First evaluation of the paper prototype model

Our first paper prototype was finished and now we needed people to test it. In total we had 4 test subjects, 3 students and the assistant. They played it and so the flaws in our design came to light.

One of the first big thing we forgot was return buttons in the menu screens and a pause button on the game screen. This was something that we could fix quickly.

In our first paper prototype a pop up screen would come up when selecting "play" the first time. This immediately bothered our first test subject. We then chose to put the tutorial as a different mode on the "mode" screen.

After one of our members had tested the game of another group, we noticed we were maybe putting too much content in our first iteration and we decided to drop the story mode and only continue with "endless" mode for now. This made the "mode" screen obsolete and we decided to drop that too. This caused troubles for the tutorial mode and we decided to move it to the "start" screen.

We proposed both ideas to our second test subject and he preferred the latter. So, the tutorial button was moved to the "start" screen. Another remark he made was that simple text buttons were a little old and that we could just use icons. For example a triangle for "play", a sprocket for "settings" and a podium for "highscores". We are still considering whether we will go for a full icon only approach or both icons and text. This will need to be tested later this week.

We asked the assistant if he wanted to be our next subject. One of his immediate remarks was that there were too many useless buttons on the "start" screen. He would personally never press the about,settings and tutorial buttons. He proceeded to press play and without a small tutorial it was unclear how to move the dinosaur. Our fourth test subject also ignored the tutorial button and had the same problem in the game. Another thing we learned from the assistant's feedback was that the settings screen could be replaced with a simple mute button.

That ended the first evaluation session and there were some major things to consider. Our design at the moment looks like this:

A "start" screen with only a play, highscore and mute button. Both the icons only and icons with text approaches will be tested. On the first start up the play button will show the tutorial and then proceed to endless mode. After that, pressing the play button will immediately start endless mode. In the pause menu of the game the player can still mute the sound.

This week we will continue to test and improve our prototype with other people. More updates on the design coming soon!