Step through the doors of the Full Sail User Experience Lab你可能首先注意到的是配备了最新技术的工作站. 安装在每个房间角落里的高清摄像头，在任何特定时刻，都能提供屏幕上和玩家脸上正在播放的内容的全景视图. 双向镜子使研究人员可以不引人注目地观察测试对象, while a host of futuristic gadgets churn out biometric data.

研究人员在Full Sail用户体验实验室的主房间观察一个测试对象

“We have a lot of capabilities here,” says Dr. Adams Greenwood-Ericksen, a Course Director in Full Sail’s Game Design master’s program who oversees studies conducted in the UX Lab. “从非常好的眼动追踪设备到麻省理工学院推出的全新面部识别软件包, we can take all sorts of physiological and brain-based measurements. 这是大多数人在考虑用户体验评估时所想到的. The shiny stuff.”

“But at the end of the day,” he adds, “most of what we do still relies on old school observation techniques.”

亚当斯和其他科学家使用的研究方法在某些情况下已经存在了几十年, 80 years or more. 那么，这些比电子游戏早了近一个世纪的技术是如何产生更好的, more playable product? The answer lies in a field of study called Human Factors, something that both Adams and his colleague Dr. Shawn Stafford specialize in.

“‘人为因素’的目标是让机器与人类友好相处. 工程师真的很擅长制造具有惊人功能的机器, but getting those machines to keep a human operator in the loop and functioning along with the machine in a way that’s safe; that’s a whole different problem.”

人为因素的研究是在工业革命时期出于需要而产生的, 当时，生产技术的进步使工人接触到效率低下的危险机器. After World War II, 19世纪用来制造更安全的蒸汽机和20世纪40年代更好的雷达系统的技术，被应用到整整一代的产品设计中——从烤面包机到航天飞机.

“This actually dovetails nicely with the evolution of video games, 哪些是非常复杂的功能系统需要人工操作. And unlike other areas, where a human can be trained to work around an existing machine, 除了娱乐和享受，电子游戏没有更高的目标了. 换句话说，如果一款游戏不能与人类合作，那么它就毫无价值。.

Enter UX. 让研究人员尽早参与这个过程是确保开发过程顺利进行的关键, and it can make a huge difference in investment returns.

通常，研究人员在编译用户体验数据时会采用两种方法. Qualitative research methods focus on data that is largely observed or anecdotal, meaning it’s less likely to be measured by numbers. Quantitative methods另一方面，都是关于可以通过数字验证的事情，比如统计数据.

这个过程是这样的:一个客户带着一个特定的项目来到UX实验室. More often than not, Adams and his team will recommend a usability study, 首先通过对测试对象的系统观察来收集定性数据. At Full Sail, 可用性评估的每一步都是由游戏设计硕士课程的研究生处理的, with Adams and Shawn overseeing the process.

“选择在UX实验室工作的学生通常会完成20到25个课程, so they’re pretty sharp by the time they graduate.”

The graduate students work with the client to determine their needs, then design custom test plans built to answer certain questions. 一旦客户同意测试计划，团队就会继续进行数据收集.

Remember the shiny stuff? This is where it comes into play, says Adams. 研究参与者被连接到记录他们生命体征细微变化的机器上. 眼动仪利用受试者角膜反射的红外光来追踪他们的视觉焦点在任何给定时刻的位置. 面部识别算法检测微表情——一个人的情绪在25秒到1 / 3秒之间的微小变化——这有助于研究人员确定测试对象的感受.

“If we detect a change in affect, 我们会通过眼动追踪数据来弄清楚他们在看什么, then we’ll go back and ask them, ‘Hey, at this particular moment, when you were looking at this particular thing, you smiled. Anything you can tell about that? That helps us drill down to what’s happening during gameplay and why.”

A typical UX workstation

Of course, qualitative methods aren’t perfect. 要求玩家描述他们正在做的事情可能会分散他们对游戏的注意力. 这时候，游戏玩法统计等定量数据就派上了用场.

“我们寻找描述广泛趋势的描述性统计数据，如手段、媒介和模式. 这种[定性和定量]技术的结合提供了最有帮助和可操作的反馈.”

Once the data has been collected and analyzed, the team provides a report to the client, 在进入下一轮测试之前，通常会有一段调整期. It’s an arduous (and often expensive) process, but Adams says the cost benefits of UX testing are well documented.

“Usability problems account for about 80% of maintenance costs [in gaming]. The reason it’s so expensive is because you’re changing assets, you’re changing code and architecture, in many cases to support functionality.”

From AAA games to indie projects, UX测试可以为开发人员节省大量资金，这是一个不小的考虑因素. Beyond that, the data Adams and his team provides offer another incentive, 它甚至可以被认为比金钱储蓄更重要.

“Personally, I think the big value in UX is that you decrease the probability, sometimes drastically, that players will encounter something that makes them quit your game.”