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.

Example: Main menu selection

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.

• Legibility - Is the text easily readable? We would consider font style, font size, and font contrast against the background.

• Understanding - Is it clear what each option offers? Does the language involve jargon or terminology which may not be familiar to the player?

• Decision Making - does the player have all the information they need to make an informed decision? Why did the player make the choice they did?

• Controls - is it easy to select the desired menu option? Do the controls behave in a way the player might expect and adhere to platform norms?

• Selection - Is it easy to confirm a choice? For example, if they player has to press and hold instead of just pressing, is that communicated?

• Feedback - did the game respond in a way which makes it easy for the player to realise that their input was registered? This should typically involve visual and auditory feedback which capture the player’s attention.

• Perception - did the player notice the feedback?

You can see that for each of these factors, the usability quality is on a spectrum. For example, it’s possible that the legibility of the main menu text could be unreadable on one end of the spectrum, easily readable on the other, or somewhere in-between. As such, usability factors are not often a binary quality, it will depend on the player, what’s usable for one person may not be true for another, but our aim is to make sure that the game is usable by as many players as possible.

Key takeaway

Usability issues impact many different areas of the player experience, including - legibility, understanding, decision making, controls, and feedback.

Next: 5. Friction Points