Innovation In Game Design - Usability & User Experience

My Honours degree spurned a great deal of interest in the subject of usability and user experience testing towards improving how functional and enjoyable a game design can be.

One of the core difficulties I had last year was distinguishing between the two, while i lazily often refered to user experience as usability testing what I should have made clearer was that testing how efficient, functional and clear a game design is, falls within usability. While testing how enjoyable and fun a game is sits within user experience camp.

I intentionally picked two optional modules during my masters which focus on this specialisation, Usable Interaction & Pschology within security & technology Both looking at the end user of an interactive product. I'm going to integrate my knowledge and findings into my project management as much as possible while continuing to research new ideas and knowledge on the subject.

Grant Clarke, one of the course supervisors did make a good point though that while it may be better to use independent testers, within this project there is no reason not to use fellow developers.