An observation template is where you will document each player’s behaviour which will later be analysed along with their interview data and turned into actionable insights. You can think of it as a record of the player’s behaviour - what the player did, and just as important, did not do. You don’t want to rely on your memory for a record of what happened, it’s too unreliable, but you also don’t want to rely on making casual unstructured notes either.

The template could either be on physical paper or digital (spreadsheet, word processor), you might want to experiment with both to see the pros and cons of each.

The design of the observation template should be structured around the list of design decisions (hypotheses) that need validated, so if you have 12 hypotheses in the upcoming playtest, then your template would have 12 sections in which notes could be made.

I would encourage experimenting with the format of the template to see what works best for your team and game. For example, each person on the team might use one observation template per player, or they could have one template which records the behaviours of all players in a matrix layout, i.e. hypotheses down the side and players across the top. There is no ‘one way’.

Key Takeaway

An observation template is the place where each observer (team member) can record each player’s behaviours. It also helps align the team by clearly stating the points of focus for this playtest.

Next: 32. How the Observation Template Improves Data Quality