A Usability Primer
Rather than start with a definition of what usability is, let’s try to show it in action with a brief example.
We can think of a video game as a continuous conversation, or loop, between the player and the game. Sometimes the game starts the loop running by giving the player a quest or objective which prompts the player into action, or sometimes the player starts the loop running by selecting a menu option or moving their player character and the game has to respond. It’s at all stages of this game loop where usability is present, from the moment the game first begins right through to when the player decides to stop playing.
To see how usability is present everywhere, let’s look at an example where a game just has launched and is on the main menu screen.
Game: Displays a main menu with 6 choices.
Player: Reads each option.
Player: Decides which option they want.
Player: Navigates to the choice they want using the controller
Player: Selects their menu choice.
Game: Confirms the players choice by highlighting the menu option in a different colour.
In this example the player has to read and understand what each option means, then make a decision. They then use their controller to navigate to the menu option they want and select it. In response, the game must give feedback to the player to confirm their choice, which hopefully the player perceives.
Even from this short example, we can see seven usability factors in action - legibility, understanding, decision making, controls, selection, feedback, and perception. If the designers of this menu were to ask for an assessment of whether the menu was usable, here is what we might try to determine to arrive at an answer.