failing gracefully: lessons learned from catan for xbla
TRANSCRIPT
July 21-23 2009 Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Failing gracefully: Lessons from Catan for XBLA
Jason Schklar / Initial Experience Consultinge: [email protected] / t: @jackalshorns
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Settlers of Catan has been playtested...
2
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
As a board game, it’s popular and fun
• Easy to teach new players in a social setting
3
• Core mechanic: Trading is fluid and engagingCreative Commons Credit
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
User experience challenges for Catan Live
4
• Easy to learn solo?– Trial version is Single
Player Only
• Trade still fluid & fun?– Trading around a
table is easy– Trading via a UI
presents challenges
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Our approach: Rapid Iterative User-testing
• Start with our best guesses
5
• Validate and improve via rapid iterative user-testing
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Tip #1: Watch users struggle and fail...
6
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
It’s OK to torture your users
... so you can design the game to allow customers to learn by failing gracefully
• Allowed us to bullet-proof the tutorial– Stacking the deck– Tweaking opponent AI to be forgiving
7
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
It’s all good... Sun Tzu plays nice
8
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Tip #2: Calibrate assumptions with users...
• Watching cards dealt slowly, one at a time
9
• Watching the 14th person in 3 days “Try for a Road”
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
It’s OK to torture your self
... because users experience the game very differently than the developers
• Prevented us from “overfixing” the game– Default vs. Advanced settings– Novice vs. Expert learning curve
10
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Tip #3: Be willing and able to experiment...
11
• Is it neckties with animations?
• Or asymmetrical arrows pointing to and from avatars?
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
Find the difference that makes a “difference”
... because sometimes even silly experiments can yield amazing results
• If you are set up correctly, you can experiment– Lead designer/developer coding while we observed– Lead UI artist just an IM/phone convo away
• The results speak for themselves– Who could have predicted Arrows vs. Neckties?
12
July 21-23 2009Casual Connect Seattle 2009
User-testing Takeaways
• Set crisp user experience goals– Identify core components that MUST be fun– Identify challenges that MUST be overcome
• Set users up to fail: You’re paying them!– Don’t wait until you have a scripted tutorial– Don’t give them instructions or hand-holding
• Watch and learn from how users fail– Note whether they realize they’re failing– Note what they try to do when they’re failing
• Design the experience so users fail gracefully– Allow them to recover from honest mistakes– Ensure failure states are informative and encouraging
13