An Informal Review of Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar Games was nice enough to send us a copy of Red Dead Redemption to try out. After spending time playing the game, we recommend grabbing a copy.
What’s Wrong With the RITE Method?
A critique of a common method used in video game usability research
Many video game usability practitioners employ a method to test usability within video games, called the ‘RITE’ method, short for Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE). Pioneered at Microsoft Games Studios and Microsoft Research, the RITE method has been adopted by many usability research organizations besides the teams at Microsoft.
While the RITE method has some advantages, such as the ‘rapid iterative’ ability to suggest changes to designers and test them in successive passes, it may fall short when looking for usability issues that lie beneath the surface.
Gaming Usability 101
This list of ten features should be embraced by game designers
Steve Krug argues in his book Don’t Make Me Think! that a good program or product should let users accomplish their intended tasks as easily and directly as possible. The less time it takes a person to complete a desired task (even if only by a few seconds), the more satisfying it becomes. When that happens, people are more likely to use a product in greater frequency and return for more. So in the spirit of improved usability, here are ten standard features every videogame designer should embrace.
Importance of Usability
Users should not have to think too hard when they are using your website. They should not have to refer to help screens and they shouldn’t be made to feel stupid. Simply by observing your customers you can avoid this.
Defining Serious Games
Serious games occupy the training-based category of game development products. Serious games are utilitarian and goal-oriented, offering the user protocol-driven functional engagement, acknowledgment of task achievements, and almost zero entertainment value or fluff (outside of the necessary local and peripheral “traffic” caused by natural interaction with other life and environmental elements – human, animal, plant, mechanical, and weather). Serious games subject matter is typically taught to employees-in-training, re-assigned employees, or emergency preparedness / non-profit volunteers within any line of work, from leadership to trench-level roles. That learned material is, then, put to use in real world employment or deployment scenarios, from how to properly drain and dispose of vegetable oil from a fish-and-chips fryer to how to properly disassemble, diagnose, and repair the turbines on a military helicopter.