Marie-Claude Lavoie
IART 305 - Gaming

Components of User Experience in Digital Games

In Game+Design: An Interactive Design Handbook, Zimmerman and Salen state that: "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."

For this to apply more specifically to digital games, I suggest a slight modification to the original definition. I propose that a digital game is a system in which players engage with an interface in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome in the story.

Digital game designers create an experience using the physical medium of the computer as one element that makes up the system of the game. In order to design meaningful play, a designer must consider this more complete system of interaction including cognitive, sensory, and emotive aspects which are exemplified in rules, interface, and story.

In non-digital games, the rules can be found in an instruction book or in the structure of the game materials; in digital games, the rules are buried in layers of program code and difficult to identify. Program code is highly structural and determines what a player can and cannot do in the context of a game, like the rules of a game. However, the program code is part of the medium that embodies the game.

Although there is some overlap between the code and the rules, there is not a one-to-one correspondence. The rules embody certain functionality, according to Salen and Zimmerman, such as limiting the players' actions and identifying criteria for conflict resolution. Also, they are explicit, unambiguous, fixed, binding, repeatable, and shared by all players. The rules define the actions available to a player and the outcome that these actions elicit from the game system. Rules determine what happens, how the story should unfold, and who wins the artificial conflict.

If visual representation has an impact on the formal structure of the game, it can be considered part of the rules. However, most of the program code that makes up a digital game directly or indirectly affects the experience of the game. Aspects of the program that are not involved in the dynamic structure of the game, such as visual and audio aesthetics are not part of the game rules but are a part of the interface.

An interface can be thought of as the layout of an application's graphic or textual controls in conjunction with the way the application responds to user activity. This includes what players see on the screen and how they physically interact with these visuals via hardware. Hardware can include keyboard, mouse, and joysticks purely for control. As well, they can be tools to better immerse the player by mimicking the environment simulated by the game, such as a steering wheel for driving games, tactile feedback, such as rumble packs, and auditory feedback.

I believe that an effective use of interface is the crucial link that most games are missing. The interface needs to do more than just facilitating user input; it must provide a deeper understanding of how the player desires to interact with the game. For example, the game Marathon introduced a new style of movement in First Person Shooters. The mouse is used to aim on screen while the keys on the keyboard allow the player to walk forward/back and strafe left/right. With practice, combining these two movements to navigate the environment allows for a more seamless and realistic experience depending on the action taken in context of the game.

Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, defines story as the chronological sequence of events interpreted by the readers, and plot as the causal and logical structure which connects events. There is an argument that in digital games, players become authors because they make the choices, driving the plot with their logical decisions. "There is a distinction between playing a creative role within an authored environment and having authorship of the environment itself," says Murray. Certainly interactors can create aspects of digital stories by making decisions in the game environments; yet, interactors can only act within the possibilities that have been established by the code.

The interactor is not the author of the digital narrative, although [s]he can experience the thrill of exerting their influence over the digital environment which translates into quantifiable outcomes. Each move in a game is like a plot event; the story emerges out of a compelling plot and adds to the user experience. Story creates meaning and content through its interaction with rules and interface. A weak story creates a weak user experience based solely on form.

"Meaningful play occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game. Creating meaningful play is the goal of successful game design." (Salen and Zimmerman, 2003) Discernability is where action and outcome are integrated into the larger context of the game. It manifests where immediate significance in the game is apparent as well as affecting the play experience. Integration, on the other hand, lets players know how their decisions will affect the rest of the game. Every action a player takes is woven into the larger fabric of the overall game experience; this is how the play of a game becomes truly meaningful.

Meaningful play integrates several aspects of a game, simultaneously giving rise to layers of meaning and content that accumulate and shape player experience. Discernability in a game allows the players to acknowledge what happened when they took an action through form.

Discernability [form]

Rules and interface, however, create interaction in environments that exhibit rule-generated behavior procedurally which can be induced by participation. Operational rules of a digital game are those rules that relate directly to a player's behavior and interaction with the game. "Ideally, every object in a digital narrative, no matter how sophisticated the story, should offer the interactor as clear a sense of agency and as direct a connection to the immersive world." (Janet Murray, 1997)

Smith et al. (2001) believe that user-interface design and its success can be measured through cultural dimensions. Their research, based on cultural anthropology, points to five components which help users make sense of user-interfaces: metaphors, mental models, appearance, interaction, and navigation. The last two in the list have a closer connection to form. Interaction is the input/output techniques, including feedback, that are mediated by the rules and done through the interface. Navigation is the movement, determined by the rules, through the mental models using content and tools in the interface.

Integration [Meaning & Content]

Some of the cultural factors mentioned above aid in the creation of meaning and content. Metaphors are fundamental concepts communicated via words, images, sounds, and tactile experience. Mental models are structures or organizations of data, functions, tasks, roles, and people in groups at work or play. Appearance is the visual, auditory, and tactile characteristics including choice of colors, fonts, verbal style, sound cues, and vibration modes. All three require a strong connection to story to be effective.

The relationship between story and interface can create immersion as well. Immersion, as defined by Janet Murray in Hamlet on the Holodeck, refers to the use of encyclopedic detail and navigable space to flood the players mind with sensation and overflow their sensory stimulation.

Story and rules are manifest when choice is given to the player. When a player responds to a game by exploring the system in complex and unpredictable ways, meaning and content are deepened.

The different ways that rules, interface, and story interact are discernable and integrated which help give meaning to the game. For the user experience to be complete, however, an all encompassing aspect must be considered: the magic circle.

The frame of the magic circle is is a concept that involves the relationship between the artificial world of the game and the real life contexts that it intersects. The frame of a game is responsible for the feeling of safety. It is responsible not only for the unusual relationship between a game and the outside world, but also for many of the internal mechanisms and experiences of a game in play.

As a player steps in and out of a the game, they cross a boundary which defines the game in time and space; the magic circle inscribes a space that is repeatable, both limited and limitless. "We bring our own cognitive, cultural, and psychological templates to every story as we assess the characters and anticipate the way the story is likely to go." (Janet Murray, 1997)

Meaningful play emerges from the interaction between players and the system of the game (story, rules, and interface) as well as from the context in which the game is played (the magic circle).

The problem with many games at present is that the player is forced to switch between immersive states of immediacy to the hypermediated awareness of the interface. Players are forced to look at the interface rather than through it. This is very jarring to the user and combining it with a weak story leads to a poor user experience.

For this reason, I believe that interface is an integral part of the user experience when it is paired to a compelling story. This link reinforces the meaning and content as well as providing the user with a strong form in relation to the gameplay rules. The following diagram helps depict the interconnections.