task is difficult because I can not find the object. Even if I get close to the object, there is no feedback that the object is interactable.
2. Should be reasonable because the game will be boring without the chore list.
3. Some of the task objects is hard to find and some are not incomprehensible. Why the animation of watering the plant is that the plant grows leaves. And the picture of the bush is not very similar.
4. As I just said, some items have a highlight, but some don't. It is difficult to find items without highlights.
5. In addition to the weird animation of watering plants, the animation of the dishwasher, I did not expect to press "E" several times to wash all the dishes. I thought it would be washed after pressing it once. I don't think there is any need to repeat the keys in this part.
6. Should be suitable, the designed texture looks old school.

User 3

Observation: The user was a bit lost in the first level and could not finish the task "Water the plants" after entering the second level. Every time this task appeared in the chore list, the user would have failed the game. Also, it was a bit hard for the user to recognise the trash object.

Interview:

1. The difficulty is good because it is increasing as the level increase.
2. All the tasks in chore lists except drinking an energy drink make sense to me, I don't understand why there was a chore saying have a drink.
3. The banana peel is a bit confusing because I thought it is trash, but it is not. And it is hard to find the trash.
4. Yes, it is easy for me to recognise.
5. I don't know whether I have done the task because there was no feedback and the animation just changed. But I like the dishwashing animation.
6. TV, sofas, beds matched the theme well. I really like the background music, by the way, it's a pixel game style.