Article

Using heuristics to evaluate the playability of games

Authors:

Heather Desurvire,

Martin Caplan,

Jozsef A. TothAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '04: CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1509 - 1512

https://doi.org/10.1145/985921.986102

Published: 24 April 2004 Publication History

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Abstract

Heuristics have become an accepted and widely used adjunct method of usability evaluation in Internet and software development. This report introduces Heuristic Evaluation for Playability (HEP), a comprehensive set of heuristics for playability, based on the literature on productivity and playtesting heuristics that were specifically tailored to evaluate video, computer, and board games. These heuristics were tested on an evolving game design to assess their face validity and evaluation effectiveness compared to more standard user testing methodologies. The results suggest that HEP identified qualitative similarities and differences with user testing and that HEP is best suited for evaluating general issues in the early development phases with a prototype or mock-up. Combined with user studies, HEP offers a new method for the HCI game community that can result in a more usable and playable game.

References

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[2]

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CHI EA '04: CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2004

975 pages

ISBN:1581137036

DOI:10.1145/985921

Conference Chairs:
Elizabeth Dykstra-Erickson
Kinoma
,
Manfred Tscheligi
CURE, Austria

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 24 April 2004

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CHI04: CHI 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 24 - 29, 2004

Vienna, Austria

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Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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Defining playability of games: functionality, usability, and gameplay

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