6 different online flash games platforms were benchmarked, including Newgrounds. Sample websites can be split in 2 broad groups:
1) Websites that host and allows users to play the game online: Newgrounds, Poki, fr.y8
2) Website that host data repositories and/or allows you to purchase games: Global Game Jam, itch.io, App Store.
In both categories, one group of stakeholders stands out to lose the most: new game developers who are new to the market.
Aside from Newgrounds which hosts content while giving credit to the creators and allowing for feedback, most flash games sites do not credit individual creators and do not allow for qualitative player feedback in the form of comments.
As for the second category, there is an extra step needed to cross to access the game: technical, here the user needs to know how to download then start the game, or monetary, with the case of paid games.
The app concept seeks to satisfy the following:
To get a better understanding of several groups of stakeholders, we have conducted interviews and workshops on 2 groups of users:
Developers - 4 participants, they are 4th year game design students from the Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain.
End users (potential players) - 3 participants.
We decided to base the tests on Newgrounds and Itch.io, the latter being the platform of choice for novice game devs to upload their works and get feedback.
Each group interacted with different research tools.
Game developers:
1. Interview
2. UX cards - In this workshop, users match 7 different psychological needs with 12 UX element cards. I usually stick to only 4 UX elements when testing with participants: functionalities, visual design, content and interactions.
3. I like, I wish, I wonder - In this workshop users add stickers under three groups: what they like about an interface, features they wish they had, and questions about the topic or the interface.
4. Six-to-one End users
Gamers (end users):
End user workshops were done after the game dev workshops. Due to how diverse this group is, we have decided to have them evaluate Newgrounds and Itch.io, and the developers' 6-to-1 to point out elements they liked.
1. Cultural Probe
2. Open card sorting
3. 5 second test
4. Adapted usability scale (for both sites)
5. Review of the 6-to-1
Developers
- The game developers are new to the industry, at this point in their career they have trouble identifying all the factors in their professional environment.
- They do not know how to communicate with their playerbase yet and are preoccupied by doubts about their legitimacy as developers.
- They believe that gamers' feedback will help them improve their product, they do not know how.
- To them, their vision of a gaming platform application is one that brings recognition for both developers and gamers, they were surprised by the lack of an accomplishment/reward system on itch.io.
- Finally, they like itch.io but question the visibility of this platform, they feel that players there are almost "invisible".
End users
Open card Sorting
In both open card sortings, participants have classified the games by their supporting system (MacOs, Linux, ...), their genres, have a "boutique" section for non-game items (comics, music tracks, ...). They also added a category with game developers in mind, containing "assets", "jobs".
When they faced the landing page, they found the information architecture to be unintuitive. Itch.io's IA shows sign of an organically growing website, which makes navigation harder for newcomers.
5 seconds test
Participants found that the lack of a strong graphical identity, colors and icons made the site's structure unmemorable.
They suggest using colors to highlight interactive parts of the UI, less categories, more icons and a more unique graphical chart: "Going for something more original to make it nice to look at, to make people want to come back and, most importantly, talk about it"
Usability scales
- Content: both sites host a wide variety of content, though non-game contents are less visible on itch.io
- Navigation: participants graded Newgrounds' navigation as more intuitive. Itch.io lacks a breadcrumb, and the search bar disappears once users go on a page of level 2 depth.
- Functionalities: participants found Newgrounds' features easier to grasp, while some of itch.io's were targeted towards game devs, creating confusion amongst non-dev users. One participant wants to be able to play the game natively, joining the devs on that remark.
- Design: while Newgrounds' design is "a bit busy and very colorful", they prefer it to itch.io's, which they felt as "empty".
- Community: participants found interactions to be warmer, more human on Newgrounds than on itch.io.
Taking research results into account as well as the gamer group's evaluation of the 6-to-1, we designed high fidelity wireframes of the potential application. Being able to upload games that can be played on the platform will remove the obstacle of setup.
We want this platform to be a jumping board for developers and an enjoyable experience for gamers.
We think that many games in the catalogs will be demos, which will help devs refine their system.
Note: these wireframes are up to date re-do of the ones in the original project.
