Usability & Games – RPS interviews Jason Schklar
Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently interviewed Jason Schklar, a freelance usability consultant working in the games biz, which is interesting because one hardly gets to read about usability work in the game development business (and i just happen to be profoundly interested in both usability and game design). I suppose one of the reasons that usability work doesn’t feature very prominently in game development is that the whole field is primarily concerned with creating pleasure and satisfaction in the first place (as opposed to most other areas of software engineering) and therefore there’s a lot of overlap between a game producer’s primary objectives and a usability expert’s. Aside from that, other typical usability measures such as efficiency and effectiveness don’t apply to games too well. Both efficiency and effectiveness are obviously important where a game’s interface and user interaction are concerned, but when it comes to game mechanics, efficiency might translate into a lack of depth and complexity. I suppose it must be difficult to carve out one’s niche as a gaming usability expert between game producers, designers, and the whole QA playtesting department.
See also: Jason Schklar’s weblog.
Related: Today’s RPS Sunday Papers brings a link to Darwinia’s Usability Report – brief but interesting read, very informal.
Related: The Silent Revolution Of Playtests part 1 & part 2 @Gamasutra.
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