ladiladi / ucd2020

Projects and tasks related to group work of course User-Centered Design 2020.

UCD2020 - Group G04 (K)

Projects and tasks related to group work of course User-Centered Design 2020.

Navigation

1. Team introductions
2. Design related websites
3. Chosen project
4. Data collection
5. Data analysis and interpretation
6. Prototypes
7. Evaluation with users
8. Conclusions

Group Schedule

Team introductions

• Manager – Tony Heikkilä (group management, task specific duties, publicity, reporting)
• Designer – Antti Auvinen (creates prototypes and mock-ups)
• Programmer and data capture – Jukka Arponen and Matti Auvinen(can add minimal functionality/interactivity, collects user data)
• Analyst – Juhana Ullgren (collects data and analyses data, creates actionable recommendations)

Jukka Arponen: My name is Jukka Arponen. I'm a 30 years old Masters Degree student at the University of Eastern Finland. I’ve worked as a software engineer for five years and I have a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering from Savonia University of applied science. I started my masters studies in 2019 and I’m looking forward to learning new things. My hobbies include going to the gym, playing board games and roleplaying games.

Tony Heikkilä: Hi, my name is Tony and this is my fourth year of studying Computer Science in Kuopio. I am 23 years old and my taken courses vary a lot - this might be because I am interested in multiple things OR that I cannot decide. I love martial arts (currently doing kickboxing) and my other hobbies include video games and programming. I also have two cats.

Antti Auvinen: Hi! My name is Antti and I started my Computer Science studies in 2015. I am 23 years old. My plan is to complete my Bachelor's degree this semester/summer. I am doing some Master's Degree courses this academic year, because I don't have many courses left for my bachelor's degree. My interests include exercising, reading, watching tv shows and movies, playing video games, learning about various things related to IT field and I also study Japanese. I have been to Japan for one academic year to do a minor. I'm planning to go back there for doing part of my Master's Degree. My interests in CS vary a lot but I'm interested in doing my Master's thesis about robotics or interactive design.

Juhana Ullgren: Hello there! I'm Juhana, 27 years old and I study computer science here in Kuopio. After getting my bachelor's degree in late 2018, my plan is to get my master's studies done and graduate this year. In computer science my interests are mainly in software development methodologies and my master's thesis topic is about agile methods in large software projects. My hobbies are playing guitar and bass, making music, jogging, biking, going to the gym and reading. 

Matti Auvinen: Hey, I'm Matti. I'm 23 and this is my fourth year studying Computer Science. There are quite a few different areas in CS that could be interesting but I have yet to settle on anything specific. UX is quite relevant and personal in that I sometimes stumble on some feature and can't help wondering why it wasn't done in a better way. My hobbies include working out, gaming, reading and I'm something of a movie buff.

Design related websites

We were tasked to list some design related websites:

• UXBlog - Blog created by Nicholas Tenhue. Provides articles, podcasts and resources for UX professionals.
• A List Apart - Articles about design, development and meaning of web content.
• DesignCourse - YouTube channel. Free graphic design courses for front-end development. Tips for UI design.
• UX Planet - Blog for everything related to user experience.
• Usability.gov - Articles related to user-centered design and usability.
• Antony C's Youtube Channel - UI/UX videos.
• NN group's Youtube Channel - UX videos.
• David Travis' Youtube Channel - Short videos about usability and user experience.
• UsabilityGeek - Articles about usability and user experience written by professionals in the field.
• Learn UI Design - Blog about UI Design.
• Designmodo - UX Design articles.
• AJ&Smart - Youtube channel about UX / UI Design.
• UserTesting - A User Testing & Customer Experience Blog.
• WalkMe Blog - Top User Experience Articles.
• UX Booth - Different design articles, for example about interface design.
• Bonus: Top 18 blogs every UX pro should follow

Chosen project

We chose our topic to concern Menu comparisons and designs solutions. This seemed suitable topic for us since we have noticed a lot interesting, challenging and great menus in practice. We want to compare different menu designs on video game digital distribution platforms. The most well-known examples of these platforms are Steam (Valve), Origin (EA), Epic Games Store (Epic Games) and GOG (CD Project). We found Epic Games Store's user interface and menus lacking many features that the other stores currently have. We want to also analyze the value of simplicity in store platforms and how oversimplifying can have negative effect on the user experience. Here are the links to the platforms' webpages:

• Epic Games Store
• Steam
• Origin
• https://www.gog.com

We think that many users and possible survey participants have had experience at least with some of these platforms, thus giving as a reasonable amount of data to make conclusions and new menu designs.

Data collection

Due to current situation with the COVID-19 quarantine we decided that the data gathering should be done remotely. The first interviewing is done with Google Forms, where a user can answer our questions freely on their own time, wherever and whenever they want. This low threshold questionnaire hopefully grants us more than few participants so more in-depth analysis can be done. Google Forms is used as a platform widely, so the page/format is probably familiar to the participants. We plan to share the form to other Computer Science students and to our friends. Assuming everyone from our project group invites at least two of their friends to participate, we plan to have at least ten participants.

Link to our Google Form

We decided to ask participants' sex and age to see differences in taste and user experiences in different demographics. We are planning to use this to create our two user personas later on. The participants are also asked on which platform they play games. We wanted to see if this has any effect on the feature selection (later on the questionnaire), since most of the digital distribution platforms operate on Windows platform. Users were also asked whether they had used Epic Games Store earlier and how they would rate this user experience. Other video game digital platforms were also introduced in the questionnaire and the users were asked to select the ones they had used.

Lastly, users were asked to select 5 features that they valued the most or wanted to be added to Epic Games Store. The features listed are either listed on Epic Games Store's Roadmap Trello link or are already implemented in other video game online platforms (Steam). We seek to find some insights from the user experiences to make improved designs of the Epic Games Store UI. The data collection will take 1-2 weeks maximum, so we have time for analysis and creating mockups.

Features available for selection:

• 3rd Party Keys
• Account Sharing
• Achievements
• Big Picture / TV Mode
• Broadcasting
• Cloud Saves
• Curation/Curators
• DRM Free Support
• Early Access
• Forums
• Friends List and Chat
• Gifting
• Groups
• Inventory Sorting
• Library Sorting
• Linux Support
• Marketplace / Item Trading
• Mod Distribution Workshop
• Offline Play
• Overlay
• Player Count Data
• Refunds
• Regional Pricing
• Screenshot Capture / Share
• Streaming to Other Services
• Universal Controller Support
• User Created Guides
• User Profiles
• User Reviews
• Version Rollback Support
• VR Support
• Wish Lists

The follow-up interview after data analysis and sketching is planned to be more inline with traditional interviewing, with the use of platforms like Discord or Zoom, that offer screensharing and real-time discussion with the participants. Everyone in the team agreed that the Wizard of Oz technique might be a great tool to showcase our new designs of Epic Games Store and how the new designs affect users' thought-process.

Data analysis and interpretation

We received 11 responses to our questionnaire. All responders were male, but this may be because of a) males tend to play video games more b) participants were likely the closest friends of our all-male project group c) most of the students in UCD course and other CS courses are male. Age distribution was 21-25 years old (45.5%), 26-30 years old (27.3%) and 31-40 years old (27.3%). Again, this participant group represents the majority of the CS students - young male adults.

Most of the participants play video games on PC (90.9%), but they also had experiences playing on different platforms: PlayStation (45.5%), Xbox (18.2%), Nintendo (18.2%), Mobile (18.2%).

7 out of 11 participants (63.6%) did not have previous experience with Epic Games Store. These users rated their experience with Epic Game Store with grades 2 (one participant), 3 (two participants) and 4 (one participant). The wished features highlighted here were Friends List and Chat (75%), DRM Free Support (50%), Early Access (50%), Refunds (50%) and User Reviews (50%).

There were also two features requested in written section: GDPR Compliance and Shopping Cart.

The participants who had not used Epic Games Store before were questioned about using other video game digital platforms. The responsers answered that six of them have used Valve's Steam (85.7%), four of them have used EA's Origin (57.1%), three of them CD Project's GOG (42.9%), and one for each other selection: None, Uplay Store and PS Store (14.3%).

These users were also given features to be rated. The highest rated features were Offline Play (six votes, 85.7%), User Reviews (six votes, 85.7%) and Cloud Saves (five votes, 71.4%). The other features had greater variance.

The need for friendlist, user reviews and chatting is due to network effect - users probably are where their friends are. Implementing these features enhances the social side of the gaming platform. DRM-Free Support and refunds are rated highly because they are directly pro-consumer features. Many of the features highlighted in the survey are already implemented in Valve's Steam store, and it has set a standard for other video game online platforms with its feature-richness. From these data insights we designed two personas that reflect users' motivations and goals:

From Taneli's personality store's social aspects are highlighted. It is also stated that missing features are not always stopping people using some services, if there are no options (Epic Games Store has exclusive game distribution rights to some games or publishers, so they are only available to buy and play in their store).

Esko is more demanding user when it comes to how he wants to spend his time. His own personal experience with technical and user experience design have created strong opinions about user experiences. He is likely to be less forgiving when it comes to bad design solutions, and the lack of features (as showcased in Epic Games Store) will probably affect negatively user's experience with the platform.

Prototypes

Our entry point for the user-centered design was of course the current Epic Games Store layout. The original layout is presented in this picture:

In the first prototype we introduced the shopping cart functionality to the Epic Games Store. You can see your shopping cart items on the bottom left corner and you will be prompted about adding new items to your shopping cart:

Example of items shown in the shopping cart: Note that currently Epic Games Store does not support purchasing multiple items at once.

Added gifting items to your friends:

Items from the shopping cart can be removed:

Users reviews designed:

Sale information (discount % and duration)

Evaluation with users

Two users were interviewed to give their evaluations about the new design and to test functionality with the Wizard of Oz technique (https://www.usabilitybok.org/wizard-of-oz). Users were both male (23 years and 20 years old). Both users had previous experience with the Epic Games Store and Steam. The users were interviewed using Discord VoIP service call and screenshare functions. The answers were written based on users' comments and checked with the users after interview to avoid misinterpretation.

Question 1: How would you rate (the original) Epic Games Store user experience? (scale 0-10)
User 1: "I think I would rate it as 8. The UI is nice, I have some free games on there but I would not use Epic Games Store to buy games that I can find on Steam."
User 2: "5, I play a lot of Epic Games Store exclusive games but the user experience has been quite awful. I hope game makers stop exclusivity deals or Epic Games fixes its store."

Question 2: (Users were asked to "pretend buying three games from Epic Games Store") The Epic Games Store is missing a shopping cart. Does this affect your shopping process?
User 1: "Buying multiple products at once is impossible. Having used mostly Steam before, missing shopping cart seems very odd, who designs this stuff?"
User 2: "I have never bought multiple products at once, but now I have experienced this (bad) experience also in this store. I would not want to select my payment methods for each item bought separately."

Question 3: What do you think about game reviews/ratings showcased on store's game pages?
User 1: "I think they can be useful. I mostly buy games on Steam, so I read user and curator reviews from there and also check Youtube videos about new games."
User 2: "I do not trust ratings by critics or sites. They can be manipulated by game publishers. I usually wait for user reviews and sales numbers to speak for the game."

Users were shown our prototypes about new menu and UI design. All designed pages (check Prototypes-section and/or Youtube presentation) were tested with the use of Wizard of Oz technique.

Question 4: What things did you like on this new design?
User 1: "You fixed most of the basic problems currently present in Epic Games Store. I am just baffled that these simple things are missing from the store to begin with."
User 2: "Shopping cart seems to remove a lot of challenges from my shop experience. I liked that you added the user reviews with additional information!"

Question 5: Anything you did not like about the new design?
User 1: "I would have liked to see more than with also the UI, for example using more icons and colors in the design. This critique applies to both the old and new design. Other than that not much to say about negative things."
User 2: "Even though the new features are great, the UI feels awkward or clunky (might be also because of the Wizard of Oz technique limitations) and even small information is sometimes taking a lot space on the page. For example, how would the user reviews look like in a smaller window? I still prefer how Steam does this stuff."

Question 6: How would you rate this new design? (scale 0-10)
User 1: "I would like lower the initial review of the Epic Games Store to 5 or 6, and this new design would be rated 8. The UI is fine, but even the added features do not make it perfect."
User 2: "6, I am still not interested in using Epic Games Store to buy games, even though the added features do improve the user experience. This is also because of my commitment to Steam, I have hundreds of games in my Steam library and none of the stuff in Epic Games Store do make me want to fully switch over. At least I can now buy the discounted games in bulk if needed."

Conclusions

To conclude our journey about reviewing the Epic Games Store user experience and creating new designs to possibly enhance this experience, we noticed a lot of expectations from video game online distribution platforms. Steam as a original online video game store has set the standard for what is expected from a game platform. There were three major problems deduced in Epic Games Store:

• Basic functionality / features missing - Shopping cart, gifting and navigation problems. Having better shop functionality overall could bring direct financial benefits to Epic Games - why would you want to make buying process difficult?
• Social experience - The need for good friends list and chat and other social features showcase the network effect - the users want to be where their friends are. Implementing social features enhances the network effect.
• Pro-consumer methods - Users enjoy when they are treated well. Pro-consumer methods involve features like DRM-free support and refunds. When these features are implemented, users are probably more inclined to buy things from the store.

The Epic Games Store is not broken, but it needs a lot of improvements to make it a primary store for users to use. Epic Games Store has gained a lot of users by making exclusive deals with game publishers (games can only be bought from Epic Games Store) but this is only a temporary solution. Improving the user experience will bring longevity to the store. We hope to see even some of these features to be implemented in the near future. The study also provided some insight overall about user preferences in video game online distribution, that can be applied to any online store.

Link to our video presentation - Our video presentation about the topic.