作者：Celia Hodent

虽然在电子游戏产业还是个新面孔，但是用户体验（UX）的确变得越来越流行，也因此引出了许多关于它的错误想法。我将在此尝试着纠正这些误解并告诉你UX其实就像朋友一样。

UX-invaders-copie(from gamasutra)

简单地解释来说，UX是关于目标用户是如何体验你的游戏（以及一些额外内容，如游戏下载，论坛咨询等等）。它使用了神经系统科学和心理学等知识并利用了游戏用户研究方法论（游戏邦注：如游戏测试与分析）去确保游戏拥有易用性且具有沉浸感（尽管我更倾向于说成游戏流）。

在考虑到我在游戏开发团队对于UX（或神经系统科学）的拥护，我想到自己经常需要处理5大关于UX的误解：

UX将扭曲美术/设计需求

UX只是一种常识

UX是另外一种观点

没有足够的时间/金钱去进行UX

UX与设计循环相分离

误解1—-UX将扭曲美术/设计需求

关于UX实践，游戏开发者所拥有的最大误解便是他们害怕UX会阻碍创造性或扭曲设计意图，甚至导致游戏变得更加简单。以下是我在解释如何使用UX指南时经常出现的一段对话：

游戏开发者：但是《黑暗之魂》呢？！

我：它怎么了？

游戏开发者：如果我们遵循了UX指南，那么所有游戏都会变得更简单，那么就不再存在硬核游戏了。你这样便等于抹杀掉《黑暗之魂》啊！

我：我们唯一需要抹杀掉的只有蹩脚的界面或糟糕的互动。所以请别担心，我们永远是你这边的！

UX实践的主要目的是提供给目标用户他们想要的体验。因此，如果你的用户是硬核玩家，那么你想呈现给他们的体验便会更加困难，而UX指南将帮助你实现这一目标。

更重要的是，UX的一大基础（易用性）便是关于减少摩擦以及不必要的挫折感。这并不是关于扭曲预期体验，因为这会影响另一个UX基础（即游戏流），简单地说也就是游戏的乐趣。

例如恐怖游戏《生化危机》。让我们假设用户研究者正在对这款游戏进行测试并考虑如下内容：玩家打开一个衣柜，从中跳出一个僵尸并向玩家发动进攻。大多数玩家都会往后退，但是关卡设计师却设置了一张桌子去阻碍玩家逃跑，所以玩家便会惊恐地尝试着四处乱窜。如果游戏想要的体验是吓倒玩家，那么UX专家便不会建议设计师删除这一桌子。UX专家将会与设计师进行讨论并根据游戏体验去决定这是否是该处理的问题。

误解2—-UX只是一种常识

是的，这并没错了，UX反馈可能是一些关于你已经知道的问题。至少我认为只有拥有足够的尝试和人类与计算机之间的互动的相关知识你才能够预见一些问题。然而我们往往总是在事后才意识到常识问题。这便是源于所谓的事后偏见。许多游戏在发行时都带有“常识”UX问题（例如当玩家在与某些内容进行互动时缺少反馈或只有一些无用的反馈）。因为开发者经常会漏掉它们，所以这并不是必要的内容。因为这些问题都不是特别重要，所以我们往往会暂时搁置它们，除非已经太晚了。有时候它们也是一种预期的权衡方法，如果能够尽早解决的话便能够将其根治。有时候开发者因为已经熟悉了它们所以不再将其当成新玩家的摩擦点。

并非所有UX建议都是常识。人类大脑中总是充满感觉，认知与社交偏见，并且它们会同时影响着开发者与玩家们。这也是为何来自各个领域的研究者都会使用标准化的方案去测试他们的假设；这也是为何我们很容易错失或曲解事情，例如当我们在测试《Fortnite》（游戏邦注：来自Epic Games的一款行动/建造游戏），玩家有时候会抱怨游戏中常见的敌人太小导致他们不能精确地瞄准并射击敌人。如果我们采纳了这一反馈，我们可能会决定放大角色的体型。相反地，我们考虑到一些特定的限制因素而尽可能严格地去测试了这一假设，并发现在控制状态下玩家其实可以轻松射中敌人，甚至是在远距离奔跑的情况下。实际上，之所以会出现瞄不中的问题是当敌人处于障碍周围时，路径代码会导致他们使用意想不到的转动角度。

感觉是大脑的一个结构。而UX将帮助你更快速且更精确地识别出真正的问题。

误解3—-UX是另外一种观点

游戏开发者必须处理各种观点：包括游戏团队内部，市场营销团队，发行团队，执行团队等等。因此他们可以将UX反馈当成是必须处理的另外一种观点。你可能会觉得这太烦人了！然而UX过程能够帮助你通过严格的研究去测试假设并通过分析去预见问题所在。UX专家并不会提供观点，他们会基于大脑中的知识，过往的经验以及可行数据提供给你相关分析。没错，我们并不总是拥有足以支持假设的明确数据，有时候我们也会在一些新情况下做出猜测。然而，UX的魅力便在于我们能在发现问题的根源前快速测试假设并想出最佳方法去解决它。在后期我们会发现问题变得更加难以进行测试。在这种情况下，我们便可以小心地探索一些未知领域。将UX建议当成医生所提供的建议：就像医生会建议你多吃点蔬菜。有些人可以无需遵循任何饮食建议而活得健健康康，也有些人即使拥有非常健康的生活方式还是饱受疾病的困扰。但不管怎样，数据都告诉我们吃蔬菜能够帮助我们获得更健康且更长寿。

这也是为何处理UX反馈应该先于处理其它反馈。如果做得适当的话，这一反馈将是最没有偏见的，并且能够提供给你来自中立视角的建议，并基于你的目标用户给予你适当的建议。

误解4—-没有足够的时间/金钱去进行UX

创造游戏很困难。通常情况下，开发者总是缺少足够的资源去进行UX实践。他们没有实验室也没有各种各样的博士学位能够获得UX专家的帮忙。实际上，如果你是只通过自己的视角去创造游戏且从未进行测试，你便会因为太晚发现问题并且没有足够的钱去修复问题而遭遇失败。大多数开发者都会在完成QA测试后才发行游戏，因为我们都知道糟糕的漏洞对于一款游戏的破坏性有多大。而发行一款带有UX问题的游戏也急剧破坏力。

不要问自己是否有能力去考虑UX，而是问自己是否能够承担忽视UX的后果。

即使你没有能力聘请一名心理学家，用户研究者或一家昂贵的实验室，你也能够确保自己掌握用户视角并利用身边那些不了解游戏的人去测试游戏设计。这能够帮助你更快地找出问题，如此你便可以更快且更好地进行迭代，你的游戏也就能够提供很棒的体验从而更好地取悦用户（从而能够赚到更多钱而让你可以创造下一款游戏）。在执行功能前你可以先从纸上原型开始，去识别最大的问题所在，因为这是一种很廉价的迭代方式。这也是UX设计师所采用的方法：纸上原型能够测试初级用户，然后再使用互动原型再次进行测试。最后，他们将执行一个功能版本，并再测试几次，而当明确了互动后，美术师便能够将其绘制出来。这看似非常冗长乏味，但却是一种非常廉价且能够帮助你更快且更有效地进行迭代的方法。我敢保证你不仅能够省下许多时间和金钱，同时也能够为玩家创造出更吸引人的体验。

误解5—-UX与设计循环相分离

可能是因为之前的误解，UX经常被当成是与设计循环相分离的内容。并且人们经常认为是只有用户研究者或心理学家才会关心的事。在这种情况下，开发团队将会在一个封闭的循环中进行迭代（有时候会利用来自市场营销或执行部的输入内容）。另一方面，UX专家总是想要尽早测试游戏，进行互动循环，并确保最初添加的功能是能够呈现预期体验的重要内容。所以他们会转向核心团队并询问他们是否能够开始进行测试与协作。通常情况下他们获得的答案都是：“不行！你疯了吗？还没准备好呢！它们简直乱七八糟！”这里所存在的危险在于游戏测试被拖到很晚，从而导致开发者们不得不在游戏发行前仍在修补补丁。

我们可以尽早测试或评估一些内容。你应该相信UX专家能够帮助你识别出一些问题：在工作室中UX应该是所有成员都应该考虑的事宜。UX专家只能够引导你在适当的时间问出适当的问题并找出测试你的假设的方法。有时候在做出关于结构等重要决定之后我们便不能再进行“UX”了。

结论

UX实践能够帮助你明确你想要提供给特定用户的体验。它能够帮助你避免一些“知识偏差的出现”，即当你认为自己创造出了一款很棒的游戏且不再看到任何新玩家可能会遇到的问题时。

比起任何其它内容，UX更像是一种哲理，即关于我们从以自尊为中心的角度转向使用真正具有科学性的方法。这并不是让你忘记从玩家的角度出发，而是教会你如何变得更加“慷慨”。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

5 Misconceptions about UX (User Experience) in Video Games

by Celia Hodent

UX Invaders: We Come In Peace!

User Experience (UX) is becoming very trendy albeit fairly new in the video game industry, so there are still a lot of misconceptions regarding what it is (and what it’s not). I will try to tackle these misconceptions and convince you – if need be – that UX is indeed your friend.

To explain it in a nutshell, UX explores how it is like for the target audience (the players) to experience your game (and everything beyond, such as downloading the game, consulting forums, etc.). It uses neuroscience and psychology knowledge and applies game user research methodologies (e.g. playtests and analytics) to make sure that the game has good usability and is immersive (although I prefer to refer to it as gameflow).

When thinking about my experience advocating for UX (or neuroscience) in a game development team, there are 5 main misconceptions about UX I very frequently need to address:

UX will distort artistic / design intents

UX is just common sense

UX is yet another opinion

There’s not enough time / money for UX

UX is separated from the design loop

Misconception #1 – UX will distort artistic / design intents

The biggest misconception game developers have regarding UX practices is that they fear UX will hamper their creativity or distort the design intents or just make the game easier. Here is an example of a dialogue I’ve often had when explaining how to use UX guidelines:

GAME DEV: But!? What about Dark Souls?!!

ME: What about it?

GAME DEV: If we all follow UX guidelines, then all games are going to be friction-less and easy to play and hardcore games won’t exist anymore. You’re gonna kill Dark Souls!

ME: The only thing we want to kill is crappy interfaces or shitty interactions. So relax, we’re on your side!

The main purpose of UX practices is to offer the experience intended to the targeted audience. Therefore, if your audience is hardcore gamers and the experience you want for them is suffering, then UX guidelines will absolutely help you accomplish your sadistic goal. Hurray!

More seriously, one of the UX pillar – usability – is about removing friction and unwanted frustration. It’s not about distorting the intended experience, because this would affect the second UX pillar – gameflow – which is in a nutshell about how enjoyable and “fun” the game is.

For example,consider a horror game like Resident Evil. Let’s say that a user researcher is conducting a playtest with this game and observes the following: the players open a closet and a zombie surprisingly pops out of it to attack them. Most players observed try to move backwards but a table left by a vicious level designer is blocking their escape, so they panic trying to move around it. Well, if the experience intended by that game is to freak people out, then UX professionals are not likely to suggest to the designer to remove the table. The UX expert will discuss this “flag” with the designers and together they will define if it is an issue to address or not, depending on the experience intended.

We are here to help the developers convey their vision. So please do not fear us!

Misconception #2 – UX is just common sense

Yes, it’s true; UX feedback is probably going to highlight issues you already know about. Well, at least I’m hoping you have enough common sense and Human-Computer Interaction knowledge yourself to anticipate some problems. However, it’s always easier to spot common sense problems after the fact (that’s why it’s sooooo easy to criticize shipped games…). That’s actually because of a cognitive bias called the hindsight bias. Many games ship with “common sense” UX issues (e.g. no or poor feedback when the player is interacting with something). It’s not necessarily because the developers missed them. Sometimes it’s because the issues are minor so we let them be until later, except that at some point it’s too late, we’re in a rush to ship, so the issues stay there. Sometimes, they are intended trade-offs that could maybe have been solved if tackled earlier. Also, sometimes, the developers get used to them and cease to see them as a friction points as experienced by a new player.

Not all UX recommendations are common sense though. The human brain is filled with perception, cognitive, and social biases that affect both the developers and the players (here are only a few examples of cognitive biases if you’re curious). It’s for a reason that researchers from any field use very standardized protocols to test their hypotheses; and that’s because it’s very easy to miss or misinterpret what’s going on. For example, when we were testing Fortnite (an action/building game from Epic Games), players would sometimes complain that the common enemies in the game were too small so they couldn’t precisely aim and shoot them. If we had taken this feedback for granted we could have made the wrong decision to increase the size of the characters. Instead, we tested this hypothesis with as much rigor as possible given our specific constraints (game studios are no science labs) and we saw that in a controlled situation the players actually didn’t have problems shooting at the enemies, even when running at a good distance from the player. In fact, the aiming problems occurred when the enemies were going around obstacles; the pathing code was making them use a very sharp and unexpected turn angle.

Perception is a construction of the brain. UX will help you figure out faster and more precisely what the real problems are. You can check out my GDC 2015 talk to learn more about how neuroscience and psychology can impact design.

Misconception #3 – UX is yet another opinion

Game developers have to deal with many opinions; from within the game team, marketing team, publishing team, executive team, etc. They can therefore perceive UX feedback as yet another opinion they have to deal with. You might think, this is so annoying! However, UX processes are meant to test hypotheses through rigorous research and anticipate problems through analysis. UX experts do not give opinions, they provide an analysis based on their knowledge of the brain, past experience, and data when it’s available. True, we don’t always have clear data to back us up and we sometimes make educated guesses while in new situations. However, the beauty of UX is that we can quickly test our hypotheses until we find what is causing a problem and the best way to fix it. Also, we can anticipate problems that are harder to test until very late in the process. In that case, we carefully explore uncharted territories, for the brain, just like video games, is a very complex beast. Think about UX recommendations as doctor recommendations: we tell you to eat your vegetables. Yep, some people can live old and healthy without following a recommended diet, while others can be affected by terrible diseases even if they have a healthy lifestyle. However, overall, statistics tell us that eating vegetables will give us a greater chance to live longer and healthier.

That’s the reason why addressing UX feedback (through testing, expert review, analytics, etc.) should be prioritized over addressing feedback from other channels. If done correctly, this feedback is the least biased of all and will offer you recommendations from a neutral perspective, tailored for what you’re trying to accomplish (experience) and depending on your target audience (user).

Misconception #4 – There’s not enough time / money for UX

Making games is hard. Very often, developers don’t have a lot of resources to apply UX best practices. They don’t have a lab and they don’t have PhDs of sorts to provide them with UX expertise. However, the fact is, if you build up your game through only your perspective and if you never test anything, chances are that you will fail when it’s too late and too costly to recover. Most developers won’t ship a game before doing thorough QA testing, because we all understand how damaging a nasty bug can be for a game. Well, shipping a game with critical UX issues is just as damaging.

Don’t ask yourself if you can afford thinking about UX, ask yourself if you can afford not to.

Even if you cannot afford a psychologist, user researchers, or a fancy lab, you can make sure you regularly adopt your audience’s perspective and test your design with people around you that don’t know about it (the checklist model I describe in my GDC Europe 2014 presentation can help you). It will help you find problems sooner, so you’ll iterate faster and better, and your game will have more chances to delight your audience (therefore make more money, allowing you to make more games) by providing a great experience. You can even start with paper prototypes to identify the biggest issues before implementing the feature, when it’s very cheap to iterate. That’s what UX designers do (in a simplified version): paper prototypes which they test with naive users, then interactive prototypes which they test again. Lastly, they implement a functional (and usually ugly) version, test again a few times, then when the interaction is nailed down, artists can art it up and make it compelling (a last test will be needed to see if art is conflicting with functionality, as this can happen). It seems tedious, but it’s actually fairly cheap and will allow you to iterate much faster and more efficiently. I guarantee you that in the end you will have saved time and money while offering a more compelling experience to your players.

Misconception #5 – UX is separated from the design loop

Probably as a result of the previous misconceptions, UX is very often perceived as being separated from the design loop. It’s often seen as being the concern of user researchers or psychologists only. In that case, the dev team tends to iterate within a closed circle (sometimes taking input from marketing or executives). UX experts on the other hand will want to test the game early, do iterative cycles, and make sure that the features added first are truly the important ones given the desired experience. So they wave to the core team and ask if they can start testing and collaborating. Usually, the answer they receive is: “Nooooo! Are you crazy? It’s not ready yet! It’s broken, ugly … go away!”. The danger is that the game ends up being tested and evaluated too late, when only quick patches can be done before the game ships.

There’s always something that can be tested or evaluated, even early on. Trust your UX representatives to help you figure that out but make no mistake: UX should be a concern of everyone in the studio, not only the concern of a separate team. UX experts are only here to guide you to ask the correct questions at the right time and figure out a way to test your hypotheses. We don’t “UX this” at some point after the architecture and important decisions about the game are made.

To conclude …

UX practices are here to help you nail the experience you want to offer to a specific audience. It will help you avoid the “curse of knowledge” that happens when you know the game you’re building too well and cease to see the problems a new player will experience.

User Experience is a philosophy more than anything else, it’s all about shifting from our ego-centered perspective and instead using a scientific approach. It’s about not forgetting to have empathy for our audience, and being generous.(source:gamasutra)