Hungry Shark World
Shark Selector — Usability Study
Study Goals
● Improve usability in the menu flow
● Improve understanding of game elements
Playthrough
Questions Prepared for the Playthrough
1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect in the menus you have seen?
2. What was your favorite moment or aspect in the menus you have seen?
3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t?
4. If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be?
5. What were you doing in the experience?
6. How would you describe this game to your friends and family?
Playthrough Considerations
● All screens (main menu, equip pet, change the played shark, select/buy a new shark, upgrade shark, skins selection, and gadget selection) were analysed by the user
● After the playthrough, a 1-on-1 interview was made to go through some issues that stood out during the session
● This technique was performed with one user, therefore remote unmoderated playthroughs (Youtube video gameplays with voiced comments) were also analysed
● Methods, such as, observation by the moderator and think-aloud by the user were performed in this session
● Session was recorded through screen-share to facilitate later analysis and allow the moderator to focus on conducting the interview
● Note that a Contextual Inquiry may also be a good method to obtain information from users as they are observed in their habitual context while playing the game (e.g. accompany a user in his/her commute to work and observe him/her playing the Hungry Shark World mobile game)
User’s Playthrough Findings
● User misunderstood the progress bar to unlock this specific shark (red circle)— “I already have 8% done, only 92% to go to unlock this shark”
● Given the above, the user didn’t understand why the shark is visible, but also locked
● User doesn’t know how much is the max life of each shark (yellow circle)
● Speed/Bite/Boost stats are hard to compare between sharks and it’s hard to perceive each number’s min and max value (pink circle)
Heuristic Evaluation Findings
● “No way of knowing what the upgraded stats for a shark will be, before buying & upgrading it. This makes strategic purchases harder since it’s not possible to know how that shark will compare to others” — solution could be to “Show the min-max values for stats along with the current ones inside a shark comparison screen”
● “No way of reading the stats explanation in the “shark selection” screen, only accessible through the main screen” — solution could be to “Add the same stats explanation pop-up visible in the main screen through the “?” next to the stats to the “shark selection” screen by clicking the stat bars”
RVA (Grounded Theory) Findings
● Written reviews were analysed to understand what usability issues were being felt by users
● 3420 reviews on the Android Play Store & 1050 reviews on the iOS Apple Store
Note: this methodology did not return valuable insights to the study.
Competitive Analysis
The competitors that were analyzed for the purposes of this study were Shark Simulator 2019, Shark Simulator, Hungry Shark Heroes, and Hungry Shark Evolution. Some of the games recommended on Google Play Store were, in fact, similar to Hungry Shark World. These games were analysed to understand how the menu flows and the characters’ details were designed.
Note: this methodology returned low valuable insights to the study. It’s highly advised to have this information from the consumer/marketing insights team.
Personas
Storyboarding
Issues & Proposals
Usability Issues
- When considering to buy a new shark, there is no way of knowing what it’s stats and life will be when fully upgraded.
- When comparing two sharks, the user needs to jump back and forth to see their stats and life.
Proposed solutions
1. Improve the understanding of the range of stats and life, while maintaining design consistency
○ Add min / max values to the stats gauge and to the life bar
○ Recognition rather than recall to minimize the user’s cognitive load by having to remember all stats’
details by heart when navigating among sharks
○ Consistency and standards to increase the recognition of the same forms and elements in different pages
2. Allow direct comparison between sharks
○ Create shark comparison pop-up screen
○ Learnability in the understanding of what shark to use and when to use it is difficult as the information isn’t fully shown (discoverability can be eased with improvements to the onboarding/tutorial process)
○ Flexibility and efficiency of use through the usage of accelerators to tailor to frequent actions
Note: due to the need to add a comparison button, the camera button may need to be moved as it will potentially be less used than the comparison button. For flexibility and efficiency of use, settings to allow remapping controls for left/right handed users is highly advised.
To preserve the free-to-play business model and avoid unnecessary interaction points of friction, the comparison pop-up includes the use/buy sharks actions and retains the user flow.
User Flow
Paper Prototype
Wizard of Oz
● The paper prototype was tested using the Wizard of Oz technique, in which the moderator of the test simulated the interactions of the prototype
● The prototype was designed to allow for horizontal scrolling, as the images show
● Each iteration was tested by one user that conformed with the demographics aforementioned in this study with the exclusion criteria of having participated in any stage of this study
Iteration 0
● For an increase of the visibility of the stats positions and life bar, min/max values were added
● For the comparison action, a compare button was added to the right complying to the ergonomy principle of there being a majority of right-handed users (camera button was moved to the left as it is viewed as a less frequent action)
● For the prior ergonomy principle, combined with Fitt’s Law, the shark’s “Get Now” button is at the bottom right corner, shortening the distance/time between actionable thumb and button, resulting in the achievement of Hick’s Law
● A shark comparison pop-up was added containing both shark’s stats (min/max/current values), images, life bar (min/max/current values) and current level, minimizing cognitive load (namely, attention and memory) and
possibilitating a decrease in the decision-making time to purchase sharks and upgrades, empowering the F2P business model
● The use of Gestalt’s law of Proximity, respecting white space, is important to establish a connection between the content and the corresponding shark
● The compare button iconography can be found in Google’s Material Design, and does not exist in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines
Iteration 1
● To maintain consistency in the design, and given Gestalt’s law of similarity, the gauges seen on the secondary screen and the new comparison pop-up are also applied on the shark selector viewer
● The previous iteration informed the lowest and highest values of the life bar, but did not inform of the current life the shark had, so this value was added in this iteration
Iteration 2
● A cancel button was added to the navigation flow allowing for the user to cancel the comparison before selecting the shark to compare with
● To allow feedback of the system status and add an inviting sign, the message “Select New Shark to Compare” is prompted to the screen when the comparison button is clicked
● Nonetheless, users can click the close button once the comparison pop-up is open (error prevention), which also cancels the comparison action
Wireframe & Wireflow
Prototype Wireframe
Prototype Wireflow
Future Tests and Evaluations
● Heuristic evaluations would be useful to test the prototype and make necessary changes before exposing it to users
● Iconography testing of the new compare button and the subsequent new cancel button to figure out if users understand the meaning of the icons and their intended actions
● Testing of the new placement of the camera button and placement of the compare button to understand the real frequency of this action
● Usability testing of the new user flow and different screens to find out if users understand the function of the compare button in the context of the shark selector menu flow
● Testing of the new min/max/current values on the stats and life bar to check understanding of meaning, font size, icon size, stats and life progression bars
● Playtesting to understand if prototype fills current needs of players
