Archive for the ‘UX Book Reviews’ Category
Gamification by Design by Gabe Zimmerman and Christopher Cunningham – Book Review
Gamification is a controversial area, and a current hot-topic in the world of marketing. Based on the idea of utilising concepts lifted from games in non-gaming contexts, it claims to allow businesses to engage customers to a much greater extent, through the creation of ‘sticky’ experiences. In this new book, Zimmerman and Cunningham (Z&C) aim to teach the reader how any brand can implement the techniques learned from games to create loyal and engaged customers.
Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell – Book Review
Jenifer Tidwell’s book aims to not only help you make the right design decisions when creating an interface such as a webpage or application, but also aims to justify why you’ve made the right choices! Designing Interfaces takes the idea of a sourcebook, with a variety of design solutions at your fingertips, but expands this into a method of thinking about the user.
Evaluating User Experience in Games – Book Review
Regina Bernhaupt presents an academic guide to the application of user experience principles to games, as part of a series by Springer Books on HCI, and claims to represent the ‘coming of age’ of video games as a medium. The book is essentially a collection of academic papers, largely from recent conferences, and draws upon the talents of a wide range of authors, including Brighton based Graham McAllister and Gareth White, Katherine Isbister (Editor of Game Usability) and Emily Brown of SCEE. Although largely academic, the book does provide an insight into the cutting edge of this exciting field.
Early chapters in the book try to define what the field of user experience is, and what it means in relation to games. There is a degree of confliction here, with each chapter giving a slightly different interpretation, but they often settle on themes such as immersion, fun, presence, involvement, engagement, flow and playability.
Also wind, fire and heart!
The book gets more exciting when it presents a range of methods for evaluating user experience in games, with a variety of models appropriate for various stages of game development, from prototyping to post-production. This encompasses many custom models for different situations, such as a model for inexperienced gamers, or one for fitness games. The book also presents studies of the usability of game controllers, and the development of heuristics, which is particularly interesting in the last chapter which aims to collate and amalgamate previously created gaming heuristic.
All this content is interesting; however, a liberal spreading of maths means it often comes across as extremely academic (particularly in comparison to Isbister’s book). This can largely be accounted to the background of the various authors, largely coming from academic institutions, compared to the real world perspective of Game Usability.
Where the book excels is the divergence from this academic interpretation, notably in the papers by Vertical Slice and Emily Brown. Vertical Slice cover the current state of user experience evaluation across three Brighton game companies, and give an insight into the methods used through case studies, from the expert evaluation found in the earliest stages of production, through to the user testing close to the end of a project.
Brown gives a comprehensive overview of the range of tools currently in use, and shows optimism for the future, since she recognises only a “lack of knowledge” as a hindrance to the extension of user testing into gaming, rather than opposition to the methods. This conclusion is reinforced by the case studies by McCallister and White, who show game developers are looking to extend their application of user experience testing in the future.
Which will be the same as today, but with more robots
Unlike Remote Research or Game Usability, this book is not a practical how-to guide. Instead it presents the state of user experience in games, and where the cutting edge of research is. Personally I have found it very useful for developing my own research. However the book would be unlikely to be a ‘one stop shop’ for a developer looking to start user experience research at their company.
It will be useful to see how the wide range of interesting ideas found within this book can be integrated into practical solutions for companies to use when producing games. This move from the theoretical to the practical will greatly assist the field of user experience in games, and will truly see the ‘coming of age’ of video game usability.
Remote Research – Book Review
Remote Research is a new book by Nate Bolt and Tony Tulathimutte, who have worked with the UX agency Bolt | Peters on a wide range of studies, with clients such as Wikipedia and Electronic Arts (I recommend watching the funny out-takes of Spore user testing).
Their new book sums up their experiences with performing remote research (Tony has previously discussed this subject on this blog, in the comments here), and gives clear instructions on how others can perform a wide range of usability and user experience studies with people who are physically distant, by using the internet.
Don't judge it by it's cover...
Why would you consider remote research?
Written by advocates of remote research, the book highlights many of the potential advantages that remote research gives compared to a more traditional lab based study. These advantages are fleshed out throughout the book through testimonies of experts who have experience in this field, who offer real world examples to emphasise these points.
Some key advantages are:
- Access to a geographically diverse user base. Unlike traditional research, where a moderator would have to be in the same physical location as the subjects, remote research allows a study to be run with anyone who has a high speed internet connection, widely expanding the potential study-group.
- Easy to let stakeholders get involved. Because the research session is being broadcast over the internet, it’s possible to allow stakeholders (i.e. executives and designers) to view the session, and give (moderated) input. This of course increases their engagement with the process, and will be the ‘evidence’ for any conclusions derived from the research.
- Natural browsing environment. The validity of the research can be improved, not only because you are allowing the user to perform the task in a familiar environment (their own home computer), but also some recruitment methods allow you to capture a user performing a task they have selected. For example, recruiting a user who came to the site to buy trousers, for a task based on buying trousers, would provide more accurate results than asking someone to pretend to buy trousers…
- Cheaper (debatably). Not having to pay for travel can keep costs down, however other costs, such as incentives, will still be required, as well as paying for the software.
The remote research book doesn’t advocate killing off lab tests though – instead, it recognises that there are cases when the lab is still appropriate, such as when privacy is a concern. The book also features Andy Budd’s defence of the lab, which argues that remote research fails to pick up aspects of non-verbal behaviour, as well as arguing that remote research doesn’t just remove a selection bias (geography), since it also adds another (internet speed and technical ability). It’s brave of the book to include the case against remote research, and helps project a more trustworthy and reliable image for the book itself.
How to do remote research
The ‘meat’ of the book are the sections dedicated to how-to guides on the different forms of remote research. The book contains step by step instructions on performing moderated or un-moderated research, and includes key topics such as recruitment (and live recruiting), card sorts, and lots of handy hints – such as using IM clients as a chat room for multiple observers to automatically share and timestamp notes.
The book doesn’t just cover basic topics – it goes on to develop novel approaches to user research, such as using ‘reverse screen sharing’ to protect confidential software or data, and using mobile web to gain a new understanding of time-dependant information, outside of the traditional moderated setting.
It also extends the remits of remote research – it doesn’t have to just be websites, but can include doodles or sketches, as well as developing ideas for automatic research with analytics.
Another sort of remote research?
Conclusion
Remote Research is one of the easiest to read UX books I’ve reviewed. Like many Rosenfeld publications, it is laid out well, without appearing dense with text, and has a friendly tone throughout. The book can be likened to Krug’s writing in its style, and presentation.
The book is also practical and realistic, and deals with real world issues, like ‘fakers’ (who can be outed by using open ended questions to discover motives), legal issues, and common challenges such as reluctant stakeholders.
Most importantly for the practical UX practitioner, the book is not dogmatic. This is especially evident in the last chapter which admits that usability shouldn’t be the exclusive goal of product design, and needs to be coupled with initiative, and innovation to develop great things.
Overall this book is a great introduction, and how-to guide to the growing field of remote research, and will be an important tool for anyone trying to keep up to date with the latest research methods.
Effective UI by the EffectiveUI team – Book Review
Effective UI is a new book by … EffectiveUI, which aims to give an introduction to the art of building a superior user experience. EffectiveUI (the company) are a user experience agency from the US, recently known for building the iPad app Ideate, a tool for wire framing and sketching which uses pre-set templates for designers and developers. This book is the result of their years of experience, and aims to share some of the lessons they’ve learnt about delivering superior products through user based research.
Effective UI (the book this time) is not a self-start guide, or a definitive how-to, unlike Krug’s new book. Although it does give an introduction to UX tools, such as paper prototyping and user interviews, it doesn’t go into the depth that other books may do. Instead, the book seems to be aimed at a single person within an established company, who needs a one-stop resource to bring them up to speed on what User Experience is, and what it can do for their company.
Hence the book features a little bit of everything. Not only does it introduce the key concepts of UX, but it also has chapters on prototyping methods, how to understand and define key users (including how-to exercises), how to bring together a good UX team, and how to sell UX at your company (although it has less emphasis on subterfuge and guerrilla tactics than John Rhodes’ Selling Usability)
Pictured: John Rhodes at work
It’s in these high level overviews of crucial UX subjects that the book excels. EffectiveUI (the company) have been using these methods with clients for years, and have built up excellent ways of explaining the key concepts to clients. Through use of extended metaphors, referring to the process as a war, or akin to building a bridge, the book shares some of the best practices they’ve developed in this period. Some notable insights the book offers include de-emphasising the importance of written functional specs (which are incomplete, ill-informed, and slow to produce and react to change), and insight into appropriate methodologies, favouring an agile (with no capital letter) approach but also stressing the importance of not getting hung up on a formal adherence to a methodology.
The years of experience that the authors have had also give the book a wide range of real-world examples to draw upon, such as the production of year book software, which are used to illustrate and emphasise points. It’s definitely a credit to the book that the examples are relevant, and realistic, and help explain the key concepts being demonstrated, and how user centred testing improved the final product.
There are however a few odd choices, which may detract from the book’s ability to succeed in the marketplace. Most prominent is the name EffectiveUI (the book, not the company). I can understand why, as promotion for their company, the authors have chosen to name their book after their company. However it doesn’t seem very appropriate for the subject matter. Having not encountered the US-based company before, I had no prior knowledge of their work. Hence, the title has no associations to me. And it says “Effective UI”. Wouldn’t the reader assume the book is about producing an effective User Interface? Which isn’t the same thing as User Experience. Having looked for references to UI, it doesn’t appear in the index of this book at all (since it is a completely different subject in itself). I can see how this can lose potential customers – people looking for a book on UX are likely to miss this one, and people who buy this book looking for insights on UI will be disappointed.
UI. Not UX.
It’s also important to understand what this book is. It won’t give you step by step instructions on how to investigate UX. What it will do is introduce a non-UX specialist to the key concepts of UX, and give the reader an understanding of the benefits of UX . So don’t buy the book assuming that it’s a one-stop guide on becoming a UX practitioner (Each of the topics it covers could probably fill a book by themselves with how-to instructions!)
However, if you are new to the subject, and want a high-level introduction to key UX concepts, this is the book for you. Or if you are a manager, have heard about the emerging field of UX, and wonder what it can do for your business, this book will tell you everything you need to know. It won’t tell you any trade secrets, but it might just convince you to hire them!
