{"id":1141,"date":"2010-10-21T09:21:54","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T08:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2019-11-06T17:45:01","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T16:45:01","slug":"the-usability-of-iphones-game-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/21\/the-usability-of-iphones-game-center\/","title":{"rendered":"The usability of iPhone’s Game Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long time readers may remember that I was excited about the prospect of Game Center<\/a>, Apples new social gaming hub. Much like Xbox Live, PSHome, or indeed iPhone competitors such as Openfeint, it offers achievements, and the ability to play with friends, compare achievements and start multiplayer games. Due to iTunes\u2019 erratic behaviour, I\u2019ve only just been able to upgrade to OS4.1 and get it, and my initial impressions are less than enthusiastic. Game Center seems to make basic usability mistakes that you wouldn\u2019t expect from Apple, and it\u2019s \u2026 odd. Almost like it was designed by the work experience guy. Here are some of the major issues I found.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Adding Games<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having been late to the party with game center, many of the games I owned had already been updated with game center functionality. However you wouldn\u2019t know this from game center itself. I opened up the game center app, to find this:<\/p>\n

\n
\"Find

Where are my games?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Oh, I don\u2019t have any game center games. But that\u2019s not right, as I know I do. I guess you have to press \u201cFind game center games\u201d. So I did. And I ended up on the app store. But I don\u2019t want to buy any new games, I just want to use game center with my existing games.<\/p>\n

Instead, to add your games to game center, you have to go through and open each game individually before game center will become aware of it. I have a lot of games. This will take some time. Surely Apple should have automated this, making the app automatically scan your phone for relevant games (or even giving an option if they didn\u2019t want it to be automatic!)<\/p>\n

Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having successfully added a game, I wanted to find someone to play it with. I went to the friends tab, and was greeted with this:<\/p>\n

\n
\"No

Just like school all over again<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Oh dear, that\u2019s not very friendly. And the call to action (the + symbol up top right) is given very low priority. Surely that should be the first\/only thing displayed on this screen if I have no friends. Currently, they\u2019re just being mean.<\/p>\n

(That said, anyone want to be my game center friends? I have none!)<\/p>\n

Buttons<\/strong><\/p>\n

You may have noticed, in that first screenshot, what buttons look like in game center.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Game

A button?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Since when has the word art \u2018banner\u2019 template ever been an appropriate icon for a button? Buttons generally are styled to encourage clicks, hence techniques such as using embossing to give a \u20183d\u2019 effect, giving a depth that implies something push-able.<\/p>\n

Instead they\u2019ve decided to use a banner. Surely a banner implies that they are presenting information, like the page\u2019s title, rather than requiring an action to be taken. Hence the \u2018Find Game Center Games\u2019 button looks more like information being displayed, and will prevent some users from taking the necessary action to find game center games (although, as described earlier, this button is not particularly helpful anyway!)<\/p>\n

Sign-Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

And last of all, my favourite step of the signup process:<\/p>\n

\n
\"Game

Signing up...<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Game Center \u2013 great idea, but the execution still needs some work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long time readers may remember that I was excited about the prospect of Game Center, Apples new social gaming hub. Much like Xbox Live, PSHome, or indeed iPhone competitors such as Openfeint, it offers achievements, and the ability to play with friends, compare achievements and start multiplayer games. Due to iTunes\u2019 erratic behaviour, I\u2019ve only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-1141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-user-research","tag-bad-ux","grve-entry-item","grve-blog-item"],"yoast_head":"\nThe usability of iPhone's Game Center - Steve Bromley - User Research<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stevebromley.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/21\/the-usability-of-iphones-game-center\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The usability of iPhone's Game Center - Steve Bromley - User Research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Long time readers may remember that I was excited about the prospect of Game Center, Apples new social gaming hub. 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