Lightbown Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4822-4021-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 188 Seiten

Most tools developers want to improve the user experience but are not given the time, lack the techniques, or don’t know where to begin.Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools addresses these issues to empower tools developers to make positive steps toward improving the user experience of their tools.

The book explains how to improve the user experience of game development tools. The first part of the book details the logic behind why the user experience of game tools must be improved. The second part introduces the concept of user-centered design, a process that revolves around understanding people’s goals, watching them work, learning the context in which they work, and understanding how they think.

Ideal for anyone who makes, uses, or benefits from game development tools, the book presents complex concepts in a manner that is accessible to those new to user experience design. The book illustrates many proven concepts and techniques using before-and-after examples from tools development to supply you with the real-world understanding you need to become a better game developer. It also describes how to get buy-in from your team.

Although concepts have been simplified to make the information more easily accessible, the text includes resources in the footnotes if you want more details.

The book includes access to a companion website, www.UXofGameTools.com, that contains the latest revisions for the book as well as contact information. You can also follow the official Twitter account @UXofGameTools to see the latest updates and articles related to the improvement of the user experience.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lightbown, David

Fachgebiete

• Mathematik | Informatik EDV | Informatik Programmierung | Softwareentwicklung Spiele-Programmierung, Rendering, Animation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The Big Green Button
My Story
Who Should Read this Book?
Companion Website and Twitter Account
Before we Begin

Welcome to Designing the User Experience of Game Development Tools
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
What Is This Book About?
Defining User Experience
The Value of Improving the User Experience of Our Tools
Parallels Between User Experience and Game Design
How Do People Benefit From an Improved User Experience?
Finding the Right Balance
Wrapping Up

The User-Centered Design Process
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
What Is the User-Centered Design Process?
The Phases of the User-Centered Design Process
The Power of Pre-Visualization
Getting to a Better User Experience Faster
Integrating the User-Centered Design Process into Agile
Who Has the Time to Do All of This?
Wrapping Up

What Does It Mean to Be User-Centered?
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
Start With the Users
Focus on the Right Users
Features Versus Goals
Do One Thing Really Well
Choose the Right Features
Wrapping Up

Analysis
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
The Importance of Watching Users Work
Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
Understanding the Mental Model
Interview Stakeholders
Perform Contextual Analyses
Create Task Flows
Discover the Users Mental Model
Establish Measurements
Advanced Techniques
Wrapping Up

Design
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
How the Brain and the Eyes Work Together
Visual Language
Interaction Patterns
Hierarchy
Constraints
Natural Mapping
Representation
Feedback
Feed-Forward
Grouping
Chunking
Excise
Progressive Disclosure
Wrapping Up

Evaluation
What Will We Learn in This Chapter?
How Do We Evaluate the Design?
Choosing Between Code or Pre-Visualization
Pre-Visualize the Interface
Perform a Heuristic Evaluation
Do User Tests
Wrapping Up

Back to Analysis
Deja Vu
Comparing Measurements

Real-World User-Centered Design
Introduction
The Process in Action
Calculating the Return on Investment

Conclusion
Summary
Closing word

Works Cited & Recommended Reading
Trademarks

Über Autor(innen)

After spending most of his formative years in his parents’ basement trying to clone 8-bit console games on an Apple IIGS, David Lightbown got a job in the games industry. Since then, he has dedicated the majority of his career to working on content creation tools and pipelines.

In addition to contributing to a variety of games as a technical director, David has delivered presentations at the Game Developers Conference, Montreal International Game Summit, and SIGGRAPH, in various cities within Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He has also collaborated with Autodesk to create product reviews, training manuals, tutorial videos, and masterclasses. In 2010, he received the Autodesk Master Award for his contributions to the 3D community.

David currently holds the title of technical director at Ubisoft Montreal.