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Serco Games Research (SGR) provide usability testing to help you identify what works and what needs tweaking in games in development. It's not traditional QA testing, nor focus groups; it's to do with finding out how players react to games in development, working with prototypes, and then creating revised and improved iterations of the prototype that pick up issues of gameplay before the product is released. Our techniques We always begin by discussing research goals with the client. There are a range of techniques we can employ, carefully selected to best suit your needs. These include: - Gameplay Usability Testing (G.U.T)
Usually working with a vertical slice of your title, we perform user testing with a small number of users, individually, in pairs or in groups, to identify (for example) issues of controls, getting the level of challenge right, level design, understanding of objectives, and whether it's fun etc.
- Gameplay Review
Where developers may be in a 'wood for the trees' situation, spending months within the game, we provide a fresh pair of eyes. We can feedback how the end users understand the current prototype - quickly and simply providing an objective viewpoint. Also within this service we offer the ScoreCheck service. From reviewing a vertical slice we can estimate the likely review score, as well as provide feedback on how the gamer's experience, and thereby review scores, could be improved.
- Concept Development
We can also provide user research to feed into the early-stage development of a game concept. This may be through the use of focus groups, but we also can perform user needs research by visiting typical end users in situ, to understand how the games currently fit into their lifestyle, and what could be done in future to make the games more appealing to them.
- Support Services
We have our own sophisticated testing studios in Holborn, London, UK, which are available for hire. We also provide mentoring and coaching services to help your organisation incorporate usability into the design process.
If you'd like to find out more about the work that SGR do, please contact: Ben Weedon
Head of Serco Games Research
020 7421 6487
ben.weedon (at) serco.com Related news and articles: >
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